The Bulletproof Boy Read online

  Is this really happening?

  I stare down into her reddened, tear-filled eyes, and I see the anger and the hurt. I never should have misled her to think that I was dead. But I’m having trouble focusing on anything other than the utter elation of being near her again, in her presence. If thinking that I was dead led her to come find me, and brought her all the way out here, to the middle of nowhere—I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

  “I hate you,” she says again turning away from me so that I can no longer see the pain in her face. “How could you make me think you were gone?”

  Releasing her wrists, I let her hands fall to the grass. Her body is so limp, so weak, so defeated. I don’t think I have ever seen her this broken, and it’s my fault. I never wanted to break her. But I can’t deny being deeply moved by the fact that she walked all the way out here for me. It must mean she really still cares, right?

  I stare at her, hard. So hard. I drink in every curve and edge of her sad Victorian profile, her defiant, rebellious bloodshot eyes, and chapped lips that quiver slightly with vulnerability and emotion. Her face is food for my weary soul, and the sight of her nourishes me more than all the stars in the night sky.

  Forget what I said before. The whole damn galaxy can burn. I just want Scarlett.

  Letting my face fall forward so that my nose collides with her cheek, I draw in a deep, shuddering breath. I breathe her in. She is really here. For real. The tiny spark of joy inside me explodes into electricity that reaches every cell of my being. Tears seep from my eyes, bathing her skin.

  “I thought I’d never see you again,” I say to her honestly, as I inwardly scheme how to keep her from ever leaving. I can’t help it. I place my hand on her collarbone, just above her breast, feeling the soft skin that is nearly transparent. Her blue veins are visible under her skin here, which isn’t as sunburned due to the curtain of her hair.

  I feel Scarlett’s hand sliding up my arm, hesitantly. She seems to be searching for something. When her hand collides with my injured shoulder, she squeezes, and I wince, trying to hide the pain. Her other hand immediately reaches up to grasp my shirt and she digs her hands into my body and clothes, gripping me fiercely as she blinks tears away.

  “Cole, you didn’t have to be so fucking convincing. I wanted to die.”

  “What? No!” I pull her hands off my shoulder and hold her firmly, giving her a little shake. “You promised. You said you’d never…”

  “How did you expect me to feel?!” she screams, and her words come out in a jumble of gasps. “The morgue—detective—Miranda was crying.”

  “I probably felt the same when I found out you were getting married.”

  “What?” she asks in confusion, lying back in the grass and blinking slowly. “To who?”

  It suddenly occurs to me from the dizzy look on her face that she might have a mild case of sun stroke. I know that I need to run into my Nova to retrieve a bottle of water for her, but it’s difficult to pull myself away. I feel her neck and her face and I curse softly. I am afraid that if I get up or step away, I will turn back and she will be gone. She will have melted into the grass and disappeared forever, and I will go crazy and die alone out here, wandering the desert forever and pulling my hair out like a madman.

  “Just wait a sec, okay, Scar?” I squeeze her hands and kiss her forehead before running to the Nova and grabbing a bottle of water. When I come back outside, I am frightened to see that her eyes are shut. “Scar? Hey!”

  Moving to her side, I pry her lips apart and pour some water between them. She coughs on it at first, but then she begins drinking greedily.

  “Tell me when,” I say softly. But she does not tell me when to stop, and soon enough, she has guzzled down all the liquid in the bottle. A little trail has trickled down the side of her face, and I wipe it off and lightly dab my fingers across her forehead to cool her down.

  I lie beside her for a minute, holding her hand, looking at her with worry. “We need to get you inside to the air conditioning.”

  “I’m getting married?” she asks, with her eyes still closed.

  “Yeah, to Zack. He called me.”

  It takes her a second to respond, but a deep frown creases her features. “No. Zack is a liar, and I never agreed to marry him. He stole your letters from me.”

  The letters. They never reached her. I exhale in relief. “God, Scar,” I say, lowering my head to her chest and hugging her tightly for a minute. Then, I feel something metallic under her blouse, like a pendant, and I am puzzled. Scarlett doesn’t usually wear necklaces. Sliding my fingers under her shirt and pulling out the pendant, I am surprised to see something that strikes a chord in my memory.

