Life is Strange, page 21
But I can’t hear her anymore. I can’t hear anything. Everything goes black.
18: The Hospital
Mom looks beautiful, I’m sure, under that lid.
Under the flowers arranged in a bright red bouquet on top. Under the harsh fluorescent lights she was way too familiar with toward the end of her life. She should’ve been home, with us. Doing what she loved. Cooking, reading, laughing with Gabe and me, keeping the family glued together.
“My strong girl… your brother, your father, they’re going to need you. You have to be strong,” she’d said to me, caressing my cheek. I reach up and clutch the necklace, feeling the wetness on my cheeks as I grit my teeth against the pain.
I force my eyes open, and there she is again, lying in her hospital bed, frail, her wrists bony, her limbs graying and skeletal.
“Mom,” I whimper, collapsing to my knees and burying my face in her side. “I can’t do it,” I sob, gripping her hospital gown like everything depends on it. If Dad were here, he would tell me to stop crying. Stop bothering her, he’d say. Can’t you see she’s going through enough?
I feel her fingers in my hair, running them through it gently.
“I remember when you were born,” she says. “You were bald.”
Even through the tears, I have to smile at that.
“Was I?” I ask, my voice still fragile. I wipe away my tears as she continues.
“Yes,” she affirms, “you were my bald, happy girl, Alex.”
“I wish I could be happy now,” I whimper.
“I know you do,” she says. “And I wish so too. But you will be.”
“How are you so sure?” I ask, looking up at her. “I’ve been tossed from foster home to foster home, and then Haven Springs and… I lost Gabe. And now I might lose Steph.” I crumple into sobs once more, and I feel my mom’s touch against my shoulder.
“Steph? What proof do you have that you’ve lost her?”
“It’s my fault we’re even here!” I practically scream. “It’s all my fault.”
“Because of you, Barbazal might be able to save its own farming community,” she says soothingly. It’s enough to quell my crying enough to listen to her. “Because of you, Ethan has somewhere to stay when he visits his uncle. Somewhere familiar. Somewhere he calls home. You gave up the concert of a lifetime to save a city,” she says with a smile and a nod down at me. “And I believe it’s going to pay off.”
“Pay off?” I ask, but when I look up, she’s gone. The blanket she was under falls limp in my arms, and I shut my eyes tight.
“Alex?” comes Steph’s voice. My eyes shoot open again, and suddenly I’m the one lying in a hospital bed, looking over at her. She has her hand on my thigh, slides it to my fingers, and squeezes them with a hesitant smile. “How’re you feeling?” she asks.
“I’m…” I begin, the memory of everything sinking in—Barbazal, Mayor Biggs, Clover, Opal, Jonah, Elias… Oh my god, the dam! “Holy shit!” I exclaim.
“Yup, she’s back,” smirks Steph, glancing across the room at Clover, who’s sitting comfortably in an armchair with her arms folded.
“I’ll say,” she shoots back.
“Steph,” I say, “what happened? Is everyone okay? Where’s Jonah? And Elias? And—?”
“Everyone’s okay,” she says.
I stare at her in disbelief, remembering the surge of water barreling toward us as we hauled ourselves into the back of Silas’s truck. No way.
“Everyone?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, but her eyes drift away to Clover for a split second. There’s something she’s not telling me.
“Steph, just say it. What is it? I won’t be mad, promise.”
What the hell would I have a right to be mad about here anyway? Mad that I forgot to refill the oil? Mad that I decided to stay an extra night in Barbazal so I could talk to Jonah Macon? Mad that I chose to manipulate him into believing everyone around him would think he was a failure unless he did as I said?
Holy shit, I really am a monster.
So no, I’m not mad. Whatever Steph has to tell me, I’m ready.
I nod at her, and she gives Clover one last glance for confirmation before she takes a deep breath and squeezes my hands.
“Alex,” she says, unable to look at me anymore. She stares down at the folds of my hospital blanket. “We… lost the car.”
It sinks in in waves.
