Elizabeth Finn - Unforgiven

She was staring at his feet, fighting the tears, swallowing over and over as she tried to rein in the emotion. She finally looked at him again. “I don’t want you to leave Savoy.”

He didn’t know why he suddenly couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t swallow, and his throat felt like sandpaper. And as he forced his face muscles to relax and his eyes to release the wide-eyed terror, his hands fisted at his side. He had to get away from her . . . but he wasn’t at all sure he could leave if she asked him to stay.

Six Years Before

A person hears a lot of things in the hospital, and only a small amount of it is actually meant to be heard. It was the longest and most agonizing eight hours of his life, waiting for his parents to arrive. He already knew his sister was dead, and they did too, but there were no planes to catch in Savoy, and so they had to suffer hours in the car until they could make it to Little Rock to catch a flight south.

She was brain dead. They’d explained it to him, and even if they hadn’t, he knew perfectly well what she was. The ambulance had been close to the scene, close enough in fact to make it there in time to keep her alive. Alive long enough to get her to the hospital before her heart was quiet too long, her lungs still for too long. Long enough for the organ transplant team to catch wind of the gold mine his sister had become. It was what she’d want. Another thing he didn’t need to be told but that the transplant coordinator felt the need to say anyway.

He sat by her side, listening to the machines keep her alive. He cried, he sat in a dead stupor, and he eventually stood and walked to the hallway. He was tired of looking at her. She looked too . . . alive. So incredibly alive. Head injury. Her head had slammed into the side of the passenger door as his car rolled three times before coming to settle on a rocky patch of beach. He couldn’t stand to see her like this, and so he left. He’d already heard that Bailey was going to be fine, so he needed to stay close to Jess. He sank into a bank of chairs in a small side hallway near her room, and he stared at the industrial tile floor.

The next time he looked up, it was to see a doctor standing at the counter with a man in a suit. The man had a badge on his belt, and they were looking at him. The man, a detective if Darren was guessing, was just watching him. He looked away. The detective couldn’t bring his little sister back to life, so Darren didn’t give a shit about the man.

He sat for hours. Different doctors walked in and out of Jess’ room. Darren knew some of them were transplant doctors. They were waiting for Darren’s parents to arrive, like vultures ready to pounce on the spoils. It was what Jess would want. Yes, it was, and some day he would wrap his head around the fact that these doctors intended to leave her body a hollow shell—her body that was still so alive, and yet was just a vegetable. Why vegetable? Why not a loaf of bread? A cut of spoiled meat? Vegetable just didn’t make sense.

People stared at him when they walked by, and after a while the detective returned. He was staying close. He was as much a vulture as any of them, but he stayed away from Darren. He left Darren in peace, but his focus kept shifting to Darren as though there was something to say, but he wasn’t ready to speak. The doctor walked out of the room a bit farther down the hall, and he handed the detective a slip of paper. His eyes scanned the slip before he glanced up at Darren and then back down the hall toward the door the doctor had come from.

Was it Bailey’s room? He wanted to see her; he needed her the way he always needed her when life fell apart, but she’d been driving his car, and he couldn’t figure out how to feel about that. It hurt to think she might have done something wrong to make this happen. It hurt to think she might be responsible. Not his Bailey. This couldn’t be her fault.

In any other situation, she would be the one he would think of first, the one he would want to reach out to, the one he would crave. He needed her support, her gentle sympathy. He’d had it before, and he still thought of it whenever he was crumbling.

Darren had lost his high school best friend, Scott, to suicide his third year of college. He’d been too busy to maintain the friendship the way he should have, and once Scott was gone, Darren was able to think of little else but the many times he let Scott’s calls go to voice mail, the times he’d turned Scott down when he’d called wanting to go out, every last rejection he gave his best friend that said loud and clear that there were other things in life more important to him. It had happened just before winter break, and he was fortunately home a month, otherwise he wasn’t sure he’d have made it through the pain.

Bailey had been the one he needed, and one night, two weeks after Scott’s death, she’d given him exactly what he’d craved. They’d ended up in bed together, curled up with her face nuzzled into his neck. His parents had been traveling, and Bailey was spending the night with Jess. Jess had fallen asleep while they’d watched a movie, and the moment he stood, Bailey’s eyes found him, and he reached for her hand. She’d said nothing when he led her down the hallway to his bedroom, and it was silent when she’d climbed in bed with him. She stroked his back in the dark, and he stared into the black, keeping his body close to hers and feeling the first measure of relief he’d experienced since finding out his friend was gone. They had done nothing wrong, nothing inappropriate at all, but neither of them had ever spoken about that night since then. It was never spoken about to anyone in fact, and he knew without even asking that she’d never told anyone, either. She was just his rock, the one he desired when nothing else could give him peace.

He craved her even now, wanting to feel her close to him, wanting to feel her fingers stroking his back, and her warm breath inhaling and exhaling calmly against his neck. He needed that relief more than anything in the world right now, and he knew she needed him too; how could she not? She was alone. Her parents must be on their way too, but she was alone, and she had to be afraid. But he couldn’t go to her. He was terrified to see her, terrified he might have to acknowledge that she’d done something to cause this, and he wasn’t sure he could deal with his rock being tarnished.