  I remember buying this for her. But I never gave it to her. That was a lifetime ago. Where did I leave it? It suddenly hits me, and the answer makes my stomach fall. It’s that sick, exposed feeling you get in dreams where you are naked in public. The vodka bottle. Our high school. All those years ago…

  “You found it…” I say hoarsely, hoping she isn’t upset at all the lovesick, humiliating words I wrote. I was a stupid, fucking child. I didn’t know that you couldn’t just plan out the rest of your life with the person you loved and expect everything to happen easily, like in a Hallmark movie.

  Life is a constant, back-breaking struggle. Real, worthwhile relationships require effort, and true love feels like you’re in a scene from Ben-Hur, rowing madly in a slave ship, rowing your heart out just to stay alive.

  “I got your clues,” Scarlett is saying. “Take the pin out? End of the earth. That’s how I found you. You’re a real dick, to play games with me like this.”

  Swallowing back a lump in my throat, I rub my thumb over her cheek. “Scar—I didn’t think that you’d find that letter. Ever. And I didn’t know it contained any clues or hints to my location. I think you just found me… by accident.”

  “You’re lying. I know you can travel through time, like Future Trunks. Your time machine is right over there.”

  I blink, glancing over in the direction she’s pointing. Upon closer examination of my NovaTank, it does look a bit like a time machine. I will have to add that to my growing list of ways it could be improved. A list that I will never be able to give to my junior architects and automotive engineers, since I’m not in charge anymore. I turn back to the dark-haired girl.

  “Scarlett, I only left a note with Mr. Bishop to say goodbye. It was for closure. I’m just… I had no idea you still cared.”

  “Don’t make me hit you again,” she says, her eyes flashing with a sudden clarity as she pushes me away with anger. She grabs handfuls of my shirt and glares at me with unbridled fury. Her teeth are exposed when she snarls, looking almost feral with her wild, unkempt hair. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Love other people? I didn’t want to love other people! I didn’t need any other people! I just needed you, and you were never ready. Over and over, with this ‘we’re not ready’ bullshit. When will we be ready, Cole? When we’re both dead? When you get shot in the head, and buried in front of me, and I have to climb over a fucking mountain for you in the boiling hot Nevada sun, and hallucinate that you have a spaceship from 2047, will we be ready then?”

  She’s rambling so fast that I can’t keep up. She’s definitely cracked, and I need to get her inside and out of this heat. But she’s also so irresistibly adorable that I find myself doing something equally insane. I grab her and crush her lips against mine, kissing her soundly to shut her up and calm her down.

  Her body is still for a moment, until her arms slide around my back as she begins to respond, arching her body against mine and intertwining our legs. The kiss is fueled by a feverish kind of passion, and I feel like we must both be seriously unwell. I am clumsy and lightheaded from my injuries and my painkillers, and she is burnt to a crisp by the sun. Still, I can’t stop kissing her, greedily trying to taste all her emotions, and trying to communicate to her that she is mine.

  She must know that, right? If she c
ame all this way—if she read that letter, and if she refused to believe that I was dead—if she hunted me down, she must know that this is a new beginning for us? I won’t have it any other way.

  Her lips are parched and rough against mine, but I don’t care, because she is Scarlett. When she seems too tired to keep kissing me, and grows somewhat limp in my arms, I become alarmed.

  “Scar,” I say softly, patting her cheek. “Scar? Jesus, you’re so dehydrated. Are you okay?” When she doesn’t respond, I consider lifting her and taking her into my Nova. But when I slip my arms under her and try to lift, my shoulder makes me cry out in pain. Instead, I go back into the camper and grab another bottle of water. Bringing it over to her, I pour some water between her lips and splash some on her face to wake her up.

  “Scar? When was the last time you slept? Your face looks like death.”

  “Your face looks like butt,” she tells me stubbornly, without opening her eyes. She grabs the water bottle and begins chugging it.

