Collared Read online

  It’s a lot to take in all at once, like Dr. Argent warned me, but I’m not about to tap the brakes. I’ll be okay. I’ve dealt with a lot. I can deal with this. I can deal with whatever comes. I’m strong.

  These are the things I feel like I have to repeat to myself until I’ve convinced myself of them. I’m okay. I can deal with whatever comes my way. I’m strong.

  I’ve brainwashed myself before—I can do it again.

  That’s what’s playing on a reel in my head when a knock sounds outside my door right before it opens. I’ve raised the back of my bed so I’m more sitting up than lying down, and I’ve been a good patient and left my IV in my arm where the doctors want it. My wrists still burn a little from the restraints but not so bad a little cream and rubbing can’t fix it.

  Who’s going to come in first? Who will it be?

  I feel like I should know this. I lived with these people for seventeen years and Earl Rae only ten. I should know them well enough to be able to figure out who’ll be the brave one to slip through the door first.

  Dad. That’s who it will be. He’s always been the head of the household, and we all knew it. He’ll be the first one through the door.

  I’m wrong.

  It’s my mom. I don’t recognize her at first. It isn’t until she half says, half cries my name that I know it’s her. She might look different, but her voice is the same.

  “Sweetheart . . .” she says-cries next, walking forward a few steps before waiting for everyone else to file in behind her.

  Dad comes next. He looks the same. Exactly the same. His hair’s still precisely parted to the side, his moustache is as prominent as ever, and he still enters a room like he owns it. Unlike Dad, Mom’s hair has started to gray and she’s lost weight. Probably as much as I have. She looks . . . old—like thirty years have gone by instead of ten. I wonder if I look the same.

  Dad doesn’t say anything at first. He just looks at me for a moment, then he has to look away. His hand moves to his mouth, and his back shakes.

  “Hi, Dad.” I have to remind myself to call him dad. It doesn’t come naturally anymore.

  When I speak, he turns around a little. His hands settle on his hips, and his back shakes again.

  “Oh my god, Jade.” Mom wipes her eyes. They’re raining tears. “Thank god they found you.”

  She moves a few steps closer, but it feels like they’re hanging back. Waiting for an invitation from me or to gather up a little more courage. I don’t know. I feel as uncertain what to do and say next as they do.

  Two more people come through the door. They hang back by Dad, almost like they’re trying to hide in his imposing shadow. I don’t recognize them. At first.

  A decade has a way of really changing a ten- and fourteen-year-old. My brother, Connor, has a goatee and is wearing a University of Washington tee. He’s tall like our dad but doesn’t have the same wide shoulders. He tries to smile at me, but it doesn’t last long. He rubs the back of his head and leans into the wall.

  Sam looks a lot like Mom—or a lot like she had. Sam looks put together and polished, the way I remember her looking as a fourteen-year-old. She can’t even look at me but stays an arm’s length from the door, shifting from one foot to the next every few seconds.

  This is my family. How can I feel this uncomfortable around them? How can they feel so uncomfortable around me that they can barely stand to look at me?

  I reach for my cup of water. It’s empty. I grab the pitcher. It’s empty too.

  The longer the silence stretches on, the more I wish I’d taken Dr. Argent’s advice and waited on the family reunion thing. I don’t know what I was picturing, but this isn’t it.

  “So . . . how have you guys been?” I ask.

  Mom sniffs and keeps moving closer. “Let’s not talk about how we’ve been. Let’s talk about what we’re going to do now that you’re back. Now that you’re home.”

  When she notices Dad, Sam, and Connor still huddled close to the door, she waves them over. Connor moves first, then Dad. Sam last.

  “We’ve missed you, sweetie. So, so much.” Mom chokes on a sob.

  Dad comes up behind her and rubs her back. I know now why Dad angled himself away from me at first. His eyes are red-rimmed, and his face is puffy. He’s been crying. Maybe he still is. I’ve never seen my dad cry. Never. Not even when he found out one of his men had been killed in action. Not even when he spoke at the funeral. I didn’t think it was possible.

