Bulletproof

26. Tyler

Kissing Franny is a unique experience.

She's different from anyone I've ever known. The second her lips touched mine, I didn't want it to stop. I still want this to continue. I want to hold her and pretend as if everything isn't falling apart on the other side of the door. I want this empty hospital room to be all we need and all we should worry about.

For those few seconds, I felt like everything melted away. There was no pain or sadness or worry. There was just Franny. I pull my lips away from hers and sigh, clenching my eyes shut. She doesn't say anything and maybe that's because she understands—she knows why I can't go any further.

"Is your dad going to be okay?" I whisper against her shoulder.

"I hope so," she whispers back. "Just need to give him time."

And give her time. She doesn't say it, but I can already tell that it's running through her mind. She needs time to heal from this too, but unfortunately time is barely on our side anymore.

"Is Ethan going to be okay?" she asks, one hand on the back of my neck and the other on my shoulder.

"I don't know," I say honestly, "he was stabbed . . . lost a lot of blood."

"Do his parents know?" she asks.

My entire body tenses. Such a simple, mundane question. Simple things like this shouldn't be able to affect someone so badly. They shouldn't be able to hold that kind of power. Nothing should. Just a few words and someone could close in and collapse down on themselves.

"Janet knows," I say. "I called her in the ambulance."

"Janet?" She frowns.

"His mother." I laugh humorlessly. "Though she's hardly a good one."

"And his dad...?" she asks tentatively.

I pull my head away from her shoulder and catch her eyes. "Dead," I say. "But it's not my place to say how he got there."

She nods her head and her eyes stay focused on the floor for a long time. She does this a lot. Her eyes gloss over and I can almost see the gears turning in her head, ideas popping up and sentences connecting together. But sometimes the gears freeze and she flattens down and she begins to think herself out of things and down into a corner that she can't get out of.

I wrap my arms around her shoulders and pull her towards me. "Stop it."

"What?"

"I hate it when you do that. Your eyes gloss over and you get this faraway look on your face. You shut down—you shut me out. I can't stand it. Stop trying to think yourself out of things because you only end up thinking yourself away from me. And I need you, Franny, the idea of you disappearing terrifies me."

"I'm not going anywhere," she whispers.

"Physically, no," I say. "But mentally...you look like you're already gone."

She rolls her eyes. "Says the guy that practically had his tongue down my throat five minutes ago."

I grin a little. "That kiss was on a par with eighth graders who think it's gonna be cool to make out in a corner without knowing what to actually do."

"Are you saying our first kiss was like a weak fumble in a dirty corner?" Franny teases.

She's distracted me and changed the topic but I don't mind. For now, I'm okay with being dragged away from any thought as long as she's leading.

"Of course not." I move closer. "Our first kiss was full of fireworks and magic pixie dust and shit."

"Oh, shut up," she mumbles against my lips.

"But if you want tongue..." My bottom lip touches hers just as a muffled announcement comes over the P.A. system.

And in that split second, reality comes falling back down.

I push away abruptly, and Franny presses her back further against the wall.

"We should..." I tilt my head to the door.

"Yeah," Franny says, her eyes never meeting mine.

She heads towards the door, pushing it open and slowly slipping out. I follow a few seconds after and we walk back down the main hallway. I stop a few doors down from Ethan's room and stare longingly at the door. I must look like a fool.

I feel a hand on my arm and look over at Franny. She glances over to Ethan's door discreetly. "That his mom?" she asks.

I frown and look down the hallway. Sure enough, there she is. Standing on the opposite wall, arms over her chest and a perfectly practiced look of sadness on her face. There's a tissue in her hand but no tears have fallen on it. The thin paper is dry as a bone. I don't realize I'm glaring at her until Franny begins tugging my arm.

"Tyler," she says firmly. "Don't do anything you'll regret when he wakes up."

"If he wakes up," I say sharply, pulling my eyes away from the woman that claims to be Ethan's mother.

"He's in surgery. There's nothing we can do but wait," Franny says. "Would you . . . um, would you mind staying in my dad's room? Just for a little bit. Tally left and . . . well, now I'm just waiting for him to wake up. And it's kind of driving me insane to be honest."

