Inseparable Strangers Page 5

  While waiting around, I decided to start up my laptop and educate myself on his possible injuries. Of course WebMD was already bookmarked on my computer. This was a requirement for all hypochondriacs. Don’t judge. I blame it on my OCD. The first thing I looked up was broken ribs. I was ninety-nine percent sure he’d broken at least one, if not more. I just hoped they weren’t broken severe enough to puncture a lung or damage any blood vessels.

  As I got caught up reading WebMD, I could feel the weight in my eyelids as they continuously tried to close.

  Panic shot from every nerve ending as I sat ramrod straight in my chair. My weary eyes focused on the time on my phone and I nearly shit a brick when I saw it was after three in the morning. I jumped up and raced down the hall to the spare bedroom where Harry was sleeping… or at least I hoped he still was.

  Very quietly, I opened the door an inch and I was greeted with instant relief when I heard heavy breathing coming from the bed. I tiptoed over to him and listened for any type of gurgling sounds coming from his lungs. If a rib had punctured his lung, fluid would start settling in, or worse, collapse. After listening for a couple of minutes, everything sounded clear, and there were no more signs of wheezing.

  No longer stricken by fear of him dying in my house, I closed the door and walked into the kitchen to grab a few glasses from the cabinet. Carefully, I sat them in front of the door in case he did try to leave without my knowledge. If he didn’t break them, he would at least knock them over and create a ruckus of some sort.

