Beautiful Disaster Read online

  Mia rested her throbbing forehead against the cool glass of the window. The camisole strap slipped from her shoulder again. She tugged it back into place, realizing that she missed him already. Nothing had happened and everything had happened. It was something she could never explain. Coolheaded, real-world Roxanne wouldn’t understand.

  That one explosive kiss—she felt it everywhere, from the parts of her body that were drawn to him like bees to nectar, melting over the core of her brain, invading a place where logic and reason had been programmed to reject him. At that moment she would have gladly gone further, given him whatever he wanted. He wouldn’t consider it. “You don’t want to do this, Mia. Not here, not with me,” he had said in a husky, restless voice, stroking her cheek. She’d told him yes, in a throaty whisper she didn’t recognize. Didn’t he want her? He laughed, touching her face again with those rough gentle fingers, then backing away, telling her she had no idea how much. Flynn’s blue eyes had stroked her body the way she wished his hands would. It had made her skin hunger for more; it still did. “Not tonight, sweetheart,” he’d said quietly. “You regretted coming here with me. Think how sorry you’d be tomorrow. I don’t want that.” His voice had been filled with the temptation he struggled against. A dismal rewind of the boy from Alpharetta ran through her mind. There were all kinds of internal signs that this was different, but she couldn’t prove it. Not to herself, or him.

  They started talking, him sitting on the floor, her perched in the center of the bed, trying to ignore a desire that traveled down a road far different from want. It required a level of self-control Mia did not know she possessed. He seemed able to tap into all kinds of underlying behavior. He also found plenty of other reasons for her to stay. Flynn was an aggressive conversationalist, a trait one didn’t expect at first glance. He drew her into talk about her college life, her friends, her past. The most mundane details seemed to fascinate him: the color of her childhood bedroom, the name of her dog, how winning first prize at the junior high art fair sparked a passion. She shrugged, noting that her parents weren’t quite as enthusiastic, art being something her father marveled over, like a magic trick, and something her mother merely tolerated. “I suppose they saw it as a talent, but they didn’t take it seriously. That made it a hobby until I realized my entire college curriculum was nothing but art. So I hung a quick left into interior design.”

  He appeared so immersed that Mia found herself confiding things she’d never said out loud. “I’m not too sure how good I’ll be at it. To be honest, deciding color schemes and special ordering Italian leather chaises doesn’t really excite me.” Flynn had made a quiet observation, something about patience and real passion needing more inspiration than a four-year degree.

  Darker subjects followed, as Mia explained in vivid detail about her father’s passing. How, in what seemed like seconds, a sudden cancer took down a man she’d looked up to her whole life. She described the even more abrupt feeling of abandonment when she realized how little help her mother would be and that life was now hers to negotiate. “His death was so impossible. I still think if I pick up the phone, he’ll be on the other end. I miss that. He always knew what to do. My father was never one to second-guess himself—ever.” She hesitated. “It either was or it wasn’t, like the cases he tried. There was no such thing as ‘sort of guilty.’ I suppose that’s why he had one of the highest conviction rates in the state of Maryland.”

  “Your dad, he was a lawyer, a prosecutor?”

  Mia reluctantly nodded, thinking she’d just painted her father as some merciless steamroller of justice. “Well, yes, but he had a whole other side, legally speaking,” she offered in his defense. “Murderers and thieves weren’t the only type of criminals that he was devoted to convicting.”

  “People don’t come much viler than that,” he said, shifting his position.

  “To him they did. He did tons of pro bono work, taking on big corporations with bad habits—like dumping toxic waste into rivers, burying chemicals in landfills. Environmental terrorists,” she said, smiling. “That’s what he called them. But sometimes I’m sorry he was so adamant, such a champion for the cause.”

  “Because of the time it took away from you?”

  She shook her head. “Because it’s what killed him. His cancer was caused by exposure, the hours spent at chemical landfills learning what he needed in order to prepare his cases. He believed in what he was doing to the point where nothing else mattered. I know it’s selfish for me to think that way.”

  Flynn reached for a cigarette. “I don’t think it’s selfish.” He stared at it for a moment and put it back. “I think it’s human.”

