Everything I wanted to tell her, to ask her, sprinted across my brain. Every demand for information about her condition. Every condemnation for not telling me. Every whisper of thanks for what she brought to my life. Every hope and fear that consumed me, because I already knew she was my only possible future. Instead, I lowered the side railing of her bed and laid my head next to her hip so I could still see her as she struggled to open her eyes. “I love you. You’re my entire world.”
A weak smile floated across her face as she feathered her hand into my hair. “Thank goodness, because you’re my universe.” Her words slurred, and her eyelids drooped. “I love you, Jagger. Don’t leave? Stay with me?” Her voice trailed off as she lost the battle with sleep, her breath evening out.
“Always.” I glanced at the clock, knowing I needed to go—this week was going to be a bitch with tests and final check rides—and knowing I wouldn’t. I couldn’t take leave right now, not without failing primary, so I’d have to deal with the sleep deprivation.
It was six forty-five a.m. when I pulled myself away from her. I’d spent the night in and out of her room, leaving at intervals forced by Nurse Ratched. Grayson had nailed the hospital kit, so I got ready in her bathroom and headed out, kissing her forehead. Thankfully, no one had stolen my boots, so I made it to the flight line on time, but I was off my game, even with an energy shot. Not enough to crash us, but enough for my IP to shake his head. Carter tried to cover for me when I missed more than half the answers. But I made it through the morning, even with Paisley consuming nearly every thought.
By the afternoon, my mind was fuzzy, and I’d had enough caffeine to jump-start a racehorse. I tapped my pencil on the desk, mentally counting down the minutes until I could get back to the hospital.
Then I took out Paisley’s bucket list and read over some of the boxes we hadn’t checked off yet, trying to think of ways to make them happen for her. Some of them were so unlike her that I had to wonder how well I really thought I knew her. Go surfing—when she could barely swim?
“How are you doing?” Carter asked. I wanted to punch him a little less today. Either he was growing on me, or I was too exhausted for hate.
“Thanks. Surviving.”
“It’s a lot to take in.” His eyes dropped to the paper. “Her list?”
“Yeah. Some of it just…I don’t know. They’re all amazing, wild things to do, but it’s like she tried to pick the craziest, most dangerous things, and honestly, I don’t think she’d enjoy doing half this shit. And get a belly-button ring is marked off, but I know she doesn’t have one.”
“Belly-button ring?” He reached for the list, but paused, looking at me for permission.
I nodded and handed it over. “Make a name for herself at West Point? What the hell is that even supposed to mean? I know she’s hell-bent on getting all these done, but it doesn’t even feel like her.”
Carter’s face drained of color as he scanned down the paper. “Why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t she tell me? God, Paisley. She never meant for this.”
Chills erupted on my arms.
“All right, boys and girls, it’s test time,” our instructor said, closing the door behind him and passing stacks of tests down the aisles.
“What do you mean?” I asked Carter.
“It’s not her list—not her handwriting, and those green marks? You’re right, she didn’t do those. The belly-button ring, the skinny-dipping, the mechanical bull…I was there for all of it that summer, but…not with her. I never even knew she’d made something like this.” He dropped the paper on my desk like it had burned him. “Paisley’s finishing Peyton’s list—the one that got her killed.”
The test hit my desk as my stomach hit the floor.
Chapter Thirty
Paisley
19. Think of someone else’s needs first.
Mama flipped the page of her Southern Living magazine and sighed for the twentieth time in the last hour. When I didn’t respond, she tried another tactic. “What are you reading?”
“Not much.” Everything. When I’d first Googled “Jagger Bateman,” nothing had come up but hockey scores and highlights. But when I entered “Prescott Mansfield”? A whole world opened up.
I needed to keep my mind off Will’s phone call. The one that told me to be kind to Jagger because he’d bombed his flight today and scored a zero on the test this afternoon. He’d failed. Because of me. I’d become the one thing he’d tried to avoid—the worst kind of distraction. He’d be able to bounce back, I was sure of it. But not when I was dragging him down.
“Well, it must be interesting. You’ve had your head in that thing all day, and that’s saying something seeing as it’s going on supper time.” She flipped another page.
“Why don’t you head home? There’s nothing you can do here, Mama.” I finished another story, this one speculation on where Prescott and Anna Mansfield really were, directly questioning Senator Mansfield’s request for privacy so his children could live free of the public eye.
She peered over at me with a look that withered lesser women. “Oh, no. I’m sitting right here. There’s no chance I’m headed home to that sea of piranhas.”
I gave up, powering off the tablet. My left thumb hovered over the little pain clicker, and I wished it made my mother disappear as easily as the pain in my ribs from the break. “I’m sure it’s perfectly fine. No one is out to eat you up.”