  Looking at my family hovering at the foot of my bed, I realize I’m not the only one who’s suffered. They’ve been broken too. They might not have been held by a chain for ten years, but they’ve clearly been tied to other chains that have held them back.

  Guilt floods my stomach then, spreading to my legs and arms. This is my fault. My mom looking like she’s twice her age, my dad’s iron wall crumbling, my brother and sister barely able to look at me—it’s my fault.

  “I’m sorry,” I choke out, biting my cheek so I won’t start crying again. There are already enough tears in this room. “I’m so sorry.”

  Mom rushes to my side first, whipping her head from side to side and reaching for me. “No, Jade. Don’t apologize. No, baby,” she coos, leaning over me and winding her tiny arms around me like she’s trying to hold me the way a new mother might cradle her infant. Kind of awkward at first but carefully. “You’re back. That’s all that matters. You’re back.” Mom’s arms tighten around me as her head lowers beside mime.

  It’s too much. Her arms and the hold and her head next to mine and the perfume I smell on her and the fabric softener I smell on her blouse. The words she keeps repeating right beside my ear are no more than a whisper, but it feels like she’s screaming. It’s too much.

  I wiggle beneath her, my arms feeling stuck at my sides. That’s when the rest of them move in. Dad leans over me on the other side, and while Mom’s tiny arms feel like they’re strangling the life out of me, when Dad wraps his giant arms around me and holds me close, I feel like my body’s snapping into a hundred tiny pieces. I feel my bones smashing into powder. My organs liquefying. My skin being rubbed raw.

  “Stop,” I choke out, squirming.

  Sam and Connor stay back, but Connor takes a seat on the edge of my bed and pats my leg a few times. It feels like he just stuck a hot brand into my calf.

  I cry out.

  They don’t hear. Or if they do, they take my cries to be the same as theirs—the happy ones from the reunion.

  “Stop. Please.” My voice is so tight it’s not even a whisper.

  Still, they keep holding me, smashing me, confining me, screaming in my ear, assaulting my every sense until I feel like I’m burning from the inside out.

  “Let go.” This time I’m not even sure if I verbalized the words. I can’t tell.

  I feel something bubble up from my stomach. I’m not sure what it is, but it feels molten hot and explosive. I harness whatever it is and force it to the surface. It feels like all the survival instinct I have left.

  “Stop,” I plead with a whisper.

  No one hears. They just keep suffocating me. Whatever survival instinct I have left, it isn’t enough. That’s dead too.

  My body does the only other thing it can to save itself—it shuts down.

  I’D BEEN HAVING a nightmare. I wake up to a nightmare too.

  Asleep, awake, it doesn’t seem to matter. I’m haunted by things in both worlds.

  The shades are open when I wake up, but it’s all the way dark outside now. The clock across from me reads two. Five hours have gone by since I passed out. I’ve experienced the feeling enough to know what happened. I passed out most days after I was first taken by Earl Rae. I think it’s my body’s way of dealing with extreme fear. Or maybe it’s my brain’s way of shutting down so it can reboot and try harder next time. I don’t know. I just know I don’t usually pass out for such long stretches.

  The drugs still pumping through my IV probably have something to do with that th
ough.

  My family’s gone, which I feel guilty for being relieved by. I hadn’t realized how hard it would be. If I can’t even handle four members of my family, how will I deal with the rest of the world? If I can’t handle a simple embrace from my dad and mom, how can I get back to my old life? My life had been filled with people and activities and places and . . . I’m not sure how I can handle it all if the city lights of downtown Seattle glowing through my window are overstimulating.

  My mouth’s dry again, but my pitcher is still empty.

  I’m just pressing the call button when a nurse slips through my door. I haven’t met this one yet. She probably works the night shift. Just from the scrubs she has on, I know I’m going to like her better than the day-shift Nurse Ratcheds I’ve dealt with.

