He'll Be Waiting

HE’LL

BE WAITING

Liz Alterman

Table of Contents

Title Page

HE’LL | BE WAITING

The Secrets We Keep From Ourselves

Incommunicado

James

Be Still

Circling the Drain

First Person, Present Tense

Diary

My New Bestie

A Life-saver

James

Nick

This Is How It Ends

A Fresh Start

A Job to Do

Walking Through It

Bathroom Surprises

James

Train in Vain

The Real Nick Lawrence

James

No Words

Holes

Moving On

Annie Banks

Safe Spaces

Together

Breaking News

Rehab

New Year, New You

New Year, New Address

Back to School

Spring Break

This Is How It Ends

Emptying my shoe

Acknowledgements:

HE’LL

BE WAITING

THIS BOOK IS A WORK of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2021 Liz Alterman

Cover Design by Suzanne Johnson

Author image by Gracemarie Photography

Between the Lines Publishing and its imprints supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact info@btwnthelines.com.

Willow River Press

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First Published: April 2021

Willow River Press is an imprint of Between the Lines Publishing.

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The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-950502-38-7 (paperback)

Printed in the United States

For Rich, Sam, Ben, Charlie, and Jag, of course

The Secrets We Keep From Ourselves

December 18

Ican handle the broken bones, the bruises, the bald patches—all of it. But there’s one thing that’s bothering me more than absolutely everything else combined: I can’t remember the last time I saw James.

We’d had plans for the night I ended up here, in this hospital bed, in a trauma center, miles from my home in the middle of a snowstorm. Big plans. That was two days ago.

I woke up this afternoon feeling as if I’d been trampled by circus elephants, with no idea where I was and no memory of seeing him. No clue what happened on the night I’d been looking forward to for nearly four months.

It’s crazy. And terrifying.

At first, I hoped I was trapped in one of those dreams where you try your hardest to wake up by telling yourself you’re still asleep and everything is fine. Everything seemed so bizarre and unfamiliar. I was sure I’d roll over in my bed, James beside me, as I’d planned, plastic glow-in-the-dark stars arranged in madcap constellations on my ceiling. I tried to speak, scream, and jolt myself awake, but I could only gasp.

The moment I lifted my right arm— the one not in a cast—to touch my head, because, honestly, that hurt the absolute worst, Mom shrieked, Tess, don’t! and rushed over. When she lowered my hand back down to the bed, I felt it, and I had a terrible thought: I’m not dreaming. This is real.

I turned from her and toward the window. It was dark outside. I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection and shut my eyes.

Bandages cover most of my head. I look like a last-minute Halloween zombie costume. Too bad that holiday’s long over. It’s the week before Christmas and, at seventeen, I’m too old to trick-or-treat anyway. Still, I can’t help feeling like I’m starring in my own personal horror show.

When I first opened my eyes, I saw Mom and Dad pacing opposite sides of the hospital bed, a weird, worried march that I assumed was somehow part of my nightmare.

What is this? What’s happening? I blinked a dozen times as if that would change the scenery.

Oh, Tess! Thank God you’re awake, Mom said after making sure I didn’t mess with my bandages. It’s all going to be okay, honey. We’re right here.

She squeezed my right hand in hers. I had the oddest reaction. Complete revulsion. If forming each sentence didn’t feel as impossible as suddenly speaking fluent Mandarin, I’d have said, Leave me alone. Where did that come from?

I tried to move my left leg. Bundled in a giant white plaster cast, it matched my left arm. Even something as simple as attempting to wiggle my toes sent sharp needles shooting through my body.

You’re in the hospital, Tess. She paused and turned toward Dad as if for guidance or confirmation that she should keep talking. He looked at me, his eyes wet and red-rimmed as a basset hound’s. Mom kept staring at him as if willing him to speak. He didn’t.

There’s been an accident... a bad accident, she said. Deep lines formed a tiny number eleven, creasing the spot between her eyes. You don’t remember?

I shook my head, causing a throbbing, stabbing pain between my ears.

What accident? What happened to me? Panic rose in my chest. I wanted to scream, but my words came out like a whimper as I grew more anxious by the moment.

