CHAPTER ONE
Easton Kooper
“Dad, I know you’re like a million years old, but—”
“I’m thirty-six, Tru, thirty-six. Your estimation is way off. I worry about what they’re teaching you in school.”
“Whatever, Dad. As I was saying. Can we listen to music that was created after the turn of the century?”
I looked in the rearview mirror, where my ten-year-old son, Milo, was playing one of his games, his eyes fixed on his tablet. The smirk on his face and the little glances he made at me was all I needed to know he was listening.
“I’m sorry, Tru, I can’t hear you…speak into my good ear.” I cupped my right ear, and she snorted…Milo giggled.
“Lame.” Tru’s eye rolls were legendary, and I couldn’t hold back my laughter.
At thirteen years old she was the spitting image of her mother, except she had green eyes. Milo and Tru both got those from me. But other than that, she was all her mom. She was tough as nails, stubborn, and brilliant like her too.
Milo was more like me. Same brown hair, identical smile, and loved more of a hands-on approach to life. Unless it was an update on one of his games.
Laura Kooper, my wife and the world’s best mother, died three years ago, throwing all our lives into a tailspin. The four of us became the three of us, and in one fell swoop I was drowning.
Fighting fires was what I knew. I was a good dad, but I hadn’t realized how many pies Laura had put her fingers in until she was gone and I was raising my children alone.
The first year had been a mess of tears, anger, and chaos. Slowly but surely, we’d found our way—a new way, but not a day went by that I didn’t miss Laura so much it hurt just to breathe.
“Oh thank God, school!” Tru unbuckled her belt, and I chuckled.
“I never thought I’d hear you utter those words. So what you’re saying is, all I need to do to get you not to give me a hard time about going to school is to throw on some amazing music?”
“It’s not amazing.” She opened the door, but I grabbed her arm.
“You’re amazing, Tru-bug.”
Another eye roll but I wrangled a grin too. “Love you, Dad.”
“Love you too.”
Once she was racing off, I looked at Milo. “Almost win the level?”
“Yeah!”
“Well, you’re the next drop-off. You have ten minutes.”
“The pressure!” he shouted, and I hit the gas.
At thirty-six I was one of the youngest lieutenants this firehouse had ever had. I’d worked my ass off to get here and loved every part of it. I’d operated both engine and ladder, but I was currently in charge of Ladder Truck 121.
Before Laura’s death, my shifts were twenty-four hours on followed by forty-eight hours off. It had meshed with Laura’s schedule. After she passed, I was able to change to ten-to-twelve-hour shifts for three or sometimes four days. I had my weekends, but holidays were tricky.
Fool’s Pass Fire Department, where we lived, was the main hub but a little less than half of the house fell into Red Root territory, so we often found ourselves helping in both places. It got busy some days, but that was fine. I had a lot of time with my kids this way.
A slap on my shoulder pulled me out of writing my report about a house fire on Gretchen Avenue where we’d rescued a fifty-three-year-old woman and her four cats.
“Why are Trish and I doing the book drive this weekend, East?” Jim Hastings was my closest friend on the job, but he also worked for me.
“Well, Jim.” I spun in my chair and smiled at the burly man who was more jolly than scary. “I specifically remember you and Trish saying to me around Christmas, ‘Please, if you let me and Trish out of being Santa and Mrs. Claus this year, we will be at your mercy.’ ”
“Well, shit.” Jim sighed and leaned against the wall in my office.
“I’m sure the two of you will have fun.” I waggled my brows and returned my attention to my report.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Without looking up, I answered. “It means I’m tired of you flirting with her horribly and getting nowhere. This way, you and she will be at that book drive all Saturday afternoon. Maybe you get to know her a little.”
“And here I thought dating within the same house was wrong.”
I shrugged. “I have no issue with it as long as it doesn’t interfere with your job, and Captain feels the same way.”
He was silent for a beat too long, so I peered over my shoulder. He was glaring at me.
“You think she’ll never go out with me, so you feel safe saying that.”
I burst out laughing, tossed my pen onto the papers, and faced him again. “Prove me wrong, Hastings.”
He opened his mouth to say something when my cell phone went off. A quick peek showed the pediatrician’s office.
“I gotta take this.”
“Later.”
“Hello?” I answered.