  I smile at her fondly, feeling like not a day has passed since we were last together. She’s still my Scarlett.

  After drinking two thirds of the bottle, she opens her eyes to glare at me. “I barely slept since I found out you were dead. I’m never going to forgive you for this. Never.”

  With a small, sheepish grin, I glance at my house. “So you wanna come inside my spaceship?”

  She smiles at me, before inching closer and resting her head against my leg with a sigh. “You can go to hell in your cool spaceship.” Her fingers dig into my leg. “But then, after you go to hell, come back to me.”

  “Always,” I tell her. As she falls asleep again, I know I’m going to have to carry her inside, or let her lay here and get burnt even more by the harsh sun. Shit. Can I carry her? Is my arm capable? I would really like to be the romantic hero in the storybook right now and save the damsel in distress, but I don’t think I’m physically up to the task. Still, I’m going to try anyway. I’ll just pop a few more Percocets after this, as it seems to work better for me than the Vicodin.

  Sliding one arm under her shoulders, and another under her thighs, I grunt as I hug her against my chest and try to use my legs to lift her. Damn. Did she get heavier or did I get weaker? I guess I missed a few gym days lately due to getting shot and poisoned. I take a wobbly step and nearly drop her, but I grunt and shove my knee under her bottom to prop her up. I have to pause and take a breather, with most of her body weight supported on my knee, before taking another step. Wincing and making a face, I am grateful that her eyes are closed and she can’t see me struggling pathetically like this.

  It feels like her body weight is ripping my arm clean off my shoulder. Grunting and using only my good arm and my knee, I grasp her around the waist and toss her over my good shoulder. Exhaling in relief at the pressure being relieved from my arm, I carry her into the NovaTank tossed over my back like a sack of potatoes.

  Real heroic, Cole.

  As I try to gently place her down on my mattress, she groans and clutches her stomach. “I’m so hungry,” she mumbles. “I want gingerbread. We can be Hansel and Gretel and find candy.”

  “I don’t have candy or gingerbread, but I have some chocolate,” I tell her, moving over to my cupboards. “My food is mostly tasteless MREs, but I have a few good things I can prepare… Scar?” I then realize that she is fast asleep.

  Moving over to the cupboard where I keep all my medicine, I take a Percocet out of the package and wash it down with some water to help my shoulder. I shut the door of my NovaTank so that the air conditioning can cool us down, before going to the freezer and taking out a few pieces of ice. I move over to Scarlett, and place an ice cube against her forehead. She doesn’t even stir.

  I insert another ice cube into each of her armpits, as I remember reading somewhere that that’s how you’re supposed to lower someone’s temperature when they have had too much sun exposure. She mumbles a little in her sleep, something about a witch and a fire, but she doesn’t open her eyes. I stare at her for several minutes, rubbing another ice cube up and down her arms.

  When the ice cube has disappeared, I move to her feet and undo the laces of her running shoes. Not just because it’s odd and surely uncomfortable to wear running shoes while sleeping, but also because I want to allow some of her body heat to escape through her feet. When I slide her shoes off, her knees jerk a little defensively. As I begin to peel her socks off, she whimpers in pain.

  “Shit,” I mutter when I see how raw and blistered her feet are. Just how far did this crazy girl walk? You would think her skin would be mostly protected by the cushiony running shoes—unless she took them off and went barefoot for some reason. I shake my head. While it is flattering that she did this to herself to get to me, I hate seeing her injured, and I feel extremely guilty. I feel like faking my own death was just a test, or attention-seeking behavior, which isn’t true. I did this for my own reasons, and not to punish her.

  Still, seeing her hurt like this makes me have second thoughts about my decisions. Maybe I should have just gone to Washington D.C. instead of coming out here to the desert. Maybe I should have flown out there to confirm whether or not she was actually getting married before jumping to conclusions and getting depressed. Maybe I didn’t need to take such drastic action.

  But I don’t regret this. I don’t regret being here. I needed this desert as much as I needed her.

