Free Greetings from the Flipside by Rene Gutteridge Page A

the chapel and I don’t know where else.”
    Jake felt the tension between his shoulder blades release a little. “She does seem to like to pray.”
    Becca raised a playful eyebrow. “You have no idea.”
    Jake stepped a little closer to the bed, for the first time looking at Hope. She lay still, her arms crossed over her belly, a little thinner now. They’d taken the bandage off her head wound and there was just a Band-Aid over it now. Dark purple seeped around its edges, and he wondered if she still had stitches in.
    “How is she doing?”
    Becca shrugged, casting a desperate look toward the bed. She pulled the blanket a little higher. “The doctors can’t really tell us anything. They said it’s a traumatic brain injury. They have no idea when she’ll wake up. Or if.” She grabbed her sweater off the back of the chair and stepped next to Jake. “It’s so nice of you to come to check on her.”
    “I just feel so . . . bad, about everything.”
    “She definitely doesn’t deserve this. She’s such a great person. Talented, too.”
    “Did they ever catch the person who did this?”
    Becca shook her head. She squeezed his arm. “Thank you for coming. I know she’s not alone now.”
    Becca left and Jake just stood there for a long time, observing her and feeling guilty about it. She was truly as beautiful as the day he saw her all the way back in elementary school. He could still spot some of those features even now as she’d grown into a woman. Yet in this bed, she looked as fragile as a child. She probably hated the idea that people were just standing around staring at her.
    “Hi, Hope. It’s Jake. You won’t remember me, but we . . .” He sighed. What a stupid thing to say.
    “We what?”
    Jake’s head jerked up. Hope’s mother stood in the doorway.
    He jumped out of his seat while trying to keep a casual look on his face. By the way her mother eyed him, he could only assume his expression was betraying him in every way imaginable.
    “I’m sorry. I was just leaving.”
    “Wait.” Her hands were crossed at her chest. She was fully blocking the doorway. “Wait just a minute.”
    A sickness roiled through his stomach, the kind you get from a roller coaster or having your zipper down in public.
    “You . . . I know you . . .”
    “Um, well, yes. I’m Jake, from the other day. I found Hope—”
    “No. I knew you before that.”
    “Yes. You ordered the flowers for the wedding from me. I was delivering them . . .”
    “No. Before that.” Her mother’s eyes narrowed.
    “We deliver the Columbine flower to your—”
    “Before that.”
    Jake cleared his throat. “Hope and I went to the same school.”
    “That’s it!” Her expression now beamed delight. “That’s how you know my baby girl?”
    “Well, I mean, no . . . we . . . you know, we didn’t run in the same circles. I hardly remembered her, you know . . . just kind of the name . . . I put it together days later . . .” He was never good at lying.
    CiCi, as she’d introduced herself the first day, walked into the room and looked at her daughter.
    “I’ll leave you two—”
    “Oh no you will not. The doctor says we need to keep her stimulated.” She eyed him. “You look like the kind of guy that can do that sort of thing.”
    “Oh . . . uh . . .”
    “Talk to her. Carry on an interesting, one-sided conversation?”
    “I sometimes have trouble even when it’s two-sided.”
    “Oh, come now. Surely you can think of something interesting to say. Talk about your childhood memories, the school, the teachers, that sort of thing.”
    “But, I’m not really—”
    “The doctors say she can hear what we’re saying, so you must, must talk to her. You could be her only hope.”
    Jake’s gaze cut to the bed. He sure hoped not.
    And then CiCi raised her voice at the point that most people would lower theirs. “You must understand what dire straits this poor girl is in. She’s been dumped . . . DUMPED . . . at the altar.