“Mr. Kooper?”
“Speaking.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Kooper. This is Dr. Perry, Jennifer, calling from Fool’s Pass Pediatrics.”
“Hi, Dr. Perry, is everything okay? I didn’t receive a call from the school saying either of my kids were hurt.” Dr. Jennifer Perry was a friend of Laura’s and while we didn’t talk a lot anymore, she was good to the kids.
“Oh, heavens no, I’m sorry. I was calling about some blood test results that came back for Milo.”
He’d had his yearly physical two days ago and because he’d turned ten, they’d wanted to do a complete blood workup on him.
“Okay, what’s going on?”
“Well, Easton, I was a little concerned by some of the counts for his platelets and white blood cells. Have you noticed or has Milo mentioned unexplained bruising, a rash that looks like small reddish pinpricks known as petechiae, or anything else abnormal?”
“No, nothing.”
“I’m hoping this is a lab error but in case it’s not, it’s best you take Milo to the emergency room. If it’s an error he will be sent home; if it’s not, he’ll be where he needs to be.”
“Jennifer.” I swallowed as my pulse thundered in my ears and sweat began to bead on my forehead.
“Yes, Easton?”
“What were the counts? How bad is it?”
“I really don’t want to—”
“I’m asking you to tell me.”
“Very well.” She sighed, but I didn’t believe it was out of frustration with me. I knew from being a first responder that you never wanted to say anything unless you were sure you were one hundred percent correct.
“Milo’s a ten-year-old boy, and for a healthy child of his age we’d see a platelet count between three hundred thousand and four hundred and eighty thousand. His count came back at twelve hundred.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Normal white blood cell counts are between five thousand and ten thousand. Milo’s are at six hundred.”
“Shit.”
“Easton. I know your brain is spiraling, and you’re scared. But like I said, let’s not put the cart before the horse. Errors happen. Can you get him to the emergency room?”
“Yeah, I’ll get him there.”
“I will be there, but I’ll call ahead and let them know that you’re on your way. Breathe, East. You’re worried; Milo will be confused and terrified.”
She was right. I knew she was.
“I’ll see you in a bit, Doctor.”
All I could think as I drove to get Milo from the library where he went after school was that I couldn’t lose my son. If the universe took another piece of my soul, I didn’t think I’d survive it.
“Please, don’t take my boy,” I whispered to whoever and whatever was out there, and hit the gas.
Prologue
HOW COULD EVERY PART OF your body hurt? Why was everything hurting? Tay tried to move and, crucified by pain, went under again.
When awareness returned, so did pain, a sharp-toothed animal living inside him. One thought filtered through the agony before he slid into blissful oblivion. Where the hell am I?
*****
Was he sleeping now, caught up in a pain-free dream? Maybe the greedy animal inside him was resting or perhaps bewilderment had temporarily become the stronger foe. What the fuck is happening to me? Something wasn’t right, but he didn’t know what. Then pain came back, chomping at his body, eating him from the inside out, sparking every nerve ending, and he sank back to the bottom of the sea.
*****
“Please,” Jonty pleaded.
“I think my dad still uses it.”
“But it’s rusty.”
Tay looked at the wheelbarrow, then at Jonty’s eager twelve-year-old face, and sighed. “Fine.”
They spent the rest of the first day of the summer holiday in the garage, taking apart his father’s wheelbarrow and Tay’s old bike. Or rather Tay did, while Jonty sat, making him laugh and drawing sketches of how he wanted the kite buggy to look. Tay had rolled his eyes when Jonty showed him a picture of a sparkly-blue buggy with giant wheels, a padded seat and dragon wings. Not something that would emerge from the pieces of metal Tay had in front of him.
In the end, Tay’s dad helped, welding the parts together, finding a seat from work and attaching it. Jonty had sprayed it—and the garage wall and his mother’s freezer and his dad’s golf shoes—with silver and blue paint, then they’d had to wait until the buggy was dry before they tried it out.
They hauled it to the beach first thing the next morning.
“You want to go first?” Tay asked as he got the kite airborne.
“No. You show me how to do it.”