Dad’s eyes finally met Mom’s, and I saw a flash of anger in them before he turned back to me.

We’re still piecing it together, he said in the tone he uses when he tries not to lose his patience. After a hint of a sad, lips-together smile, he added, The main thing is, Tess, in time, you’re going to be all right.

Piecing what together? What happened? Why were they making me repeat myself when I was already so weak and exhausted from searching my mind for memories, images of what could’ve landed me here like Humpty Dumpty after the fall. Where’s James? Is he here, too? What’s going on? Just tell me!

With each passing second, I felt myself spiraling downward, morphing into a madwoman, a feral cat. If I had the strength, I’d try to make a run for it but with a broken leg, how far could I get?

Ah, I thought I heard some chatting going on in here.

A woman appeared in the doorway wearing a crisp blouse as white as her hair and a red pleated skirt. I don’t know how long she’d been standing there. Gold bangle bracelets jingled on each wrist. Their gentle clink clink clink grew louder as she walked toward me.

I’m Lydia, the psychologist assigned to your case. She extended her hand—clink clink clink.

I have a case? I stared at her, wishing she’d explain everything without me having to ask.

Again, Mom looked at Dad. She opened and closed her mouth.

What am I doing here? I asked, wanting to believe that this woman, a total stranger, might hold the key that would unlock my memory simply because she wore a hospital badge and carried an official-looking folder.

Well, Tess... May I call you Tess? She smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling like her skirt pleats.

I nodded, and the throbbing returned.

You’ve suffered an event that’s left you with some significant fractures and, from what I just overheard and from what your doctors suspect, you’ve most likely sustained a traumatic brain injury as well, she continued. Do you know what that is?

She stared at me, waiting for my response, her eyes as turquoise as the Caribbean. I pictured my friends and classmates, their vacation photos peppering my Instagram feed. Shots of them leaping into the sea, huge smiles, arms, and legs flung far out like starfish. James’ eyes are a much darker blue. Almost navy. Like the ocean, bottomless, with a strong current that pulls you in deeper until you’re swimming inside them and never want to be anywhere else.

I thought about James’ face. The dimple in his chin. Those eyes, the ones I picture when I can’t fall asleep. The left has a tiny black freckle near the very bottom of the blue outer ring. I could hear his voice, the way he smiles and says, That’s funny, but doesn’t actually laugh at a joke. I wondered where he was, what he was doing. This has become my default pastime since he left for college. Lost in thought, I didn’t realize Lydia was still expecting an answer.

Tess? Do you know what a traumatic brain injury is? she repeated. Can you recall what happened to you?

No, and no. I shook my head gently to avoid the throbbing.

Well, sometimes when a situation is particularly jarring or painful, our mind plays a little trick on us by withholding information. It’s sort of like a secret your brain decides to keep, to hold back, because it thinks you’re not ready to recall it. I believe that’s what you may be experiencing.

How is that possible? How could I lose or block out a whole chunk of time? I've been thinking about her words, trying to force them to make sense, for the past few minutes—minutes that crawl by like hours—while she and Mom and Dad stare at me with what? Pity? Concern? Fear? I scroll through the things I can remember, calling up scenes like I'm flicking past photos on my phone’s camera roll. Images from both the distant and recent past are still there—birthdays, crabbing with my grandfather during summer vacations, the ending of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I know we have a velvety black cat named Daffy, who has a love-hate relationship with our Roomba. All of that’s stored as it’s always been. It’s the events of a single night that I need to get back. That, and I want to know where James is. Did he get home from school okay? Why isn’t he here with me?

Lydia—is that her name?—looks at Mom and Dad, then back to me, offering us all another forced smile.

I know at the moment it’s all very frightening, Tess. You’ve suffered a shock. But I’m sure many, if not all, of your memories will return to you in time when your mind and body are ready. We’re going to work together—all of us—to make sense of this.

She places her hand on my good arm, clink clink clink, and motions for Mom and Dad to step out into the hallway with her.

Be right back, Mom says. Her hand shakes as she brings it to her mouth to blow me a kiss.

