The Pact(104)

I’m tempted to interrupt her, to tell her I’m surprised she even knows she has children, but I let her continue. This is rare. This is very rare.

She folds up the sleeves of her sweater and goes on. “But if you feel like it’s in you and this accident, this horrible, horrible thing, hasn’t dissuaded you from your passion…well then your passion is meant for you. And we, nor anyone else, shouldn’t have any say in it.” She pats my hand. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but truly, we just want you to be happy.”

I think that’s as close to “I love you” as I’m going to get from her but it feels just the same.

“So,” she says, slowly getting to her feet. “Are you going to stay here? Or are you going back to San Francisco?”

I flinch, which makes my head hurt. “Why would I go back to San Francisco?”

“I thought that’s where you are most happy.”

I swallow. “I don’t know.” I can’t imagine going back and being happy without having Stephanie.

My mother peers at me for a moment with those strangely clear eyes. Then a tiny smile appears. “You know, your father says he finally met the girl.”

“The girl?”

“Stephanie,” she says, as if she’s been some huge event. “I hate to tell you how to live your life, Linden, though I’m sure you would disagree with that.” She laugh softly to herself. “But if you’re willing to go flying again, despite the crash, despite the risks, and put it all on the line…maybe you’re willing to do other things. Maybe helicopters and hearts aren’t so different.”

“Who are you?” I can’t help but ask. It looks like my mother but it sure isn’t acting like her, not the mother I’ve been around my whole entire life.

“I know, I know,” she says, patting my hand once more and heading for the door. “Sometimes it takes a lot to wake someone up.” She throws me a kind smile and then leaves the room.

I’m left wondering if she was referring to herself.

Or to me.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

LINDEN



I’m in the hospital for two weeks. Two fucking weeks of boredom, itchy skin, fluorescent lights, crabby nurses, terrible food. Two fucking weeks of pure hell.

But it gives me two fucking weeks to think. To think about James and what he told me. To think about what my mum – who started visiting me every day, sometimes drunk, but always kind – advised me.

Two whole weeks to think about Stephanie. To decide to move back to San Francisco. To get my old job back and get my two best friends back.

But mainly to get Stephanie back. Because there was no point in having a heart if I wasn’t going to use it properly. If I was willing to risk life and limb again to go back into the sky, even after everything that happened, surviving the worst case scenario, then there was no reason I couldn’t do the same for her, for us.

It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t feel the same way. It doesn’t matter if she no longer loves me, if she will never forgive me. It only matters that I try anyway. I’d risked it all before on her and I failed us. I won’t let that happen again.

And then of course, those two fucking weeks have brought me closer to my birthday. My thirty-first birthday.

It’s tomorrow. And that means I have one day before the whole pact is up.

I haven’t forgotten about it. It’s been on my mind this whole time. Sure, it’s silly semantics but to me it’s still very real. As long as we are both still single, as long as we are both still thirty, I’m going to marry that woman.

Or I’m at least going to try.

So even though I had plans to drive my shit across the country, once again it’s all in the back of a moving van, heading for San Francisco. This time though, I’ve got Bram driving it. He volunteered and I wasn’t about to turn him down. I think he’s been looking for an excuse to leave Manhattan and I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up settling down in San Francisco.

He wouldn’t be staying with me, of course. I managed to move back into my old place – it hadn’t even gotten one offer this whole time it’s been on the market. But if he does decide to stay in the city, I admit it would be nice. I’ve grown a lot closer with him the last few months. He’s not really as big of a douchebag as I’d thought. Maybe, just a small one, like a pocketdouche.

When I arrive at SFO, I’m not really sure what my game plan is. Sure, I’ve had a whole bloody flight to think about it but there were showing a bunch of good films I’d been wanting to see.

Now I’m hailing a cab. It doesn’t help that I have to use crutches because my leg is in a cast and I can’t really bend over because of my ribs and I can’t really use my arm too much. Luckily the cabbie is a nice fellow and he helps me out. I hate feeling so immobile.