The bruising on her forehead and the rest of her face didn’t look that bad, but logically I knew it was because she was dead, and that meant her body wasn’t working anymore. Her heart wasn’t pumping blood to give a distinct colour to her skin any longer.
I didn’t know how long I stayed with her, but when I kissed her and left the room, I was shivering with the cold. Kale, who was sitting on the floor where I’d left him outside of the morgue, jumped to his feet when he saw me return.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I shook my head but said nothing.
“Darling,” he murmured.
“She’s really dead,” I whispered. “I touched her. She is really cold, her skin is sickly pale and she has no heartbeat. She’s not moving, she’s so still . . . just lying there with a little white sheet over her body.”
“Lane,” Kale sighed, and put his arms around my body, hugging me to him.
It was a weird thought, but I wondered what Drew would do if she knew Kale was with me. She’d probably lay me up in the morgue right next to Lavender.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured, “you’re scaring me. I’ve never seen you so withdrawn before.”
I blinked up at Kale and said, “I don’t feel anything. What’s wrong with me?”
He frowned. “It’s shock, that’s all.”
I felt numb, and I didn’t like not feeling anything. I looked up at Kale then and decided I needed to feel something. Without warning, I lifted my face to his and brushed my lips against his. For a moment he applied a sliver of pressure, but then he broke away.
“I can’t, Lane,” he whispered as he pulled back from me. “I’m with Drew.”
I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach, and my chest ached. I got what I wanted. I didn’t feel numb anymore.
“I know.” I looked down, realising it was a shitty thing I’d just tried to do knowing good and well that he was taken. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said, his voice low. “Do you want to go home?”
I shook my head. “I want to go see my uncle.”
Kale nodded and exited the hospital with me. He called Lochlan on the way out to come and pick us up. We waited outside in complete silence. Kale turned to speak to me a couple of times but never got the words out. It got on my last nerve, so after the sixth time he did it, I said, “Just bloody say whatever it is you have to say.”
“Drew, she’s . . . she’s pregnant,” he blurted out.
I stopped breathing.
“She’s having my baby.” He swallowed audibly. “I’m going to be a dad, Lane.”
I felt the blood drain from my face, and in that moment I was thankful I’d already puked today, because otherwise vomit would be covering Kale’s polished-up shoes.
“Lane?” he prompted. “Say something, please?”
I only knew one thing to say that was acceptable.
“Congratulations,” I whispered.
Kale took a step closer to me. “I didn’t want to tell you today of all days, but . . . but with what happened back there between us, I felt like you should know.”
I let that sink in, then after a moment, I looked up at Kale’s face.
“How long have you known Drew is pregnant?” I asked.
Kale paled. “A few weeks now.”
I took a step away from him. “A few weeks?”
He tried to close the space between us, but I held my hand up in front of his chest.
“Don’t,” I said, my voice almost a snarl. “Don’t touch me.”
“I’m so sorry. I know how you feel about me, or felt about me, so I know this isn’t what you want to hear,” he divulged. “Hurting you is the last thing I ever want to do.”
I felt like I should be crying, but the tears wouldn’t come. A fresh feeling of numbness rooted itself within me.
“All you seem to do is hurt me, Kale,” I said solemnly.
“I don’t mean to,” he whispered.
I lowered my gaze to the floor. “I need to leave.”
“Lane, please—”
“Kale,” – I cut him off, my voice dropping an octave – “I need to leave. I don’t want to be around you right now, so please, just let me go.”
“I can’t let you go,” he replied, his voice strained.
I didn’t know how to take that, but in that moment, I didn’t care about Kale – or what he had to say.
“Congratulate Drew for me, will you?”
Kale’s breathing picked up. “Lane, please, let me explain—”
“There is nothing to explain,” I said honestly. “You and Drew are dating, you have on and off for years, so it’s not a surprise that you would eventually get together for good and start a family.”
It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it bloody well was.
“It wasn’t planned,” Kale blurted out.
That didn’t matter. Drew was carrying Kale’s baby whether it was what they wanted or not, and that was absolute fact. Another fact was that I needed to get away. I needed to get far, far away.