I watch them from my bed. Heads bent toward one another, necks craning, whispering. What were they saying? Something about me, obviously. I hear my name murmured. What are they keeping from me? And what are the secrets I’m hiding from myself?

We’re going to work together... That’s what Lydia said.

That sounds nice in theory, but the overwhelming feeling I can’t seem to shake is that, from here on out, I’m on my own.

Incommunicado

The squiggly black lines in the ceiling tiles begin moving as the cocktail of medication they’re giving me kicks in. It’s pretty crazy that throughout your entire childhood people tell you not to do drugs, then you break a bunch of bones, and they stuff you full of Oxy like you’re a pharmaceutical company’s piñata.

Every time I open my eyes now someone is standing there with a small paper cup full of pills asking me to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten. Um, look at me. It’s a solid one hundred and eleven, but I only feel it in the lull between when one medication wears off and the next starts swimming through my bloodstream. I’m also flying high on the liquid that slowly drip-drip-drips into me through the IV, which I’m told I keep trying to pull out while I sleep. The skin around where it enters my vein looks like a bad tie-dyed t-shirt, an ugly swirl of blue, purple, and yellow. Who knew you could bruise so fast? Normally, this would bother me. I’m squeamish. Just add it to my pile of hideous injuries.

I scan the tiny room for my phone, for the case I’d made, a collage of James and me licking ice cream cones, a selfie of my best friend Izzy and me attempting to kayak, and Daffy, of course, standing defiantly on the keyboard of my laptop.

Mom sits in a recliner at the edge of my bed, hunched over, her face hidden by her hands. The folding chair is empty.

Where’s Dad? Where’s my phone?

When Mom hears my voice, her head whips up as if I’ve startled her, as if she’s forgotten I’m there. She’s been like this—distracted, in her own world—a lot over these last few months, pretty much ever since her friend and colleague Mr. Miller died in a freak accident not far from our house.

She rushes over to feel my forehead, first with her fingertips, then with the back of her hand, a move I remember from my childhood each time she’d worry I’d brought home a stomach bug from school.

I’m sorry, Tess. You’re not allowed to look at screens because of your concussion, she says. She’s back from her meeting with Lydia. I want to ask what they talked about, but I’m too tired, and I don’t know if I can handle any more bad news. Give your brain a chance to heal.

I’m totally fine, I lie. Everything aches and my head feels as if someone’s hammering at my temples from inside. I run my tongue along my teeth to make sure they’re all still there. They are. Thank God. Imagine three years of orthodontia appointments and all that pain for nothing. Izzy got a front tooth knocked out last spring playing lacrosse, and FYI, it’s not a good look. She removes it sometimes to freak people out. She’s crazy like that.

But this being without a phone, well, that’s a whole other level of discomfort. It’s like I’ve lost a limb. That’s a messed-up thing to say, but my life is in there. I don’t see how a phone could do any more damage. Yes, my body is banged up, and there’s a black hole hanging out in my memory bank, but other than that, my mind is still there. At least I think it is. Plus, I’m positive a photo, a text, maybe a single Instagram story would spark something and bring me the smallest bit of clarity about Saturday night.

Please. I need it. I won’t look at the screens. I want to call James and see when he can visit.

Even if something happened with his ride home from Chicago and he got in late or missed our date completely. I’m sure he’s visited me here in this ugly, too-bright room that looks like the inside of a refrigerator—where the beeping monitors and buzzing machines create their own never-ending soundtrack, a symphony for the sick. Yet, as hard as I try, I can’t play any of it back in my mind, can’t picture James standing in this room, can’t recall him holding my hand, or brushing the hair away from my face the way he always does.

It’s brutally unfair. All the things I wish I could forget—the failed math tests, the days picked last in gym, the way Izzy looked right past me Friday at school. They’re all still there.

Oh, honey, you don’t need visitors. You need rest. Mom frowns.

If it weren’t for all these drugs making me feel like I’m trying to communicate while trapped inside something sticky and gauzy as cotton candy, I’d have screamed, James isn’t some random ‘visitor,’ he’s my boyfriend!

