Page 97 of A Wish for Us
“She needs you,” I said, worried by his words. “When she wakes, when they bring her around from the coma, she’ll need you.”
Easton nodded. “Yeah. I know.” He got to his feet. “I’m going back in.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I watched Easton walk back into the hospital. I stayed staring at the angel. Tonight ran though my head at a million miles an hour. Then one part kept coming back.“Who has synesthesia?”I pulled out my phone and typed the question into my browser. My stomach fell when what Bonnie said was mostly true. I told myself I must be one of the exceptions, but a little voice started whispering in the back of my brain.
“You don’t look anything like your dad…Your mum has blond hair. You have black hair…You’re tall. Your mum and dad are short…”
My heart fired like a canon in my chest. Adrenaline rushed through me, and thoughts and memories bombarded my mind. My feet moved to the taxi rank, and I grabbed a cab back to the lake. I went to my abandoned truck, not even looking at the lake, where Bonnie had collapsed in front of me. Instead I drove. I drove and drove until my body was exhausted. But my mind wouldn’t shut off. Bonnie was dying. She needed a heart. Eastonwas falling apart, and yet…that question…that bloody question still stuck in my head.
I slammed my truck to a stop outside my dorm and looked in the rearview mirror.
My eyes were my mum’s. My lips were my mum’s.
But my hair…
“Why are you pushing him on me so much?” I asked my dad.
“Because he understands, son. He understands what it’s like to be like you.” He sighed. “Just give him a chance. I think you’ll like him if you get to know him. You should know him, son.”
No. It couldn’t be true. It wasn’t true. Itcouldn’tbe.
Hands shaking, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. Everything was too much. Everything, my life, falling apart. I pressed the contact and waited until it connected. “Cromwell! Baby, are you okay?” My mum’s faint South Carolina accent drifted into my ears.
“Was Dad my real dad?” I blurted.
My mum paused on the other end of the phone. I heard her struggling for words. “Cromwell…what…?”
“Was Dad my real dad? Just answer the question!”
But she didn’t. She was silent.
It said everything.
I slammed my hand down to end the call. My pulse was sprinting, and before I knew it I was out of the car. I started running, and I didn’t stop until I got to his house on campus.
My fist pounded on the door until it opened. Lewis stood there, dressing gown on, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “Cromwell?” he said groggily. “What—?”
“Who had synesthesia, your mum or dad?”
It took him a while for the question to sink in. “Um…my mama had it.” And then he looked at me. He saw me glaring. And I watched the arsehole’s face pale.
“How well did you know my mum?” I asked, voice strained.
I didn’t think Lewis was going to answer, but then he said, “Well.” He swallowed. “Very well.”
I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I noticed Lewis’s black hair. His build. His height. And I knew. I backed away from the door, pain and shock and Bonnie being in a coma all melting into one fucked-up pot.
“Cromwell…” Lewis stepped forward.
He was my father. My phone rang in my pocket. I took it out to see my mum’s name. He must have seen it too. “Cromwell, please, I can explain.Wecan explain.”
“Get the hell away from me,” I said, backing over his garden. But he kept coming, and my feet ground to a halt. “Get away,” I warned again, and I felt something in my chest rip open when I thought of my dad. Of him trying to understand me. My music. The colors…
And I wasn’t even his.
Lewis kept coming. He came closer and closer, until he was right in front of me. “Cromwell, please—”