  “Still, it was important. I shouldn’t be angry at his dedication to a cause. I should be angry there was a cause that killed him.” She sighed. “It’s a tough point of view to get your mind around—I’m still working on it.”

  “Yeah, I know how that goes . . . And your mother,” he’d asked, switching gears, “was that her passion too?”

  It had made Mia laugh. “My mother? No, not quite. Not unless you want to hold a black-tie dinner at the Sierra Club. She tolerated it the same way she viewed my art . . . or me.”

  “I can’t believe she’s that disinterested. I mean, just look at you.”

  There was an unexpected flutter in her chest, the kind that came with somebody thinking more of you than you thought of yourself. “Oh, sure, if something awful were to happen, if I got in a car wreck or broke a major bone, she’d send flowers.” Mia smiled at his appalled expression. “Okay, I’m sure she’d do the motherly thing and come running. But day to day, we’re just not on the same page, never have been. I don’t know, it kind of all comes back to my father. Ever since I was a little girl I had the feeling I was more my mother’s rival than her daughter, always vying for his attention. It wasn’t her fault or mine, just the finite hours in a day. I assume it’s the reason I don’t have any brothers or sisters. My mother didn’t want the competition.”

  He nodded, remarking thoughtfully, “I always figured it was the reason I do have younger siblings. My mother was trying to get it right.”

  Hours later the conversation had moved on. Flynn grinned, tossing out a dare, asking about her first kiss. And they were back to where they started. He’d skipped her answer about the kiss, mumbling something about needing a smoke, disappearing outside. She had tried to get him to talk about himself. It proved futile. Flynn wasn’t offering much more than what she already knew, constantly turning the question back on her. After calling Roxanne, Mia had stretched out on the bed, her eyelids growing heavy. It was the only time he came near, sitting on the side of the bed, pulling a thin blanket around her. “I’m soo sleepy,” she mumbled. “You said you stay. Sometimes a month.” The words were groggy and faint. “Will you stay here?” The cover was tucked high around her chin and she felt the bangs that tickled her forehead mysteriously brush aside.

  “Yeah, I just might have to.”

  It was the last thing she heard as sleep won out.

  Chapter 7

  MARYLAND

  In the machine-run inner sanctum of the ICU, Roxanne walked a few paces ahead. Mia hesitated. Coming here was going to change everything. This tragedy, the memory of that first kiss, it all sucked her breath away, making her behave as though she’d been oxygen deprived. Mia shook her head. “Damn you, damn you, damn you, Flynn,” she whispered. Hearing her, Roxanne turned, nearly pushing her backward.

  “It’s not too late, Mia. You can get on that elevator and go home—no one will think any less of you. Calling you like that—I should have thought it through. I reacted to the shock. You don’t have to do this.”

  Don’t have to do this? How can I not do this? I haven’t stopped loving him for a second. Not when he left me, not when I fell in love with someone else, not even when he confessed murder in my ear. Mia squeezed her brain shut. It was too much to think about on top of everything else. She ignored Roxanne and any pending moral debate. �
��You haven’t answered me. Are you sure—?”

  “Yes, I’m sure it’s Flynn. There was no ID. But I knew it was him before they got the blood off his face. The ER team is probably still trying to figure out what made me jump like I’d seen a ghost.”

  Mia gathered her arms around herself. “I see,” she said tightly. “Which room?”

  “On the left, six B,” she said, pointing a clipboard down a shiny white corridor that looked as if it might lead right to heaven.

  The two women rounded the corner to a room that was mostly glass walls. The need for privacy was a moot point on this floor. Mia’s fingers flew up over her mouth, an audible gasp gushing forward. There were more tubes and wires than body. Everything beeped and chirped; a blood pressure machine kept vigil, and a heart monitor thankfully showed some sign of life. Mia’s eyes fixated on the respirator, watching it rise and fall, and soon her own breath was in step with the rhythm. Her nose filled with the smell of blood and dirt and the lingering hint of death. Through it all there was no mistake—it was Flynn. The tears were coming fast, big puddling ones that Roxanne didn’t need to see. “Can I . . . can I have a minute? Then you can tell me everything.”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll get cleaned up, change my clothes.” She took a step back, but her hand reached out to Mia’s shoulder. “You’re going to be all right if I leave you here?”