  “You awake, honey?” the nurse asks, lowering her glasses down her nose.

  I nod, almost smiling when I notice the teddy bears on her scrubs are holding balloon bouquets.

  “You up for a visitor? Or would you rather rest? I know it’s late.”

  She doesn’t talk so loud that it feels like a scream or so soft that I can’t hear her. Her voice is just right. I suddenly feel like Goldilocks finding just the right chair.

  I’m about to answer that I’d rather rest when she adds, “If you’re going to see any visitors, this would be the one to see.” Her dark brows bounce a couple of times. “Trust me.”

  My head lifts from the pillow “Who is it?” It’s been a long time, but I still recognize the sound of hope in my voice. The tone of anticipation.

  “I’d be just fine calling him Tall, Dark, and Handsome, but I suppose he’s got a name.” The nurse looks out the door like he’s standing right there.

  It’s been years, but even back then, he fit that criteria. My heart climbs into my throat. “What’s his name?”

  Her shoulders wag. “Don’t know. Didn’t ask.” She cranes her head out the door again. “Want me to ask him, honey?”

  “That’s okay. You can let him in.” I find myself trying to get a good look out the door, but other than a stream of yellow light, I can’t see anything.

  “Good choice.” She winks before turning to leave. She stops when she gets halfway out the door. “You need anything?”

  I might have needed something, but I’m too nervous to think about it. “No, thank you.”

  He’s here. I don’t know how I know that, but I do.

  Torrin’s here.

  Thinking his name makes my heart convulse. I don’t know what saying it will do. I can’t imagine what seeing him will do to me. Hopefully I won’t pass out like I did with my family.

  The room’s quiet for a minute after the nurse leaves. I should use the time to adjust my hospital gown or comb my fingers through my hair or pinch a little color into my cheeks because I know how pale I am. Lack of sunshine will do that to a person.

  Instead, I sit here, feeling like my heart’s both swelling and shrinking at the same time.

  I lift the head of my bed a little more, and just when I’m wishing I’d asked the nurse for a water refill, I notice the shadow in the doorway. It is him.

  My breath stops.

  He stays there for a moment, hovering in the doorway, staring at the shadow his body casts on the gleaming tile. I watch his shoulders rise and fall as he breathes, but I can’t make out anything else. My gaze automatically lowers to his left hand, but I can’t see his fingers with the way he’s standing.

  A minute later, he steps inside my room. His shoes echo on the tile, making me wonder if he’s exchanged his soccer flats for a pair of dress shoes, which makes me wonder what else has changed.

  If he’s changed anything like I have, I probably won’t even know the person he is now.

  He closes the door, snuffing out the bright light from the hall. After blinking a few times, I can see him. Better at least. I would have thought spending as much time as I have in the dark would make it easier for me to see in it, but the opposite seems to be true.

  Every few blinks, my eyesight adjusts a little more, until I can make out what he’s wearing: a pair of dark slacks, what look like matching dress shoes, and a dark green raincoat still zipped up. It wasn’t raining earlier. It doesn’t look like it’s raining now.

  His face I look at last, mainly because I know it’s going to feel like a wrecking ball’s driving through me.

  I’m right.

  He looks the same. At least other than the decade that’s touched him. He’s taller, wider in the shoulders, and the boyish softness of his face has been ironed out into square angles and straight lines. He still wears his hair the same—looking like it’s a few weeks past needing a haircut—and it’s as dark and inky as I remember.

  And then there are his eyes. How many times have I pictured them since that last night we were together? How many times have I tried to draw them to find I could never get them right? How many times have I concentrated on his light eyes, finding a warmth in them that touched me even on my darkest days?

  They practically glow in the dark. When he blinks, it’s like all of the light has been siphoned out of the world.

  He makes his way farther into my room, stopping when he’s in front of my bed, but he keeps his distance. He stays closer to the wall than my bed.

  My heart feels like it’s pulsing against my tonsils now, and even if I knew what to say, I’m sure I couldn’t get it out.