Though it’s been almost a year, I still get this weird little electric shock-like feeling saying it. Boyfriend. It’s a mix of excitement and embarrassment. Like embarrassment over how excited I am to actually have a boyfriend, and that’s followed by straight up mortification because there’s something so inherently cheesy about saying my boyfriend aloud. But then there’s the exhilaration again because James is the best. The G.O.A.T (Greatest of All-Time), as Izzy likes to say. Every superlative, he’s it. That’s why I expect him to rush in at any moment with a caramel macchiato (my favorite), and tell me a great story, filled with gestures and spot-on voice imitations.

James can talk about current affairs or explain poetry without sounding like some try-hard know-it-all. He taught me to use chopsticks and convinced me that black-and-white movies weren’t totally lame. Something as basic as standing beside him fills me with pure joy, like when you find money in the pocket of your jeans or you hear your favorite song on the car radio, and suddenly your whole day feels better, brighter. The thought of seeing him, being with him for the holidays, spending every day of his three-week break together; it’s the only thing that’s gotten me through the past few months of sheer college application hell and the stress of dealing with Mom and Dad.

And I know it makes me seem demanding and selfish and sort of pathetic to wish he would drop everything and sit by my bedside when he’s only just gotten home from school, and it’s days before Christmas. But, yeah, that’s what I want—more than anything.

I don’t even care what I look like. No one will give me a mirror until the swelling and the bruising go down, but my reflection in the window is enough to let me know my selfie days are over.

Oh, honey, your hair! Mom groaned earlier as a nurse did her best to gently prop me up, revealing where my head had been shaved, before putting the icy cold stethoscope through the opening in the back of my mint chocolate chip-colored hospital gown.

Don’t worry, it’ll grow back. Well, not the part where the staples are, but the rest of it, the nurse tried to assure us. Big breath in, big breath out.

Mom stood over me, hand covering her mouth, the way she looked that time she spotted a mouse in the pantry.

I’ve always adored your hair, she said sadly.

That was ironic. Hers had been exactly like mine when she was a teenager. Reddish-brown. The color of rust, I guess you could say. Wavy and long. When she was in her twenties, she cut it to shorter—then to her shoulder, now to a chin-length bob—and dyed it blonde.

What I’m getting at is this: She had it—the exact same hair. If she adored it that much, why did she change it? Chalk it up to the mysteries of Mom, which, over the past few months, have become too many to count.

Normally, I would never want James to see me like this. I’d be too embarrassed that I haven’t showered. My teeth feel coated in slime, my tongue thick as if covered in moss from lack of use. I think of Izzy.

I have the breath of a billy goat, she loves to say after eating a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos or a half-dozen garlic knots.

I know what she means. But I don’t care. At all. I suppose when you’re lonely and desperate vanity takes a backseat.

I want to ask Mom what she and Lydia talked about in the hallway. Like, why do I need a psychologist? When can I go home? Where’s Dad? And, most importantly, why isn’t James here?

I can see all the words floating in a field out in front of me. I need to collect them quickly, like a kid filling an Easter basket. There’s so much I want to say, but when I open my mouth, the medication wraps me a thick fog, and my thoughts disappear in the mist.

James

H ey, sleepyhead!

James strokes the side of my face with his fingers lightly before leaning in to kiss me. A gentle kiss that barely brushes my lips, like I’m breakable.

I knew he’d come.

Hey, I repeat.

My heart cartwheels inside my chest and a sleeve of goosebumps covers my exposed arm. I feel tingly, alive, for the first time in days. I pull him toward me and bury my face in his neck. I don’t care that I look like a monster and probably smell like a dozen old people; he’s here. I could cry with relief. He’s wearing the navy pea coat I got him for Christmas, but the disappointing thing is, I don’t remember giving it to him. Did he love it? Did I tell him I hoped it would keep him warm through the rest of the freezing Chicago winter because I couldn’t be there to do it since I’m stuck eight hundred miles away in New Jersey? 

I’d saved up my babysitting money, and Izzy’s sister, Becca, who works part-time at the Gap, used her discount to get it for me. It was expensive, but totally worth it. He looks amazing in it, like I knew he would.