And then in literal waves. Huge blue fabric swathes the room, malleable and evolving, cool on my face, dissolving into a fine mist around us, hard to explain and impossible to define.
“What?”
“We lost the car,” she says again, louder this time, looking up at me now as I take it in. “The dam flooded the valley. Everything flooded, the whole town. We made it to Silas’s truck—” she shakes her head, “—but our car… was parked too close.”
The pain of losing the car hits me square in the chest, as it was new to us, and now we’ll have to—I’ll have to—buy a new one somehow. With what money, I have no idea.
And then, I realize something else. Something far more painful. My entire world shatters, and I muster two words I hope to never say again.
“My… guitar?”
Steph goes quiet, staring at the blanket again.
“Oh my god, your drum kit, Steph!”
She shuts her eyes as I say it, as if the mere words declaring it hurt her all over again.
“I knew we had to climb into Silas’s truck,” she says, her voice shaky. “But… I also knew what we were giving up.”
She sniffs and lets the silence sink into this room.
I feel determination well up in my throat.
“Steph, maybe the venue has guitars and drums, you know? Maybe Harson has—”
“Our show was nine hours ago, Alex,” she cuts in before I can dream further and inflict more pain. “We missed it. Completely. But your surgery went well, and that’s all that matters. Really. They even said since the bullet missed tendons and shit. You should only need a few weeks of physical therapy.”
This girl really is incredible.
I feel tears begin to well up in my eyes and my jaw stings from holding them back.
“I’m sorry, Steph,” I plead for her not to be mad at me. “I’m sorry for everything. I really am—”
“Don’t be,” she says, pushing herself to her feet. “Really, Alex. It’s okay. If a whole town gets their livelihood back, then hell yeah I’d give up my drums for that. I can’t think of anything more punk rock.”
“Steph,” I offer one final time, my voice a squeak, “we can’t just give up. Okay? I won’t give up! I can’t just… leave this here.”
“Too late,” she says, gesturing to my leg, which I now notice is elevated in a huge white cast in a sling hanging from the ceiling. “You’re in post-op recovery, darlin’.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve already picked up a Barbazalian accent,” I say with an eye roll.
“Barbazalese,” corrects Clover.
“Really?” Steph and I ask in unison.
Clover shrugs.
“Sounds better, doesn’t it?”
“No,” say Steph and I.
“Y’all an old married couple and didn’t tell me?” she asks with a grin. I refuse to look Steph in the eye in this moment, or I might blush so hard my cheeks will fly into space.
Knock-knock-knock.
I look to the door. Then I look to Steph. Then to Clover. We’re all equally confused about who it could be, but just as Clover sets her phone down and begins to push herself to her feet, the door squeaks open, and in steps…
“Oh my land,” Clover gasps. “Jonah? Wh-what are you—?”
He steps into the room gingerly, respectfully, nodding at me before closing the door behind him. His hair is slightly messier than usual—frizzy, like that of someone who went for a run and then spent several minutes swinging a sledgehammer over his head. But this time, instead of a sledgehammer, his hand is wrapped gently around a huge bouquet of flowers. Purple and gold lilies bursting with color.
Fear and joy.
Clover’s eyes go huge, and she looks like she wants to run, hide, and slap Jonah all at the same time.
“Miss Chen,” he says and nods at me, “How are you feeling?”
“Great,” I say, and I mean it. My leg aches a little in this cast, but I’m sure they’ve got me so numbed up that I won’t feel any real pain for a long time.
With the pleasantries out of the way, Clover dives into a question she’s clearly been wanting to blurt out since Jonah walked in.
“What the hell are you doin’ here?”
“Clover,” he says, stepping forward, letting the door shut behind him and taking her hand in one of his. He pulls it up to his face and kisses it. “I’m sorry.”
She rolls her eyes and yanks her hand away.
“No, really, I am.”
“For the spectacle that you pulled? For the hell you raised today? For embarrassing our family the way you did?” she thunders. “You’ve got a lotta nerve showin’ your face around here, Jonah.”