The detective walked up to the room he thought was likely Bailey’s room, peeking in and then slowly meandering back down to the nurses’ station. The detective kept looking into her room, and then eventually he disappeared inside, and two nurses exited. They walked slowly, not paying much attention to anything. They leaned up against the side of the desk, and he listened.

He was sitting in a stupor, forgotten by the corridor of nurses passing by and the occasional visitor moving around. He wasn’t supposed to hear that Bailey was doing fine, and she was stable. He was relieved more than he could articulate at the moment. He was desperately relieved . . . but he also wasn’t supposed to hear her blood alcohol level. His eyes snapped up to the two nurses still standing at the desk. Another had joined them, and they were talking quietly. They hadn’t realized he was sitting there as quiet as a mouse, waiting for something to happen.

“She was nearly twice the legal limit. When are these kids going to learn? They’re not invincible. It’s just so avoidable.”

“Detective’s been waiting to talk to her for a while, but she’s not gonna be leaving without handcuffs. Two more lives ruined. One in a grave, another in jail.” That’s when they saw him. He was just staring at them. Their eyes glanced furtively away from him, and he returned his eyes to the floor.

Drunk. Avoidable.

He was numb. He didn’t know how to process it. Bailey was drunk. She hadn’t seemed at all drunk when he’d left. She’d been drinking earlier in the evening, but drunk? She had done this—his Bailey. He had to be upset at her—didn’t he? He was supposed to—wasn’t he? He didn’t have any clue how he was supposed to feel. Relief that Bailey was doing okay felt wrong, but he was. He was relieved. He cared too much about her not to be relieved. But she’d done this.

“Darren . . . Darren.” His head was swimming in some other place, and he was having a hard time responding. It was his mother, and he needed to lift his head. His hands were cramping as he held his head in his hands, and the places on his knees where his elbows rested were painful. His back ached as he forced himself to sit upright. He hadn’t been asleep, but he also hadn’t been conscious. His brain had been zoned out as he’d replayed his whole day.

It was a surreal thing remembering their morning, talking to Jess and Bailey. He hadn’t had a clue his sister would be dead by the end of the day. How could he? And yet, it was such an odd thing to think he didn’t. How could Jess just be gone? How could Bailey be responsible? He didn’t realize just what that meant at first. He hadn’t much questioned why the detective was there. Of course there would be questions, but he figured out quickly this wasn’t just some little thing. There wouldn’t just be questions; there would be charges.

He didn’t know how to feel about that, either, and after sitting in the hallway for too long, watching the detective come and go from Bailey’s room, he stood and walked back into Jess’ room. His parents were sitting vigil. The word “vigil” almost assumed they were waiting for something to happen. Nothing was going to happen. Jess was going to be the eternal vegetable or his parents were going to agree to allow her organs to be harvested. He knew what their choice would be, and there was no disagreement to be had. It was what she’d want. How many times had he either been told that or thought that in the last eight hours? Odd, he’d never had to consider such a thing before. Of course it was what she’d want! But it didn’t mean she wanted to die.

“Darren?” His mom rested a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at her. He didn’t need her to tell them it was time. They’d sat with her for a while, and the transplant team was ready. The coordination was crucial, and his parents had given their consent. His mother’s eyes were puffy; his father’s lips were pursed tight. It was how he showed pain. He clamped his lips tight against the tears. Darren did the same thing . . . most of the time. But he didn’t even try now. He closed his eyes, and his shoulders started to hitch and lurch as the sobs overcame him. His mother leaned over him and clasped his shoulders as her tears fell again. His father cleared his throat a few times until it became useless, and he ended up sinking into another chair, bracing his bowed head with a hand to his forehead.

This was hell. He’d always dreaded the passing of his own parents. It was something every child thought about, he supposed. It was usually the order of things, and however cliché it was to say Jess had died too young, or that she wasn’t supposed to go before her own parents, it didn’t much matter. It was just the truth. It was supposed to be the way of the world—the natural order of life. He stood and walked to the door. He looked back once. It was the last time he’d see his sister living, and he just stared. He’d been nearly desperate to escape the room only moments before, but now, he couldn’t seem to stop looking at her. He was too old to find death a mystery; he was too old to find this experience surreal. He’d experienced loss before. He understood it just fine, so why the fuck couldn’t he wrap his head around this one?

The swelling and abrasions on the side of her face were the only sign of the train wreck inside her head. She was a beautiful young woman who was supposed to be just waking up after a night out on the town—just like every other twenty-one-year-old woman on spring break. She looked completely peaceful; of course she had no worries anymore—at least none her brain was able to process. She didn’t know her life was getting ready to end, and the people in the world who loved her most were being forced to confront that fact—still so alive, but already dead.

He finally gritted his teeth, his head dropped, and he forced himself to walk away.

Now

He was just glaring at her. It was about the only reaction she could expect from him at this point. He liked to glare at her about as much as he used to like to smile at her . . . or smirk . . . or wink. “I’m moving away.” Her voice trembled as she spoke, but he didn’t react to her words at all. His eyes remained on her, and the only reaction she could sense was something unfathomable when she saw his Adam’s apple rise and fall as he swallowed. It meant something—the tightness in his neck muscles—but his expression remained cold and calm.