RECKLESS(2)

It was a weird thing to say for a girl like me, someone who was used to standing on her own two feet—a girl that had always loathed the needy girls she’d gone to school with—but it was my truth in that moment. I’d needed his touch, his presence, his smile, and his sense of humor right then. I’m not sure I would have made it through the eight hour plane ride any other way, not without having a complete mental and emotional breakdown.

Maybe some mistakes really are just opportunities. Maybe those moments that you think you’re making a mistake, you’re actually taking a new path that you never thought you’d go down. Maybe life didn’t need blueprints and plans to work out for the better. Maybe, just maybe, Jace Richardson was my new future.

I only hoped that burying my brother wouldn’t be a part of it.





***


I ended up sleeping most of our first flight. In fact, Jace had to practically shake my brains out of my head to wake me up when the flight attendants asked us to lift our seats for our landing in Las Vegas. The emotional exhaustion must have really played a number on me.

Once we’d landed and exited the plane, we had a little time to kill for our layover. With still a few more hours of flying ahead of us, it seemed best to use that time to grab something to eat. After taking a look at what the airport had to offer, we opted for a sandwich shop called Schlotzky’s, a place I’d never been and had never heard of.

We placed our orders up front and then found a seat at one of the tables to wait for our order to be made. “I still can’t believe you’ve never had an Original,” Jace said, pulling up a seat across from me.

“I’m from the West coast,” I said, answering his disbelief with a shrug. “We have Pike’s, which is prime eating grounds. And mostly locally run bakeries and restaurants.” Still, I had to admit, the food did smell pretty amazing; I only hoped it tasted half as good because I was starving.

“No major chain food stores?” he asked, his mouth hanging open, as if he were appalled at the idea of not being able to eat at a McDonald’s or a Burger King.

I laughed. “Of course there are major food chains. Just hardly anyone eats at them, unless they’re in a hurry. And really, once you’ve had real Seattle food, fast food is just... disgusting.”

Growing up in the Northwest meant that I’d always been a bit of a food snob and I rarely ate anything outside of my usual cafeteria salad. Unfortunately, Jace didn’t share my love for green food.

“Banish the thought!” he said, waving his hand in the air.

“What? I’m being serious. You haven’t had real food until you’ve been to the Athenian or the local fish market.”

“The Athenian...” His brow creased in deep thought. “Isn’t that the place in that movie? The one with Tom Hanks?”

“Sleepless in Seattle.” I nodded. “The same.”

“Then it’s official. I’m buying you dinner there.”

I was going to tell him that we wouldn’t have time for touristy stuff, that I probably wouldn’t be heading to Pike’s that week, or anywhere else, for that matter, but our order number was called and he stood to go and grab it before I had the chance.

I felt awful that he had come along—to a place that he’d apparently wanted to visit for a long time—and his entire time there would be spent inside a hospital. But what else was I going to do? I couldn’t leave my brother, my parents, my other siblings, not when they needed me and I needed them.

Maybe he could go and see some of the city on his own, at least the areas nearby where he could hopefully find his way back on his own. If he refused to go—which I pretty much guessed he would—I could make some sort of a plea for food, something that you couldn’t get at the hospital. Pike’s wasn’t far; I could even ask him to go there. Everyone deserved the Market experience their first time in Seattle.

When Jace returned with our food, I decided it would be best to lay it all out there, let him know what he was getting himself into. I just had to find a way to tell him without breaking down. “So... “ I stared at my food and busied my hands with unfolding my napkin; the distraction would hopefully help with curbing the emotion that rested just below the surface. “Things are really bad. Like, ICU bad. And I don’t know how long I’ll be here, or if I’ll even get to leave the hospital.”

For the longest time, Jace didn’t say a word. I wondered if he was starting to regret coming along, if maybe he’d thought this would be like a mini vacation, a situation that was serious enough to come home for, but not one big enough to take up an entire week of your life. But then he reached across the table and settled my hand, a hand that I’d lost control over because I was apparently shredding the napkin up on the table.