She folds her arms and turns her back to him to stare out the window. She huffs out a deep sigh and shakes her head, fury flashing in her eyes. A red bloom envelops the room and freezes around everything, slowing it down to an unnatural speed, like artificially turning down the speed on a record player. It’s stifling, stubborn, firmly immovable, the air thick like smoke.
“Clover,” continues Jonah, “I’m sorry for everything. For lying to you. For keeping the truth about the dam from you. For trying to fix what I did to Barbazal by… doing what I did today.”
“Yeah, speaking of,” interjects Steph, “shouldn’t you be, like, in jail? For destroying public property?”
Jonah clears his throat sheepishly.
“There’s a squad car outside for me right now,” he admits.
“Oh,” says Steph, glancing at me. “Great. I mean… sorry.”
“It’s only fair,” he smiles sadly, turning back to Clover, who hasn’t moved from the window. “Anyway, I came to apologize. And I know you don’t owe me forgiveness. You can hate me for the rest of your life if you want. But…” His voice is pained. Even, but pained. The aura over his head blooms bright purple. “If you’ll have me…” And then, amidst mine and Steph’s gasps of absolute what-the-fuck-is-he-doings, he lowers himself to one knee and goes fishing around in his pocket.
“Clover!” I whisper.
“What?” she fires back at me, glaring at me with fire in her eyes. I nod at Jonah, and she rolls her eyes and turns around, and the rage melts from her face. That red aura remains, but her hands fly to her mouth in shock.
“Jonah Macon, you get up from the floor right now,” she whispers, shaking her head frantically.
“Clover Wisteria Biggs,” he says, setting the flowers on the hospital floor next to him. Steph takes my hand in hers, and we both exchange a glance like I don’t know what to think of this but holy shit this is wild. Jonah takes the box in his hands and pulls the lid up to reveal the shiniest diamond ring I’ve ever seen. It sparkles even in the fluorescent light, and I just know it was worth a fortune.
“I love you, Clover,” he says, his voice shaky and unsure—as it should be, given how he lied to her about a massive scheme to send the town of their childhood’s entire economy careening into a valley-wide drought in favor of appeasing Denver to keep his political platform—but he continues, “I know… I haven’t been honest with you. I was so afraid to lose you. I was afraid of what you’d think if you knew.”
“Well,” she says, tightening her folded arms even more, “now you know.”
He sighs, staring at the ground between them, and nods. “I know. And… I don’t know if you can ever forgive me. But there’s never been a right time to ask, with how much I’ve been on the road, and now that everything I’ve ever known is uncertain, I realize there’s only one thing I do know, Clover Biggs, and that’s…” He pauses, looks up at her, and I realize there are tears in his eyes. “…that I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
A long, painful silence begins, and I watch Clover’s fingers tighten around her forearms, and her lips purse, and her eyes narrow.
“You tried to kill yourself earlier today, Jonah Macon,” she says, “and you could’ve killed four hundred more. Explain that.”
“I know,” he offers with a hefty sigh. “I, um…” A tear falls loose and rolls down his cheek. He’s still holding up the box with the ring, but he lowers it just a bit, resting it on his knee. “I thought you would be better off without me. Both of you.”
His eyes dart from Clover’s face to her middle, and her eyes soften at that, and when she wipes at her eyes I see she’s been holding back tears too.
“We both need you, Jonah,” she says, her voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. “But I can’t be with you.”
I suppress a gasp, and I feel Steph squeeze my hand silently. I feel her flinch, and I wonder who she’s rooting for here. I wonder who I’m rooting for here. Jonah made some… decisions today, sure, but were they all his? If Clover knew the extent of the hand I had in this, maybe…
It turns out I don’t have to worry about that.
“I can’t be with you like this,” she finishes, her voice rattling into weeping. “You… you need help.”