Moments later, Tay was racing the buggy along the stretch of sand, steering with his feet, working the kite back and forth to give him more power and speed. He could hear Jonty whooping behind him. Tay whooped himself when he managed to turn without tipping over or letting the kite drop out of the sky, and he headed back towards Jonty. Once the kite was overhead, the buggy slowed and Tay came to a stop at Jonty’s side.
“Oh my God. That looks so much fun.”
“Swap places.”
Tay fastened Jonty to the kite and explained what to do. But before he’d told him how to stop, Jonty was off, zooming down the beach. Had he even registered how to turn? As Jonty continued past the point that Tay had changed direction, Tay decided he hadn’t, and ran after him.
Shit, how fast is he going? Tay’s heart leapt into his mouth as the buggy flew into the air and Jonty fell out. He was dragged for a little way over the sand before the kite fell, and when Tay realised Jonty wasn’t moving, he ran faster.
By the time he reached him, he was frantic. No helmet. Tay’s mother would be furious. Jonty didn’t have a mother to care and his dad probably wouldn’t give a shit but… Please let him be all right.
Tay threw himself onto the sand, his chest heaving. But as he leaned over, Jonty opened his eyes and grinned. “That was awesome.”
“You dick. I thought you were dead.”
“Did you see me fly? Better get a harness and a helmet. I don’t want anything happening to you. No one else will be my friend.”
Tay rolled onto his back, and laughed.
*****
Tay became aware of things being done to him. Intrusive, painful and embarrassing things. He wanted to tell people to stop touching him, turning him, messing around with him, but no words came from his mouth. He dreamed he’d been abducted by aliens, taken aboard their spacecraft, and was being experimented on. He tried to lift a hand, to reach out for help, to open his mouth and yell that he was there, that he was trapped. All he could do was cry and howl and moan. Pain and fear had many voices.
Moments of consciousness became longer and his dread of the dark, shapeless animal inside him grew, because now he could sense its approach, hear its slithering steps, and knew its bite was coming.
Yet the intensity of the pain was diminishing. He was winning that battle, and still losing the other. He kept falling into endless black and there was nothing he could do to stop it happening. All he could do was reach for memories of Jonty.
*****
Tay wondered how he’d let Jonty talk him into making a birthday cake for his mum. Well, he knew why. Because Jonty didn’t have a mum, not at home anyway, and Tay would do almost anything to make Jonty smile. Jonty smiled a lot, though it wasn’t always genuine. But he was happy now, even in the mess of Tay’s mother’s kitchen. Tay had tried not to react as Jonty had used almost every implement in the drawer.
“It’s going to be great,” Jonty said.
The cake was in the oven and Jonty was scraping out the mixing bowl and licking the spatula. He offered Tay a mouthful. It tasted…slightly unusual. Jonty didn’t seem to be bothered.
“Actually, I don’t know why we didn’t just put a bowl of cake mixture on the table and give everyone spoons,” Jonty said.
“Where would you have put the candles?”
“That’s true.”
Tay wasn’t sure how his mother would react to the blazing inferno she’d soon be faced with, but Jonty had used his precious money to buy forty candles and there was no way they weren’t going on the cake.
They cleaned the kitchen together while the cake was cooking. Tay took a peek in the oven and winced.
“What?” Jonty asked.
“You did follow the recipe exactly?”
Jonty couldn’t afford to buy Tay’s mum a present. He’d wanted to make the cake on his own so Tay’s only involvement had been to tell Jonty where stuff was in the kitchen.
“Yep. Well…”
Tay didn’t ask, but whatever Jonty had done probably explained what was happening in the oven.
“It has another fifteen minutes to go,” Jonty said.
“I’d check it. It’s escaping from the tin.”
Jonty took it out of the oven and groaned. “It looks like a chocolate brain’s exploded. Maybe it tastes nice.”
“I’m sure it will.” Hopefully.
After his mother had managed to blow out all the candles, she and his dad, Tay and Jonty had a slice. Jonty had disguised the brain-look of it with a lot of pink icing, but the cake tasted wrong.
They all ate it, because Jonty had made it. Tay’s mum said it was delicious. It wasn’t.
*****
One day, Tay remembered that he’d fallen, but nothing more. So here had to be a hospital, not an alien spacecraft. He was almost disappointed. But that explained why people were doing…things to him. Nurses, doctors… Gradually words began to make sense, voices became familiar, but touch remained scary. He was still spending longer under the surface than above it.