“I’m going to walk to my uncle’s house,” I said, turning away from him. “I need to walk.”
“Lane!” Kale called out, the pain in his voice audible as I walked away from him.
Thankfully he didn’t follow me, but I felt eyes on me as I walked from the hospital to my uncle’s house, and I knew Kale and Lochlan were following in the car to make sure I got to my uncle’s house safely. It didn’t surprise me.
Lavender is dead, a cruel voice in my head reminded me.
My best friend, and the only person who knew every single one of my secrets, was gone. My confidante and partner in crime was no more. She was the one person in the entire world I could talk to about anything. I could act any kind of way around her, and she’d never judge me; she’d just laugh and join in with whatever craziness I was doing.
I never knew how much I loved her until I saw her lifeless body on that steel bed. I didn’t even know if she knew how much I loved and appreciated her, and that without her I would have gone off the rails even more than I had already.
I took my phone out of my pocket, and I didn’t know why, but I dialled her number and placed it to my ear. It didn‘t ring out; instead it went straight to her voicemail.
“This is Lavender, and there is a great chance that I saw your call but let it go to voicemail because I hate talking over the phone. What you should do now is text me. None of that leave your name and number bullshit – just shoot me a text and I’ll hit you up. Latersss!”
I laughed as a beep sounded, indicating my message was recording.
“I swear your voicemail is still the stupidest thing I have ever heard, but I love it, and I love you, Lav.” I swallowed. “Do you know where I just was? In the morgue, looking at you on a bed in a cold room. I’m really hoping you’re going to text me and tell me that you just pulled off the most epic and evilest prank of all time. I really hope you do that because I don’t want you to be gone. You can’t be gone, do you hear me? We have too much to do. We have to finish college and go to Ibiza, do you remember? We said we were going to go there and have fun after we were done with school. So you can’t be gone, we made plans and you can’t break plans like those. You just can’t . . . Please text me, Lav. I won’t even be angry at such a horrible prank. I swear on my life I won’t shout at you. I promise.”
I neared my uncle’s house and frowned as I squeezed my phone.
“Text me later, I love you.”
I hung up just as I arrived at my uncle’s house, and used a key he gave me years ago to let myself in. I stood in the hallway of his house, and even though something horrible had just happened, I felt safe.
“Uncle Harry?” I called out.
“In the kitchen, darling,” came his reply.
I walked into the kitchen and found him at the kitchen table, a cup of fresh tea in front of him, and one on a coaster for me. “Your brother called ahead,” my uncle said, answering my unspoken questio
n.
I nodded and sat at the kitchen table, and took a sip of my tea.
“I’m so sorry about Lavender, Lane.”
I didn’t reply to him for a long time, but when I did, I felt like dying myself. “I’ve never had someone close to me die,” I whispered to my uncle. “I know Aunt Teresa died, and I’m sad she is gone, but I was only twelve when that happened. I didn’t understand then, but I understand now. Lavender is really gone, Uncle Harry, and she isn’t coming back.”
I broke down when my uncle’s arms came around me. I cried the tears that hadn’t come in the hospital when I saw Lavender or her family, or when Kale told me Drew was pregnant with his baby.
“Kale,” I sniffled. “He is going to be a dad. He and Drew are having a baby.”
I heard my uncle mumble, “Fuck.”
It mirrored exactly what I was thinking.
“What are you thinking?” my uncle asked me.
“I want to leave here,” I whispered.
My uncle frowned down at me. “Darling, I don’t think leaving is the best thing for you—”
“My best friend just died, and Kale and Drew are having a baby,” I said, cutting him off. “I can’t be here to watch him have a family with someone else. I don’t have Lavender to help me get though that. I need to get away from here, from him. I think it will help me finally get over him.”
“Lane—”
“I can’t be here anymore, Uncle Harry,” I cried. “I can’t do it anymore.”
I felt my uncle’s gaze on me. “Do you really want to move away?” he asked.
I nodded. “It hurts too much being here; it’s killing me.”
“Then do what you feel is right for you, sweetheart,” he said after a lengthy silence.