“I’m going to get help,” he promises, nodding. He shuffles forward on his knees, reaching out his hands to hers, taking them and kissing her fingers. “I’m getting help. My assistant sent me a list of therapists. I’m going to pick one tonight, make an appointment for as soon as they’ll let me, and I’ll be there.” Clover stares down at him, pity in her eyes, silent. “And even,” he continues, “even if the answer today is… no…” his voice is breaking, “I’ll prove it to you. That you can be with me. That you’re safe with me. That you can trust me. I’ll do anything to get that back.”
“Jonah—”
“Don’t give up on me, Clover,” he urges. “Please.”
Clover glances at me, and then at Steph, and we both stare back blankly. The hell do I say here? A purple aura over Jonah’s head. A purple aura over Clover’s. I look between them, searching for words, and a single squeeze on my arm from Steph and one look into her eyes tells me everything I should’ve realized before.
Nothing.
That’s what I say here.
This is their conversation. Clover and Jonah. They both have a lot to work through, and that work should start today.
“The answer today,” she says with a shake of her head, “is no.”
Steph and I let out twin sighs. I don’t know about Steph’s, but mine is of sheer relief that a decision was made here.
Jonah’s shoulders fall, and his hands drop. The box gets closed and slid back into his pocket. He sniffs.
“I understand,” he admits, true to his word.
“But,” says Clover, “I will give you another chance, Jonah Macon. If you get out there on that stand and apologize for what you’ve done.”
“Done,” he says without hesitation.
“And take your father to at least one therapy session with you.”
After a long moment, Jonah nods and sighs. “Done.”
“And,” continues Clover.
Damn, she isn’t done! How many demands can she think of to—
She nods at us.
“Charter these two a car.”
“What?” asks Steph, letting go of my hand to cup her own cheeks.
“For real?” I ask, shifting my weight in the bed before remembering my leg. I wince against the pain shooting up into my hip.
“Oh, and one more thing,” continues Clover. “Cover Alex’s medical bill, please. Poor girl wouldn’t be here this long if it weren’t for your dam.”
Jonah looks up at me, pushes himself to his feet, and nods, determinedly. “Send me whatever bills you receive for your surgery from Strathmaugh Good Samaritan, Alex, and I’ll cover the cost. You have my word. And, I’ll have Daphne send a car tonight.”
Steph and I exchange a glance, at first out of sheer glee that we’re finally fucking getting out of here, but then I follow Steph’s gaze to the clock on the wall, which reads 6:05, and my heart sinks.
“Our show started hours ago.”
“Your show?” asks Jonah.
“They’re musicians,” explains Clover, “and they lost their instruments in the flood.”
Jonah looks from Clover to me, and his face turns a shade whiter.
“I’m… I’m so sorry, Alex.”
“It’s okay,” I say, but I’m surprised by the shakiness of my own voice. Do not cry, Alex, this isn’t about you.
“If there’s anyone who deserves an apology, it’s Steph,” I say. Steph looks to me in surprise.
“What?”
“I’m so sorry about your drum kit, Steph,” I say, squeezing her hand. “It was selfish of me to make you stay in Barbazal when we had a show to do. I wanted to go on tour with you, I really did, and—”
“Alex,” she interrupts, leaning down and pressing her forehead against mine, giving my hand a squeeze. “I’m glad we did this.”
“Really?!” I can’t contain my confusion. “You’re glad we missed the show?! What if we never meet Harson again?”
“I’m glad,” interrupts Steph, “that if I was going to miss the show of a lifetime, it was to spend time with my… girlfriend… in the middle of nowhere.”
I shut my eyes and breathe in, enjoying the scent of her for a moment. And a flood of gratitude overwhelms me. I want to hold her and kiss her. Tell her she’s mine.
Best friend? Nah.
“Y’all must really love each other to help each other through all this,” marvels Clover.
I open my eyes to find Steph staring back at me. I search her eyes for some kind of confirmation. An okay. A yes. She smiles. Might as well be just us two in the room, as we reply in unison, defiantly,
“Yes.”
We both laugh, and she throws her arms around my shoulders.
“I… I love you, Steph.”
She pulls away, and her eyes are wide with awe, her cheeks red.