His family came to see him. And Jonty. My best friend. Tay tried so hard to open his eyes and speak. He wanted to tell Jonty not to cry, wanted to tell him more than that, things he should have said and never had because he’d been scared. There was a lesson to be learnt in this, but would he ever get the chance to show he’d learned it? When he got better—if he got better, he’d tell Jonty how much he loved him.
In the fog of his life, Tay understood the fall had done something to his brains as well as his body. For the time being, he was having trouble communicating, but that had to be temporary—right? He wasn’t paralysed. He could move a little, though not, it seemed, when he told himself to. He lay in his nest. A broken-winged bird waiting to see if he’d ever fly again.
*****
When Tay found out at school that Jonty had been taken to hospital, he pleaded with his dad to drive him there. Don’t want to remember this. Tay had been horrified when he’d seen him. His sweet face all battered and bruised. A split lip. Broken arm. Black eyes. Jonty’s dad had been sitting next to him and Tay’s dad had persuaded him to go for a coffee while Tay stayed with Jonty. The moment the men left, Jonty opened his eyes. They filled with tears.
Tay caught hold of his hand and squeezed gently. “Well, your looks were going to go eventually.”
Jonty laughed, then gasped in pain.
“Who did it?”
“You can’t tell anyone. Swear.”
Tay nodded.
“I told my dad I liked boys.”
Rage consumed Tay.
“No,” Jonty said. “You promised. Obviously, I’m not gay anymore.”
Tay released a strangled laugh. He wanted to tell Jonty how he felt about him, but the words wouldn’t come out. He might put Jonty in more danger.
Tay didn’t tell his parents that it was Jonty’s dad who’d put him in the hospital, because even if he begged them not to, they’d tell the police.
That night, he’d dreamt he and Jonty were in each other’s arms. First kiss. First touch. Am I gay too?
*****
Tay sensed he’d woken in a different place. The air smelled different. The sounds were different. Home. Far from being pleased, he wanted to rail at his parents. He wasn’t better yet. Why weren’t the doctors making him well?
Because there’s nothing they can do.
This is all you get.
What do you wish for? This life or death?
The black snake of depression overpowered everything. Was there really nothing more that could be done? This was his life? Unable to move independently, unable to communicate? A living death? He swung between acceptance and rejection, flailing his arms or legs to show he could, though never with the power he’d hoped for. His attempts to speak came out as groans and grunts.
I want to die.
I want to live.
But not like this.
His family hadn’t given up. His mother’s voice was constantly encouraging him to talk, move, squeeze her hand. More importantly, Jonty hadn’t given up. He still believed Tay would get better, so Tay kept breathing. As if I have a choice. He longed for Jonty’s visits. Jonty chattered as if Tay was responding to him. He talked and talked and said things that made Tay want to laugh and he hoped he had. I’m here.
*****
Jonty never gave up. That thought repeated in Tay’s head. Jonty had put up with such a lot and he stayed upbeat. Even when his father broke Jonty’s arm, a couple of ribs, and a bone in his back, Jonty had struggled into school and was taken to hospital for the second time. On that occasion, Tay didn’t stay quiet. He went to see the headmaster. Social services were involved and Jonty never went home again.
Tay wasn’t sorry he’d spoken out. He felt guilty for not having done it before. But Jonty didn’t know Tay was the reason he ended up being taken away from his father. Tay wanted to care for Jonty forever, but now Jonty was the one having to care for him and Tay hated that he was so helpless. Their relationship had changed, and not in the way Tay wanted.
*****
It wasn’t hard to detest his life. All the times he’d ever thought he was unhappy paled into insignificance compared to this. Every complaint, every whine, none of it mattered. When he was better, he’d make the most of every second of his life.
But what if he didn’t come out of this? What if this was all he’d ever have? He wouldn’t even be able to communicate that he wanted to die. He wished he hadn’t survived the fall. He was ruining the lives of his parents, stifling Jonty’s. Not his girlfriend’s. She’d not come to see him, he didn’t think, and he was glad. The relationship had been a lie anyway. He’d tried to feel something, but Jonty had his heart, had always had his heart and now he’d never have the chance to tell him.