I try to inhale the clean, crisp scent of him, store it up so I can savor it after he’s gone. James usually smells like Irish Spring soap with a hint of vanilla, but this time all I’m getting is the chill of winter, as if the snow followed him in and wove itself deep inside the fibers of his coat.

Looking over his shoulder, I see it’s dark outside. Light snowflakes continue to fall. Is it night? I’m thrilled to be alone with James, but where is everyone else? The rest of the floor seems to be asleep. The lights in the hall are dim. No nurses barge in. The beeps and buzzing seem softer, hushed.

I’ve missed you so much. Before I can stop myself, I’m crying.

I’ve missed you, too, he whispers in my ear.

I pull back to stare at him and drink in the face I've been missing for months. His eyes still totally melt me, but they’re less sparkly than usual. Purple half-moons hang beneath them. He looks exhausted. The past two weeks, he’s been so busy with finals, papers, wrapping up work at his internship, we’ve barely spoken. We’d been texting or FaceTiming right before bed. At least, bedtime for me. He was forced to pull a few all-nighters, he’d said, warning me not to be scared if he looked like Jack Nicholson in The Shining by the time he made it home.

It’s so good to see you. You’re a sight for sore eyes—literally. I hesitate because I always have to stop to think if I’m using literally right when I talk to him. Given the state of me and my sore, sore everything, it works.

He smiles, and I want to ask him a thousand questions: Where he’s been? Does he know what happened to me? When can I go home? But I’m so tired and happy to have him beside me—finally—nothing else matters.

I’m sorry I’ve messed up all our plans, I say as he dabs my salty tears with a tissue before they burn my scraped and scabby cheeks.

We were supposed to take Emmett, James’ brother, ice skating on the pond behind their condo. Emmett likes to go in the dark, after dinner, always the same routine. James sets up a Bluetooth speaker and creates a playlist of whatever songs Emmett is into at the moment. We make cool and crazy shadows in the moonlight as we fly around the ice. Free. Like we’re the only people on the planet.

James and I had plans to go to New York City, maybe check out the tree at Rockefeller Center, walk the High Line, though we knew we’d freeze from the wind blowing off the Hudson River. We wanted to visit a bookstore near Union Square, get dim sum in Chinatown. No chance of that, now. Though honestly, I didn’t really care what we did. I’d be happy to sit in a closet with James. That would be better than being stuck to a hospital bed with broken limbs and a messed-up memory.

I’ve ruined everything. I rest my head on his shoulder.

Shh... Don’t, Tess. Save your strength, he says. Look what I brought you.

He pulls the meal tray toward me. Sunflowers fill a mason jar like a bouquet of smiling faces.

My favorite!

I know, he says. And, check it out. This, too.

He hands me a warm cappuccino. The scent alone is magical. I take a long sip, hoping a hit of caffeine will help me think more clearly or at least stay awake for longer than ten minutes at a time.

I had to smuggle it in. He raises his eyebrows, mocking himself. James is a total rule follower, so this is a big deal.

Thank you! I can’t stop smiling even as my cheeks ache.

I’m so sorry, Tess, but I have to go—

No! I whine. You just got here, and I haven’t seen you in so long.

Desperation is more unattractive than spinach in the teeth, Izzy always reminds me. It’s been scientifically proven.

I don’t care. I’m lonely and scared. And I haven’t seen James since he left for college in late August.

Can you come back tomorrow? Can you stay all day? I love you, I ramble, whisper-pleading. I’m usually not this needy, but I can’t seem to stop myself.

I was actually here for a while, but you were asleep, and I didn’t want to wake you. I’ll be back. I promise.

He kisses me goodbye so softly I can barely feel it and gets up to leave. Standing in the doorway, he waves to me. Backlit from the monitors' glow at the nurses' station, he looks taller than I remember. Watching him walk out is by far the worst pain I’ve felt so far.

Be Still

December 19

Y ou gave us quite a scare last night, young lady!

One of the many nurses who stops in to check on me and feed me more pills says this as she shoves a thermometer in my mouth. Phyllis. I read her name on the ID badge dangling from a lanyard that