“For real?” she asks, her voice shaky. “I mean… like… those are big words, Alex.”
18: The Hospital
Mom looks beautiful, I’m sure, under that lid.
Under the flowers arranged in a bright red bouquet on top. Under the harsh fluorescent lights she was way too familiar with toward the end of her life. She should’ve been home, with us. Doing what she loved. Cooking, reading, laughing with Gabe and me, keeping the family glued together.
“My strong girl… your brother, your father, they’re going to need you. You have to be strong,” she’d said to me, caressing my cheek. I reach up and clutch the necklace, feeling the wetness on my cheeks as I grit my teeth against the pain.
I force my eyes open, and there she is again, lying in her hospital bed, frail, her wrists bony, her limbs graying and skeletal.
“Mom,” I whimper, collapsing to my knees and burying my face in her side. “I can’t do it,” I sob, gripping her hospital gown like everything depends on it. If Dad were here, he would tell me to stop crying. Stop bothering her, he’d say. Can’t you see she’s going through enough?
I feel her fingers in my hair, running them through it gently.
“I remember when you were born,” she says. “You were bald.”
Even through the tears, I have to smile at that.
“Was I?” I ask, my voice still fragile. I wipe away my tears as she continues.
“Yes,” she affirms, “you were my bald, happy girl, Alex.”
“I wish I could be happy now,” I whimper.
“I know you do,” she says. “And I wish so too. But you will be.”
“How are you so sure?” I ask, looking up at her. “I’ve been tossed from foster home to foster home, and then Haven Springs and… I lost Gabe. And now I might lose Steph.” I crumple into sobs once more, and I feel my mom’s touch against my shoulder.
“Steph? What proof do you have that you’ve lost her?”
“It’s my fault we’re even here!” I practically scream. “It’s all my fault.”
“Because of you, Barbazal might be able to save its own farming community,” she says soothingly. It’s enough to quell my crying enough to listen to her. “Because of you, Ethan has somewhere to stay when he visits his uncle. Somewhere familiar. Somewhere he calls home. You gave up the concert of a lifetime to save a city,” she says with a smile and a nod down at me. “And I believe it’s going to pay off.”
“Pay off?” I ask, but when I look up, she’s gone. The blanket she was under falls limp in my arms, and I shut my eyes tight.
“Alex?” comes Steph’s voice. My eyes shoot open again, and suddenly I’m the one lying in a hospital bed, looking over at her. She has her hand on my thigh, slides it to my fingers, and squeezes them with a hesitant smile. “How’re you feeling?” she asks.
“I’m…” I begin, the memory of everything sinking in—Barbazal, Mayor Biggs, Clover, Opal, Jonah, Elias… Oh my god, the dam! “Holy shit!” I exclaim.
“Yup, she’s back,” smirks Steph, glancing across the room at Clover, who’s sitting comfortably in an armchair with her arms folded.
“I’ll say,” she shoots back.
“Steph,” I say, “what happened? Is everyone okay? Where’s Jonah? And Elias? And—?”
“Everyone’s okay,” she says.
I stare at her in disbelief, remembering the surge of water barreling toward us as we hauled ourselves into the back of Silas’s truck. No way.
“Everyone?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, but her eyes drift away to Clover for a split second. There’s something she’s not telling me.
“Steph, just say it. What is it? I won’t be mad, promise.”
What the hell would I have a right to be mad about here anyway? Mad that I forgot to refill the oil? Mad that I decided to stay an extra night in Barbazal so I could talk to Jonah Macon? Mad that I chose to manipulate him into believing everyone around him would think he was a failure unless he did as I said?
Holy shit, I really am a monster.
So no, I’m not mad. Whatever Steph has to tell me, I’m ready.
I nod at her, and she gives Clover one last glance for confirmation before she takes a deep breath and squeezes my hands.
“Alex,” she says, unable to look at me anymore. She stares down at the folds of my hospital blanket. “We… lost the car.”
It sinks in in waves.
And then in literal waves. Huge blue fabric swathes the room, malleable and evolving, cool on my face, dissolving into a fine mist around us, hard to explain and impossible to define.