  Mia’s hand shot up, grasping Roxanne’s fingertips. “I’ll be okay.”

  “You know that’s all I’ve ever wanted. Since the day Flynn arrived—and the one after he left.” There was a simultaneous sigh, two people breathing in and out the effect of one man. “Here,” she said, poking a small envelope over Mia’s shoulder. “Like I said, there was no ID, no personal effects. Nothing on him except this. If, um, if you did come, I thought you’d like to have it.”

  Mia absently took the envelope. “Can he . . . can he hear me?”

  Before leaving she replied, “Uh, it’s hard to know. Sometimes, if they recover, patients recollect people talking. I don’t . . . I don’t want to give you any false hope, Mia. His situation, it isn’t good.”

  “Never has been,” she murmured, edging up to the bed. Mia surveyed his body, taking stock through glassy, frightened eyes. Smeared blood caked over the scar and part of the tattoo. It didn’t matter; she knew how deep the scar went, where every line in the tattoo led, how it changed when the muscle flexed and contracted, the way it looked now, relaxed. Long lashes. He had the most exquisite long eyelashes. When he slept, she’d watch them flutter against that road-weathered skin. They were the antithesis of him. Mia sharply reminded herself that he wasn’t asleep; he was comatose. Greedily, she wanted more. She wanted to see his smile, feel that smolder of anticipation—the moment his eyes would lock with hers. Mia would have given up forever right then to hear Flynn call her name. To have him reach for her the way he always did, as though he could never get enough.

  Like salve to a wound her fingers gripped his, but she couldn’t move his arm. A Velcro strap held it securely to the bed. Gashes were stitched everywhere, making it seem as though he were zippered shut. There was a rainbow of bruises, so many they almost connected; a cervical collar firmly held his neck in place. Mia worried that he was cold. A hospital gown was the only thing covering him, loosely draped around his body. She wanted to ask someone for a blanket, but she couldn’t find the door. Her eyes were stubbornly fixated on him.

  He appeared to have a terrific sunburn, something she’d heard Roxanne refer to in the past as “road rash,” when a person’s face skidded along the pavement. His shoulder was tightly bandaged and she’d overheard a nurse saying something about a fractured pelvis and ribs. Everything in the room was making a sucking sound and it looked as if there was a small garden hose coming out of his chest. His hair also bore its share of trauma, thickly matted with dried blood. Even so, there was a tremendous sense of relief when she touched him. This moment was the answer to one of those life-affirming questions, like, does God exist? Why was I born? Will I ever see him again? Questions like that.

  “Hey, Flynn, it’s me,” she managed in a tiny voice. “I don’t know if you can hear me. God, I don’t even know if you want me here, but I had to come. You had to know I would.” Mia smiled, reaching for comforting, obvious thoughts. “You know how I am about signs . . . Well, earlier . . . before, I almost drowned in the smell of Jack Daniel’s. And just this morning, I heard your song on the car radio. Can you believe that? You remember—that old Gregg Allman song. I don’t hear it too often. If it does come on I can’t listen. I have to change the station.” She glanced down at their joined fingers and ignored the surroundings, absorbed in a conversation she’d waited twelve years to have. “Used to be when I heard it, I could picture you in the room. That got a little weird so I had to stop.” She let go, brushing tears from her face, running her fingertips over the deep scratches on his cheek. The smile dissipated. The scratches were raw and hard to look at. It was astonishing when he didn’t writhe in pain as she touched them. There was a startled gasp, but Mia realized a hopeful second later that it came from her own throat.

  This was agony. The coma set free words that might otherwise have been restrained. They were measured and absolute. “You don’t know how long I’ve walked through airports and shopping malls, tourist traps and crowded sidewalks, searched miles of highway looking twice at every man on a motorcycle, wishing for it to be you. But here, in this place . . . I never wanted to see you like this.”

  Tears dripped off her chin, splashing down on the fingers that she had linked again with his. The envelope she held crunched in her hand and she let go long enough to tear it open. A broken chain and a silver cross tumbled into her lap. Mia pursed her lips tight as her mouth turned down and her shoulders jerked at the fierce pain that rode through her. The past exploded with the velocity of a bullet aimed right at the present. Yet Flynn didn’t move. He didn’t respond. The heart monitor didn’t break into an erratic pattern of lost love found.

