CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The fluorescent lights of the emergency room cast a greenish-yellow glow, the color of an illness. Exhaustion and fear battle for supremacy inside me.
Flynn is taken into immediate surgery. An ER doctor bandages my arm and feet, and tends to my various cuts and scrapes. I give a statement to the police and answer their barrage of questions. William regains consciousness and is kept in a guarded room.
An attendant asks me to fill out a form for Flynn, but I don’t know any of the information except for his name. I’m not even sure I know that anymore. Is Flynn Alverton his real name? Has he been lying about everything?
Murder? Twin brother?
I’m not about to believe the truth of the accusation, especially coming from William King, but part of my brain burns with recognition.
The boy Westley and his lost reflection. Flynn and “someone else” exchanging roles as Captain Hook in a school production of Peter Pan. His reaction to my remark about Rumpelstiltskin, who tears himself into two pieces at the end of the story. The photo of his grandfather and a boy who might or might not have been Flynn.
He’s a twin. He lost his twin.
A deep, dark pain spreads through my heart.
After a three-hour surgery, he’s brought into the ICU. I’m allowed to see him after he comes out of the anesthesia. Though I’ve been numb for hours, the instant I walk into the room, everything inside me crumples.
Flynn.
It’s impossible for me to believe this is him. My impenetrable, stern lighthouse keeper. My mysterious crush. My hot fantasy. My beloved lover. My secret thief.
I approach the bed and brush my fingers over his arm. An oxygen mask covers his face. Tubes snake from his body to various machines. His eyes are bloodshot and heavy, his breathing still shallow.
“The doctor said you’ll be okay. They’re going to watch you closely for the next few days, but the knife missed any major organs. Now you need to heal.”
He shifts, frustration rising to his eyes. I lift the oxygen mask covering his mouth.
“You…?” His voice is barely audible.
“I’m fine. They have William in a guarded room, and the police will get your statement when you’re able to talk.”
He closes his eyes. A breath escapes him, like a sigh of defeat.
The next day passes in a blur. William is taken into custody, and the knife is recovered as evidence. Flynn had found me after arriving at the house and seeing the back door open. He’d followed the tracks into the forest, where my discarded shoes had marked the path.
The city council meeting was cancelled due to “extenuating circumstances” and will be rescheduled at a later date. My phone buzzes with calls and texts. I ignore them. I spend the day keeping vigil at Flynn’s bedside before returning home to feed Ghost and try to sleep.
At night, I sit in bed with a stack of Riley Flynn books, re-reading and studying them with near obsession. I pick out the clues and riddles, make my way through the mazes as if somehow they’ll lead me through the path of Flynn’s heart. Through all his untold secrets.
It’s all there, woven into the story and illustrations. The complicated mazes with their twists and turns, the narrow passageways and dead-ends. The single exit. The boy who never finds his reflection. The undersea worlds and icy landscapes. The mirror images.
I run my hand over the glossy picture of an underwater castle, laden with sea plants and coral. I trace the exterior of a seashell attached to the castle door. The spirals and whorls decorating the shell are so delicate and thin they might have been painted with a brush composed of a single bristle. I follow a shape that looks like the letter A.
I stop. Peer more closely at the shell. The A is attached to another swirl-like shape resembling an L.
My heart thumps. I sit back and stare at the picture. It’s entirely possible I’m seeing something that isn’t there. But no. That’s definitely the letter L.
I fumble in the nightstand for an old magnifying glass. I turn the open pages to the light and peer at the shell through the glass.
I… am… afraid…
My breath catches. I trace the letters all the way to the tip of the shell.
I will… always be… alone.
I straighten, suddenly feeling as if I’m poised on the edge of a momentous discovery. I run the magnifying glass over the page, my eye catching lines, loops, and coils that only take the shape of letters upon very close scrutiny.
I wish I fit in.
I liked being a bully.
What I did was so wrong.
Secrets from the wall, concealed in the elaborate, whimsical illustrations of Riley Flynn’s books.
When I return to the hospital in the morning, Flynn is awake. Dark circles ring his eyes, and heavy stubble coats his jaw. I stop beside the bed and touch his arm.
“Hi, Sleeping Handsome.”
A faint smile twitches his mouth. He lifts a hand to take off the oxygen mask.
“How do you feel?” I ask. “Do you need a nurse?”
He shakes his head and struggles to sit up. I adjust the pillows behind him and pour him a cup of water.
“You’re still here,” he whispers.
“I’m still here.”
His expression darkens. “Eve, I…”
“Tell me later.”
“No, I…”
“Flynn.” I squeeze his hand. “Later.”
Though I’m delaying the inevitable, part of me doesn’t want to know what he’s going to say.