“What?”
“We lost the car,” she says again, louder this time, looking up at me now as I take it in. “The dam flooded the valley. Everything flooded, the whole town. We made it to Silas’s truck—” she shakes her head, “—but our car… was parked too close.”
The pain of losing the car hits me square in the chest, as it was new to us, and now we’ll have to—I’ll have to—buy a new one somehow. With what money, I have no idea.
And then, I realize something else. Something far more painful. My entire world shatters, and I muster two words I hope to never say again.
“My… guitar?”
Steph goes quiet, staring at the blanket again.
“Oh my god, your drum kit, Steph!”
She shuts her eyes as I say it, as if the mere words declaring it hurt her all over again.
“I knew we had to climb into Silas’s truck,” she says, her voice shaky. “But… I also knew what we were giving up.”
She sniffs and lets the silence sink into this room.
I feel determination well up in my throat.
“Steph, maybe the venue has guitars and drums, you know? Maybe Harson has—”
“Our show was nine hours ago, Alex,” she cuts in before I can dream further and inflict more pain. “We missed it. Completely. But your surgery went well, and that’s all that matters. Really. They even said since the bullet missed tendons and shit. You should only need a few weeks of physical therapy.”
This girl really is incredible.
I feel tears begin to well up in my eyes and my jaw stings from holding them back.
“I’m sorry, Steph,” I plead for her not to be mad at me. “I’m sorry for everything. I really am—”
“Don’t be,” she says, pushing herself to her feet. “Really, Alex. It’s okay. If a whole town gets their livelihood back, then hell yeah I’d give up my drums for that. I can’t think of anything more punk rock.”
“Steph,” I offer one final time, my voice a squeak, “we can’t just give up. Okay? I won’t give up! I can’t just… leave this here.”
“Too late,” she says, gesturing to my leg, which I now notice is elevated in a huge white cast in a sling hanging from the ceiling. “You’re in post-op recovery, darlin’.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve already picked up a Barbazalian accent,” I say with an eye roll.
“Barbazalese,” corrects Clover.
“Really?” Steph and I ask in unison.
Clover shrugs.
“Sounds better, doesn’t it?”
“No,” say Steph and I.
“Y’all an old married couple and didn’t tell me?” she asks with a grin. I refuse to look Steph in the eye in this moment, or I might blush so hard my cheeks will fly into space.
Knock-knock-knock.
I look to the door. Then I look to Steph. Then to Clover. We’re all equally confused about who it could be, but just as Clover sets her phone down and begins to push herself to her feet, the door squeaks open, and in steps…
“Oh my land,” Clover gasps. “Jonah? Wh-what are you—?”
He steps into the room gingerly, respectfully, nodding at me before closing the door behind him. His hair is slightly messier than usual—frizzy, like that of someone who went for a run and then spent several minutes swinging a sledgehammer over his head. But this time, instead of a sledgehammer, his hand is wrapped gently around a huge bouquet of flowers. Purple and gold lilies bursting with color.
Fear and joy.
Clover’s eyes go huge, and she looks like she wants to run, hide, and slap Jonah all at the same time.
“Miss Chen,” he says and nods at me, “How are you feeling?”
“Great,” I say, and I mean it. My leg aches a little in this cast, but I’m sure they’ve got me so numbed up that I won’t feel any real pain for a long time.
With the pleasantries out of the way, Clover dives into a question she’s clearly been wanting to blurt out since Jonah walked in.
“What the hell are you doin’ here?”
“Clover,” he says, stepping forward, letting the door shut behind him and taking her hand in one of his. He pulls it up to his face and kisses it. “I’m sorry.”
She rolls her eyes and yanks her hand away.
“No, really, I am.”
“For the spectacle that you pulled? For the hell you raised today? For embarrassing our family the way you did?” she thunders. “You’ve got a lotta nerve showin’ your face around here, Jonah.”
