Chapter Sixteen
Maybe this was the reason I came back from the great beyond—to feel Carla’s lips on mine and see that look in her eyes once more. The look that said I’m still in love with you.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, taking hold of my hand over the side of the bedrail.
“Good,” I replied. “Better.”
She squeezed my hand tighter. “We were so worried about you. I want you to know that I was here every day. Kaleigh made you a card. Did you see it?”
I shook my head, so she went to retrieve it from the windowsill where it stood next to the flowers brought in by the carjacking victim.
Carla handed me the card. It was made of light blue construction paper. On the front it said Get Well Soon over an image of a sailboat against a sunset, which Kaleigh must have painted herself.
With great care, I opened it and read the note inside:
Dear Josh,
Please come back to us.
Love Kaleigh
For a long moment I stared at the words, hand-printed in navy blue ink, and wondered what she meant by that. Was she trying to tell me she wanted me back in their lives? Or was she referring to my coma?
When Carla and I began dating, Kaleigh was a somewhat prickly thirteen-year-old, and I never really felt as if she’d welcomed me as a potential stepfather. Whenever I came by to visit, she’d disappear into her room to practice her guitar.
So, what was this? Could I dare to hope that she might feel differently now because of what happened to me? Or that Carla might feel differently?
“This is nice,” I said, closing the card and lifting my eyes. “Tell her thank you.”
Carla took hold of my hand again, stroked the pad of her thumb over my knuckles. “I couldn’t believe it when Marie called and told me what happened to you. Then I saw it on the news, and I just felt…”
Her voice broke. She wasn’t able to continue.
“You felt what?” I pressed.
Guilt? Regret?
Love?
Carla shook her head as if to clear it. “I don’t know. I just wished our last conversation hadn’t ended the way it did. I hate the way we parted, with so much anger.”
“I was the angry one. Not you.”
“But you had every right to feel that way,” she said, “and that’s not how I wanted it to be. Over the past few days, I couldn’t bear to think about how I walked out on you, just leaving things like that, without working it out.”
“There was nothing to work out,” I firmly said. “You came to tell me you wanted to be with another man and that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. It still isn’t.”
Her eyes fell closed, and she reached for a chair to pull closer to the side of the bed. “I’m so sorry, Josh. If only you knew how hard this has been for me.”
All I could do was stare at her.
“It’s not that I don’t care for you,” she continued. “I do. You’re an amazing man, and that’s what made this so difficult. I loved what we had together, but there was just something…” She paused. “Something was missing.”
So there it was. She hadn’t changed her mind after all.
Her words stirred a new cloud of anger in me. Hadn’t we already been through this?
“I don’t know what you mean by that exactly,” I said, “because there was nothing missing for me. But either way, I’m not in the mood to get dumped again, Carla.”
She covered her forehead with a hand and sighed. “Oh, I’m so stupid. I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.”
For a moment I watched her shake her head and knew she was mentally punishing herself. Then I thought about Brooke, my other ex-girlfriend who had cheated on me with my best friend. She was a woman I had not been able to forgive. Now here sat Carla who left me for another man she believed was her soul mate—a man who gave her something I couldn’t.
Something mystifying. Something she couldn’t explain.
This frustrated me to no end.
“There’s no need to apologize,” I said nonetheless. “I appreciate you coming. It means a lot.”
Her watery eyes lifted. “If only you knew how much we prayed for you. Constantly. We didn’t want you to die.”
I let my head fall back against the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. “Thanks. That’s something.”
But when I thought about the place I had visited when I flatlined—how peaceful I felt there, especially in the memories…sitting in the rocking chair as a boy, holding the baby, looking up at Leah—I wasn’t convinced all those prayers had done me any favors.
Why in the world had I come back? I don’t recall making that decision. At least not consciously. Someone must have hit me over the head with a frying pan and pushed me.
Part of me wanted to go back there…to that incredible feeling of perfection. It seemed as if everything was about to become clear to me in that moment when Leah smiled at me, just before I felt the massive jolt.
I was suddenly wracked with confusion and turned my head on the pillow to meet Carla’s gaze. “Are you sure about him?” I asked, referring to Aaron Cameron, the man she had chosen over me. “Is there any hope for us?”
Our eyes locked and held.
She shook her head.
My stomach turned over. All I could do was lie there and stare at her.
Eventually, I let out a deep breath. “I’m glad you came,” I said in a low voice, “and I hold no ill will. But it’s time for you to go now.”
Nothing happened for a moment. Then she rose from the chair. Her lips touched my cheek. I closed my eyes, savoring the sensation, imprinting it in my mind forever.
“I’m so glad you’re all right,” Carla whispered in my ear.
I simply nodded and watched her leave.