  He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He tries again, but the same thing happens. Clamping his mouth closed, he rubs the back of his head like he used to when he was trying to figure something out. The familiarity of it makes my body ache.

  “I thought I knew what I was going to say.” His voice is a little deeper but the same. The ache boils into a throb. “I’ve been planning it for the past ten years, but now that I’m standing here in front of you, nothing I planned to say sounds right.” He continues to rub the back of his head, focusing on the floor in front of him, his brows pinched together like something’s hurting him.

  “I did the same thing—thinking about what I’d say to you if I ever got to see you again.” My voice sounds small in comparison to his, but that line between his brows pinches deeper with every word. I wonder if I’m the one hurting him. Like my family, he’s been hurt by my disappearance too. I know that. “None of it sounds right now that you’re here.”

  He nods a few times. His hair falls over his forehead like it used to when he played soccer. Like it had that last night we spent together . . .

  “God, Jade.” He swallows. His throat bobs as though he’s swallowing an apple whole. “How are you?”

  That’s when he finally looks at me. Like, really looks at me. His eyes stay on mine for a moment, then they lower to my neck. Something flashes in his eyes when he studies the bandages wound around it. Something that makes his expression darken.

  I don’t want to lie to him. But I really don’t want to tell him the truth. He’s suffered enough with the rest of us.

  “Considering everything that happened”—I wring the blanket covering me—“I’m doing good.”

  Torrin can’t stop staring at my neck. I think he wants to, but his eyes won’t let him. Maybe I should have thrown on a scarf or something. I know it’s an eyesore—something eyes can’t help but be drawn to.

  He forces his eyes to mine. They’re darker than before. “I’m happy you’re back.” He shoves off of the wall and moves closer.

  The air grows a little thinner. “I’m happy to see you.”

  It’s a play on words because really, I haven’t decided if I’m happy to be back. I should be. It’s what everyone else assumes I feel, but it’s too early to know. I am happy to see him though. That I don’t have to think about.

  Torrin doesn’t miss my twist on words. “I know it’s late, and I’m sorry . . . I was going to give you some time before I just showed up, but I was here and I knew you were, and I couldn’t . . .” He looks away, his throat bobbing. “Walk away.”

&nbsp
; I feel a brow lift. “You were just in the neighborhood?”

  “Yeah, kind of.” Torrin’s shoulders lift. “I was visiting someone else in the hospital.”

  “Hopefully they’re in better shape than me,” I say, kind of joking, kind of serious.

  “Actually, they’re dying.”

  I lift up in bed a little. “God, Torrin, I’m sorry. Rough night for you.”

  He shakes his head. “I’ve had lots of rough nights.”

  “Used to them?”

  “More like equipped to handle them.”

  Heaviness thickens around us. I’ve drowned in it so many times, but I don’t want Torrin to experience it. I don’t want him to know what it feels like to have your lungs feel like they’re about to explode from holding your breath right before they turn to stone when you lose the battle.

  “So what have you been up to the past ten years?” I try to keep my voice light, but there’s too much heaviness now.

  His tongue drills into his cheek as he stares out the big window. This is hard for him. I wish I could make it easier. I wish I could convince him I’m okay and that I will be and that even when I was gone, I was okay.

  I’d give anything.

  I feel like I’ve already given everything though.

  “Looking for you.” He shrugs. “Living. I wasn’t very good at the living part though.”

  He’s trying to lighten the mood too. He’s better at it than I am based on the smile I feel wanting to form, but he’s lost his knack for it. I don’t need to ask why.

  “Anything else you’ve been up to?” My eyes drop to his hands again. I don’t see a ring, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have someone. That doesn’t mean someone doesn’t have him.

  My stomach feels like I’ve dropped fifty floors in one shallow breath.

  “I graduated. Kind of.” He’s still staring at the Seattle skyline, but it’s like he isn’t seeing any of it. “Then I went to college, and they took mercy on me and let me graduate too.”