She folds her arms and turns her back to him to stare out the window. She huffs out a deep sigh and shakes her head, fury flashing in her eyes. A red bloom envelops the room and freezes around everything, slowing it down to an unnatural speed, like artificially turning down the speed on a record player. It’s stifling, stubborn, firmly immovable, the air thick like smoke.
“Clover,” continues Jonah, “I’m sorry for everything. For lying to you. For keeping the truth about the dam from you. For trying to fix what I did to Barbazal by… doing what I did today.”
“Yeah, speaking of,” interjects Steph, “shouldn’t you be, like, in jail? For destroying public property?”
Jonah clears his throat sheepishly.
“There’s a squad car outside for me right now,” he admits.
“Oh,” says Steph, glancing at me. “Great. I mean… sorry.”
“It’s only fair,” he smiles sadly, turning back to Clover, who hasn’t moved from the window. “Anyway, I came to apologize. And I know you don’t owe me forgiveness. You can hate me for the rest of your life if you want. But…” His voice is pained. Even, but pained. The aura over his head blooms bright purple. “If you’ll have me…” And then, amidst mine and Steph’s gasps of absolute what-the-fuck-is-he-doings, he lowers himself to one knee and goes fishing around in his pocket.
“Clover!” I whisper.
“What?” she fires back at me, glaring at me with fire in her eyes. I nod at Jonah, and she rolls her eyes and turns around, and the rage melts from her face. That red aura remains, but her hands fly to her mouth in shock.
“Jonah Macon, you get up from the floor right now,” she whispers, shaking her head frantically.
“Clover Wisteria Biggs,” he says, setting the flowers on the hospital floor next to him. Steph takes my hand in hers, and we both exchange a glance like I don’t know what to think of this but holy shit this is wild. Jonah takes the box in his hands and pulls the lid up to reveal the shiniest diamond ring I’ve ever seen. It sparkles even in the fluorescent light, and I just know it was worth a fortune.
“I love you, Clover,” he says, his voice shaky and unsure—as it should be, given how he lied to her about a massive scheme to send the town of their childhood’s entire economy careening into a valley-wide drought in favor of appeasing Denver to keep his political platform—but he continues, “I know… I haven’t been honest with you. I was so afraid to lose you. I was afraid of what you’d think if you knew.”
“Well,” she says, tightening her folded arms even more, “now you know.”
He sighs, staring at the ground between them, and nods. “I know. And… I don’t know if you can ever forgive me. But there’s never been a right time to ask, with how much I’ve been on the road, and now that everything I’ve ever known is uncertain, I realize there’s only one thing I do know, Clover Biggs, and that’s…” He pauses, looks up at her, and I realize there are tears in his eyes. “…that I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
A long, painful silence begins, and I watch Clover’s fingers tighten around her forearms, and her lips purse, and her eyes narrow.
“You tried to kill yourself earlier today, Jonah Macon,” she says, “and you could’ve killed four hundred more. Explain that.”
“I know,” he offers with a hefty sigh. “I, um…” A tear falls loose and rolls down his cheek. He’s still holding up the box with the ring, but he lowers it just a bit, resting it on his knee. “I thought you would be better off without me. Both of you.”
His eyes dart from Clover’s face to her middle, and her eyes soften at that, and when she wipes at her eyes I see she’s been holding back tears too.
“We both need you, Jonah,” she says, her voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. “But I can’t be with you.”
I suppress a gasp, and I feel Steph squeeze my hand silently. I feel her flinch, and I wonder who she’s rooting for here. I wonder who I’m rooting for here. Jonah made some… decisions today, sure, but were they all his? If Clover knew the extent of the hand I had in this, maybe…
It turns out I don’t have to worry about that.
“I can’t be with you like this,” she finishes, her voice rattling into weeping. “You… you need help.”
“I’m going to get help,” he promises, nodding. He shuffles forward on his knees, reaching out his hands to hers, taking them and kissing her fingers. “I’m getting help. My assistant sent me a list of therapists. I’m going to pick one tonight, make an appointment for as soon as they’ll let me, and I’ll be there.” Clover stares down at him, pity in her eyes, silent. “And even,” he continues, “even if the answer today is… no…” his voice is breaking, “I’ll prove it to you. That you can be with me. That you’re safe with me. That you can trust me. I’ll do anything to get that back.”