  Rushing back to my medical supplies, I grab some antiseptic liquid, ointment, and bandages to treat her blisters. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, every little injury feels a lot more dangerous. We can’t just drive for twenty minutes, or even an hour, to get help. It takes a lot of difficult, slow maneuvering to get the NovaTank out of the mountains, and even then, the closest hospital or doctor’s office is probably hours away.

  As I sit at the foot of the bed and begin tending to her wounds, I see her facial muscles twitch in pain at the burning feeling of the antiseptic against her blisters. Something suddenly occurs to me.

  “Scar, did you see the envelope in my desk that I left for you?” I ask her. When she does not respond, I continue speaking softly. “I found your family. You have a biological brother named Liam Larson living in New York, and both of your parents are alive. Can you believe it? All these years of not knowing who abandoned you, and now you can finally get answers. You have a real family somewhere out there. Do you want to meet them? I didn’t give permission to the genetic testing company to release your personal information yet because I wanted to discuss it with you.”

  She mumbles incoherently in response. I’ll have to tell her again later. Carefully applying antibiotic ointment to her blisters, I cover them lightly with bandages to keep them clean.

  Getting up from her bedside, I move over to my writing desk, where my mostly empty and decidedly boring journal sits. I am compelled by the urge to write a new entry. Grabbing my pen, I glance at Scarlett, and study her sleeping form for several minutes. Finally, after chewing on my lip thoughtfully, I lower my pen to scribble a few words.

  Now my journal looks a little like this:

  Day One: Sleep.

  Day Two: Sleep.

  Day Three: Sleep.

  Day Four: Sleep.

  Day Five: There’s a girl here. Sleeping in my bed. And I think it’s my wife.

  She looks exactly like my wife. Am I going crazy?

  Did I take too many painkillers?

  Note to self: Stop taking so many painkillers.

  Chapter Seven

  There isn’t enough water in my brain.

  It aches.

  A person’s brain should be like a juicy grape, ripe on the vine, but mine is just a shrunken, shriveled raisin, rattling around in my skull. It’s a wonder I can think and feel this at all.

  I’ve been slipping in and out of consciousness for a few hours now. I’ve been hearing words being spoken to me, but I’m not quite sure who is speaking. I hear all sorts of voices. I see all sorts of people. It’s diff
icult to move. It’s difficult to even keep my eyes open.

  “Here,” someone is saying to me, while pressing something ceramic into my hands. “Water isn’t enough. You need electrolytes.”

  “Zack?” I murmur. “I don’t want your stinking electrolytes.”

  “No, Scar. It’s me. It’s Cole.”

  I feel his hand on my forehead. His large, warm hand, brushing my hair away from my face. I sigh. “Okay. I want your electrolytes,” I tell him.

  He laughs softly as he brings the cup to my lips, and pours something sweet down my hoarse throat. It hurts to swallow. I drink as much as I can before pushing the liquid away.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks me. “I made some mac and cheese, if you think you can eat.”

  Opening my eyes, I peer at him dizzily. “Cole. Are you really here?” I reach out to touch his face, tracing a deep scar with several stitches along his cheekbone. “Did I die in the desert?”

  “No,” he tells me as he moves to fiddle with a thermostat, possibly turning up the AC. “You’re sweating a lot, Scar. I’m a little worried. Do you think we should go to the hospital? It’s a long drive, so I should probably start now.”

  “Hospital? Why?”

  “I think you have heat stroke.”

  Reaching for his arm, I tug him closer to me with a smile. “No. But you can give me heat stroke,” I say as I begin pulling off his shirt.

  “Scarlett,” he says in surprise, grabbing my wrists. “This isn’t a joke.”

  “It’s a dream,” I tell him. “I’m just dreaming, like always, and when I wake up, you’ll be gone. So let’s make the most of it, while we’re here.”

  “This isn’t a dream, love. It’s like you have this massive fever on steroids. Do you think you can get up and come into the bathroom with me? We can run cold water over you, and see if it cools you down.”

  Turning away, I feel myself getting pulled back into darkness. “You’re boring, and I’m tired,” I complain as I drift back to sleep.