She gives a short laugh, but it's broken, pain filling the cracks. I nod my head, putting my hand over hers on my arm. "It's okay," I say. "I'll stay with you."

I'm rewarded with a small smile. "Thank you."

Franny pulls her hands from mine and turns, walking down the hallway. I glance back at Ethan's mom. She looks up just in time to catch my eye. I shake my head and turn around, walking quickly to catch up to Franny.

***

Franny warned me before I walked in but even that wasn't enough to prep me. She's right. He looks dead. But I won't say it out loud. Not when it's the last thing she wants to hear. I already know she's thinking it herself—those gears are turning in her head again.

"How long has he been here?" I ask.

She shrugs. "Couple hours, I guess...haven't been counting."

"It'll get dark soon," I say. "You haven't got anywhere to stay."

She shrugs again. "I'll just stay here."

"You can't live in a hospital with no food and no bed. What if they don't let you stay over?"

"I'm eighteen," she says. "I've been staying home alone since I was ten. I'll be fine. I've got enough money for the bus to get home. Don't worry."

I scowl. "But you don't want to be alone."

"What I want doesn't really matter right now," she says and curls her feet under her body on the armchair. I'm sitting on the opposite side of her dad's bed, elbows on my knees.

"Franny..."

"Look, just leave it." She bites her lip. "I can always go to Tally's."

I finally nod, then rest my head on my fist, because I'm tired but also to block the view of her dad. Looking at him is making me feel sick. What if Ethan looks like that? Dead.

"You hungry?" I ask a little while later, breaking the long silence.

"Yeah, a little."

"I'm guessing you don't want to leave the hospital," I say and she gives me an apologetic look. "I'll grab you something from the cafeteria."

She smiles gratefully, and I get up, walking to the door and rubbing a hand along her shoulder as I go. But just before I make it, the door comes swinging open. I stumble back a step and watch a man walk in, his eyes going right to me.

He's tall, strangely tall, towering over me. He's lanky with long hair that falls into his face and shortly down the nape of his neck. His large nose is where my eyes go to first, but I quickly divert them.

"I'm guessing you're not Francesca," he muses then looks over at Franny, who stands up from her seat. "Francesca?"

She nods and he walks over, rummaging in his coat pocket before bringing something out to show her. "Detective Franks. I'm here to talk to you about your dad. Can I have a word outside?"

"Detective?" she asks. "I thought this would only need police."

"Well we're all under the same unit at the end of the day," Franks says. "But what's happened to your dad has happened before. We think it's part of a bigger thing and we're trying to find out who's at the top of the pyramid."

"It's happened before?" Franny asks.

"Last week," he says. "Same kind of thing. Now would you mind if I just asked you a few questions."

She nods and Franks looks back at me. "And who are you?"

"Tyler," I answer and glance over at Franny who widens her eyes and shakes her head. "I'm . . . just here for Franny. I'm her boyfriend."

Franks nods. "Alright. You mind leaving for a few minutes?"

"Sure," I say and glance over at Franny, who gives me a small smile.

I walk out the door calmly and shut it behind me before bolting down the hallway. I turn corner after corner until I make it back to the main hallway and back to Ethan's room. I slow to a jog and no longer see his mother by the wall. I frown and go closer just as someone walks out of Ethan's door. I falter then fall to a dead stop.

He steps out wearing a long coat that sways just past his knees. A black turtleneck conceals his skin and his dark eyes find mine in seconds. His thin lips turn up in dark amusement and he tilts his head down to me.

"I trust you got my message," Carl says and breathes in deeply through his nose. "Texts never seem to give the same impression as a good old handwritten note."

His smile turns into a long, stretched grin. I stand there like a statue. I want to hit him. I want to kill him.

"See you Saturday," Carl says quietly.

I watch as he walks away, clenching my fists to stop from running after him and beating him up. That won't do any good. Carl might not have the physical power to take me down, but he has his ways. He's more than capable of being a snake and worming his way through to me. Carl is careful and thinks every little thing through.

And now I just have to do the same.

- Ellie x