“Jonah—”
“Don’t give up on me, Clover,” he urges. “Please.”
Clover glances at me, and then at Steph, and we both stare back blankly. The hell do I say here? A purple aura over Jonah’s head. A purple aura over Clover’s. I look between them, searching for words, and a single squeeze on my arm from Steph and one look into her eyes tells me everything I should’ve realized before.
Nothing.
That’s what I say here.
This is their conversation. Clover and Jonah. They both have a lot to work through, and that work should start today.
“The answer today,” she says with a shake of her head, “is no.”
Steph and I let out twin sighs. I don’t know about Steph’s, but mine is of sheer relief that a decision was made here.
Jonah’s shoulders fall, and his hands drop. The box gets closed and slid back into his pocket. He sniffs.
“I understand,” he admits, true to his word.
“But,” says Clover, “I will give you another chance, Jonah Macon. If you get out there on that stand and apologize for what you’ve done.”
“Done,” he says without hesitation.
“And take your father to at least one therapy session with you.”
After a long moment, Jonah nods and sighs. “Done.”
“And,” continues Clover.
Damn, she isn’t done! How many demands can she think of to—
She nods at us.
“Charter these two a car.”
“What?” asks Steph, letting go of my hand to cup her own cheeks.
“For real?” I ask, shifting my weight in the bed before remembering my leg. I wince against the pain shooting up into my hip.
“Oh, and one more thing,” continues Clover. “Cover Alex’s medical bill, please. Poor girl wouldn’t be here this long if it weren’t for your dam.”
Jonah looks up at me, pushes himself to his feet, and nods, determinedly. “Send me whatever bills you receive for your surgery from Strathmaugh Good Samaritan, Alex, and I’ll cover the cost. You have my word. And, I’ll have Daphne send a car tonight.”
Steph and I exchange a glance, at first out of sheer glee that we’re finally fucking getting out of here, but then I follow Steph’s gaze to the clock on the wall, which reads 6:05, and my heart sinks.
“Our show started hours ago.”
“Your show?” asks Jonah.
“They’re musicians,” explains Clover, “and they lost their instruments in the flood.”
Jonah looks from Clover to me, and his face turns a shade whiter.
“I’m… I’m so sorry, Alex.”
“It’s okay,” I say, but I’m surprised by the shakiness of my own voice. Do not cry, Alex, this isn’t about you.
“If there’s anyone who deserves an apology, it’s Steph,” I say. Steph looks to me in surprise.
“What?”
“I’m so sorry about your drum kit, Steph,” I say, squeezing her hand. “It was selfish of me to make you stay in Barbazal when we had a show to do. I wanted to go on tour with you, I really did, and—”
“Alex,” she interrupts, leaning down and pressing her forehead against mine, giving my hand a squeeze. “I’m glad we did this.”
“Really?!” I can’t contain my confusion. “You’re glad we missed the show?! What if we never meet Harson again?”
“I’m glad,” interrupts Steph, “that if I was going to miss the show of a lifetime, it was to spend time with my… girlfriend… in the middle of nowhere.”
I shut my eyes and breathe in, enjoying the scent of her for a moment. And a flood of gratitude overwhelms me. I want to hold her and kiss her. Tell her she’s mine.
Best friend? Nah.
“Y’all must really love each other to help each other through all this,” marvels Clover.
I open my eyes to find Steph staring back at me. I search her eyes for some kind of confirmation. An okay. A yes. She smiles. Might as well be just us two in the room, as we reply in unison, defiantly,
“Yes.”
We both laugh, and she throws her arms around my shoulders.
“I… I love you, Steph.”
She pulls away, and her eyes are wide with awe, her cheeks red.
“For real?” she asks, her voice shaky. “I mean… like… those are big words, Alex.”