*****
Tay and Jonty sat on their boards off Bamburgh beach, enjoying the view and the sunshine, chatting while they waited for the perfect wave. Sometimes it was as much about chatting as it was about surfing. Tay talked about university, Jonty about his job at McAllister’s.
That day, a rare day, they were without wetsuits. Ten days of continuous sunshine hadn’t made much difference to the sea temperature, but since they spent most of the time sitting on their boards, it was too hot to be covered up. Tay snuck looks at Jonty’s slender body whenever he could.
“Have you stopped with the piercings now?” Tay asked as Jonty twisted the one in his eyebrow. “Aren’t you worried you’ll spring a leak?”
“I was thinking about getting my cock done.”
Tay almost fell off his board.
“A line of piercings all the way down. What do you think?”
“That I’d break my teeth.”
Jonty laughed. “Okay. Won’t do it then.”
Tay wished Jonty had taken him seriously.
*****
Tay’s periods of awareness gradually increased in number and length, though they rarely coincided with him being able to open his eyes. That required too much effort. But he listened more carefully to what his mother was saying, explaining what was the matter with him. He’d been in a coma, and then in a minimally conscious state, following a traumatic head injury. She was sure he’d get better, kept telling him he would.
Jonty’s visits were precious glimpses of both his best friend and a life beyond the room he was in. Jonty told him about guests at the hotel, then one day he told him about Mr Difficult, who’d tried to check into McAllister’s at nine in the morning. As Jonty explained how they’d had to be rescued, Tay had heard something in his friend’s voice. This guy was different. Jonty liked him. Jealousy was another type of pain. An additional creature inside him, this one clawing at his heart. Sadly, with insufficient violence to kill him.
When Jonty kissed him on the lips and asked, “Going to thump me for that?” Tay’s heart cracked. He moaned and opened his eyes long enough to see Jonty, long enough to secure his image in his head before he slid under again.
Then Jonty came back with Mr Difficult, whose name was Devan. Tay opened his eyes again and looked at Jonty, then turned his head a little to look at Devan before he closed them—wanting to, this time, his heart broken. Devan was tall, dark, handsome, and about ten years older than Jonty. The strong, stable figure that Jonty needed. Even if Tay ever emerged from this, Jonty was lost. He hovered between being glad Jonty had someone better than Brad Greene, who’d never been good for him, and sorrow that Jonty would never know how much Tay loved him.
*****
When Tay finally remembered everything, from somewhere came the absolute certainty that he would get better. Though he suspected the journey back would be a long one and he might never make it all the way. Now that he’d remembered Brad Greene’s role in his fall, something changed in his head. He’d told Jonty that Brad Greene was dangerous. He’d warned him, and look what had happened! This was Jonty’s fault as much as Brad Greene’s. Anger joined pain and frustration, and anger was gaining control.
Gradually Tay emerged from the darkness. He could nod or shake his head in response to questions. They removed the feeding tube. He tried to reach for things. He could keep his eyes focused on people when they crossed the room. The day he was taken outside was a milestone. In a special wheelchair with him fastened in place like a crash test dummy, but to be out of that room was enough to bring tears to his eyes. The sun on his face warmed more than his skin. The sight of the sea inspired him.
I will get better. I will.
He could watch TV and at least indicate whether he wanted a different channel. He could pretend to sleep when Jonty came.
Tay mouthed words, then whispered them, and gradually regained his voice. His first clear word was “Jonty.”
“Shall I call him?” his mother asked.
“Never…wan…see…him…gain.”
*****
Tay continued on an intensive therapy programme. Two hours of occupational therapy, three hours of physiotherapy, and two hours of speech therapy a week, supplemented by his mother and father. He resisted all their efforts to persuade him to see Jonty. Even when Jonty came to the house, Tay said no. Why torture himself?
He could walk with crutches, but not safely. He looked like a newly born giraffe, legs all over the place. He needed the wheelchair if he wanted to go any distance.
He’d regained his speech, though his voice was slow and deliberate. His determination to get back the life he’d lost never wavered. He refused to accept it wouldn’t happen. If he just tried harder, worked at it longer, he’d succeed. Headaches plagued him, but he didn’t give in to them. Pills helped. His parents expected him to stay at home, but that wasn’t going to happen.
He was just at the beginning of his journey.