  Roxanne, dressed in a pressed lab coat, brought her a cup of coffee and the two sat down in a small conference room. Mia looked around at the stark furnishings: a table with three chairs, a diagram of the skeletal system on the wall, a second one of the inner workings of the brain, and two boxes of Kleenex. This was where they brought you to hear bad news. “Just say it, Rox. Just tell me what you know.”

  While it turned out that Roxanne was a brilliant physician, her bedside manner had failed to thrive. The emergency room was a good fit; it required lightning-fast reflexes, a sharp mind, and brief personal encounters. It was also a chance to save people as they came through the door.

  “He was unconscious when they brought him in. According to witnesses, his head pretty much bounced off the windshield of an SUV.” Her fingers tapped at the foam cup, as if deliberating her thoughts. “He, um, he wasn’t wearing a helmet.” Her glance rose to Mia’s. “Even I might have guessed he had better sense than that,” she whispered. “As far as injuries—the repairable ones—he has a nasty fracture to his pelvis, three cracked ribs, and a dislocated shoulder. Enough deep gashes that he kept two interns well into the next shift before they got him sewed up. Worse, he has a collapsed lung and a lacerated liver. That required emergency surgery, which I assisted with.” She rattled it off, orderly and sedate, as if it was her grocery list from the Food Giant. “The external stuff, the bruises and gashes, that will all heal.”

  “And what won’t heal?” Mia asked, her gaze locking on folded hands.

  “We just don’t know. We’re mostly concerned with his head injury. He’s already had a CAT scan plus a full body X-ray. There was some initial swelling in the brain and a small bleed.”

  Mia drew a deep breath. She’d heard Roxanne talk enough over the years. Swelling was bad; bleeding couldn’t be much better.

  “They’ll do another scan first thing tomorrow. Head injuries are unpredictable. On the upside, he’s very strong. He never stopped breathing on his own. We’ve g
ot him on a vent to protect his airway, to make it easier for him. His spinal films were all negative. That’s a good thing, Mia,” she said, mustering encouraging words. “If he were to wake up, he probably won’t suffer any permanent paralysis.” Mia responded with a wide-eyed blink as she tallied the grim outcomes. “He’s being monitored for increased cranial pressure and we’ve got him on meds to decrease the swelling and prevent seizures.”

  “What about the pain? He just looks so broken. God, it has to hurt.”

  “We’ve also got him on a morphine drip, but we don’t want to overmedicate him. It makes it that much harder to wake up. That could happen tomorrow, next week, or most likely—” There was an eerie pause. “Mia, I’m only saying this because I want you to be prepared—most likely, never.” Roxanne hesitated, letting it sink in. “We’ll just have to take it one day at a time—an hour at a time for now.”

  Mia nodded at each bit of information, thinking that along with the laundry list of dismal facts, Roxanne should have just handed her the Yellow Pages, open to Undertakers.

  “It’s not all bad. I could have sent you straight to the morgue instead of the ICU. When he came in they had already tagged him as an organ donor. Motorcycle wrecks like that—I’ve seen plenty. It never ends well. He’s alive for now. It’s a gift, Mia. It’s that chance you’ve always wanted to say good-bye.” She stopped, looking over his chart. “Does, um, does Michael know you’re here?”

  “No, of course not. Flynn . . . he’s not something we discuss—ever.”

  Leaning back in her chair, she stared at Mia. “Well, I suppose that makes three of us. But being as the pink elephant is decidedly in the room, what’s your plan?”

  She looked at Roxanne, whose pursed lips were pulled into a tight frown. “I . . . I’m not sure. It’s not a conversation I’ve ever thought about. Bringing Flynn up in any context seems bizarre. I’d call Michael and say what? ‘By the way, hon, I’ve ditched the most important meeting of my career so I could rush over to the hospital and see my ex-lover.’ ” You know, Michael, the man who stands in between us. The reason I can’t love you the way you love me. The man I still think about when . . . Oh, God, I’m a horrible person. “It’s too complicated for a voice mail, don’t you think?”