  I grabbed a quilt from the linen closet and settled myself on my white suede sectional. Tonight I didn’t dream about Harry killing me. I dreamed I killed him.

  ~~~

  The chilling thoughts of my nightmare from last night danced around in my mind as I awoke. It all felt as real as the night I dreamed of my near death experience. When I finally fell back asleep, luckily, the horrendous visions didn’t come back to haunt me. The fragments of his murder were still fresh in my mind… on my hands. I held them out in front of me examining them as if I’d actually committed such a senseless act. It was all so real. I was there. I was amongst the men I’d seen beating the life out of him. I had a bat in my hand. I was swinging it, but it was too heavy. In my dream I was weak, but it didn’t stop me from eventually beating his body until it was no longer recognizable. It was the most graphic dream I’d ever had.

  The clinking of glasses falling against each other shook me out of my trance. Wasting no time, I hopped off the couch and ran to the spare bedroom.

  Harry stood frozen with one hand on the door knob and white knuckling the doorframe. One of the glasses rolled toward me, and stopped when it bumped into my foot. Bending down ever so slowly to pick it up, I kept a watchful eye on Harry as his mysterious green eyes regarded me. His brow furrowed as his gaze left me and wandered down both ends of the hall.

  “Where am I?” His voice was deep and raspy. I wondered if he’d strained his vocal chords from all the coughing, or if something worse had happened during his attack. They could’ve tried to choke him before I had shown up. It was difficult to tell with his long beard.

  “You’re at my house,” I said, trying to control the apprehension he triggered in me. “I tried taking you to the hospital, but you were pretty persistent in not going.” I rolled the glass around in attempt to keep my hands busy. The nervousness he created was foreign to me and I was struggling with keeping it under wraps.

  His eyes widened when I mentioned the hospital. The slight jerk of his head told me something didn’t settle well with him. There was so much secrecy surrounding him, I didn’t know who felt in the dark more; me or him. “How did I get here?”

  “I brought you here.” This situation was becoming more and more strange. It had me wondering if he was suffering from amnesia. “Do you remember what happened to you yesterday?” I asked.

  He studied the wall above my head, creating a deep crease between his eyes. Harry was thinking. He was trying to dig up a piece of memory. After a few seconds, he lowered his head then shook it in disbelief.

  “Listen, you probably don’t need to be up walking around. I’m pretty sure you’ve broken a rib if not more.” He nodded in agreement. “Rest is the best medicine at this point, so go back to bed and I’ll bring whatever you were out here looking for.”

  He started to speak but his words came out hoarse. He cleared his throat before giving it another try. “I was looking for a bathroom.”

  My lips formed an O and I was pretty sure I’d blushed for the first time in my life. “Umm, it’s the next door to your right,” I said using a stern voice. I couldn’t allow him to think he had embarrassed me. Asking him if he needed my help was on the tip of my tongue, but I bit back. No need to stick my foot into my mouth at this point.

  The whiskers on his face shifted leaving me in the dark with what kind of facial expressions he was making. He shuffled down the hall then disappeared into the bathroom. Not wanting to look like a creeper while he did his business, I walked into the kitchen for some ice. Last night while I educated myself on broken ribs, one of the things suggested to help with healing was icing the fracture. Grabbing a gallon sized Ziploc baggie, I scooped up some ice and filled the bag until it was full.

  Hopefully while I was in the kitchen busying myself, he was back in the bed. I didn’t want to be standing around waiting on him in the bedroom. Something about that didn’t set well with me.

  As I turned the corner, I heard his bare feet shuffle along the hardwood floor. At least I now knew he was out of the bathroom. I stood outside of the door until I no longer heard him moving and grunting as he settled back in bed.

  “I brought you some ice. Since we both agree on your fractured ribs, ice and rest are the two best ways to heal faster,” I said, handing him the bag-filled ice. “You also need to at least cough or take a deep breath once every hour. That way you won’t be as prone to pneumonia or causing a lung to collapse,” I instructed as I handed him a hand towel to wrap around the cold bag.

  He sucked in a breath through his teeth when the shock of the cold bag rested upon his right side. Once he seemed to adjust to the iciness, he asked me, “Are you a nurse?”

  I felt a smile start to touch the corner of my mouth, but I suppressed it before it completed. I didn’t want to give him the wrong impression. We weren’t friends. In my dreams we were enemies. “No, but I researched the web enough to be.” And, yes, at this moment, I was proud of my hypochondriac self-diagnosis skills.

  My answer seemed to satisfy him enough as he did his usual and nodded once. This was becoming his signature move.

  There was an awkward silence in the room. He seemed content on the bed, and I sort of felt like I was intruding on his privacy. But this was my house, so I could come and go however and whenever I wanted. If he didn’t like me hovering then he could go to a damn hospital.

  The silence continued.

  I looked up at him and saw his eyes were closed. Is he sleeping again? I hoped not because I needed answers. I needed a name. I needed to know why those guys attacked him.

  “So how are you feeling today?” I asked, pretending he wasn’t just trying to sleep. Or maybe he was faking it so I would leave.

  “Umm, to be honest, I don’t know.” He turned his head to face me, and his eyes opened showing he was a little more alert. “What happened to me, and who are you?” he asked, his eyebrows knitted together tightly.

  Chapter 6

  Harry’s question threw me for a spin. I knew he was a little out of it, and perhaps confused, but not suffering from memory loss. Hopefully it was only short term, and he would be able to give me answers soon.

  “You don’t remember anything?”

  He shook his head.

  “Do you remember anything from yesterday?”

  Again, he shook his head.

  Shit.

  “Okay, to make a long story short…,” I proceeded to tell him what happened step by step, ending with my arms swaying w
ith a fictitious smile. Sometimes I got carried away telling a story. My father used to laugh at my body language. He said I really knew how to get into it.

  Harry sat still, absorbing everything I’d just told him. His calm eyes held steady on me.

  “Okay, look. Before I tell you who I am or anything else about me, I need to know who you are,” I told him. “Do you remember who you are?”

  He pondered my question, nodded, and then answered, “My name is Aaron, Aaron Nichols.”

  Finally I had a name. Goodbye Harry, hello Aaron.

  “Okay, Aaron, my name is Lennox,” I said, holding my hand out to shake his. I’d considered giving him my last name but didn’t feel comfortable enough handing out that piece of info yet. Of course, if he snooped around enough, he’d find out easily enough. “If we were actually meeting for the first time, then we might as well make it formal.”

  His hand slowly reached out to touch mine. The feeling was odd. Something was off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. “Are you warm enough in those sweatpants and t-shirt or do you need a sweatshirt? You could probably use some socks too, yeah?” I rambled as I got up to search through the drawers.

  A huff of breath that resembled a chuckle muffled from Aaron. “I’m fine. I’m comfortable, but thank you anyway.” I took that as a nice way to tell me I was wasting my time.

  Sitting back down on the edge of the bed, I was ready to dig in to find out who this mysterious dude was. “So Aaron, how old are you and where do you live?”

  “I’m… um… I’m twenty nine.”

  He hesitated too much for my liking. Was he lying about his age and if so, why? After everything I’d done for him, he wasn’t going to sit face-to-face with me and tell me a bold face lie about something as stupid as his age.

  “Are you sure you’re twenty nine? You don’t sound too sure of yourself.”

  “Yeah,” he breathed, his eyes lost in a different place. “Sorry, I’m just trying to grasp everything in front of me right now. I feel out of sorts.”

  “I’m sure you do. You were in a lot of pain the past couple of days. I honestly thought you were going to die. It was really difficult for me to not take you to the hospital. Why were you so persistent on not going?”

  He sucked in a deep breath through his nostrils. “Hospitals and I don’t get along well. If I can avoid them, I will, no matter what the costs might be.”

  This man was a bigger freak than I’d thought. Nobody in their right mind would risk their life all because they were scared of the hospital. Either something tragic happened to him once while there or he had a bigger secret he was hiding.

  “Well, Aaron, do you have any family or friends or anyone else I could call to let them know you’re okay? I’m sure someone is worried about you.”

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t have any family and I’m new in town so I’ve not had the opportunity to become acquainted with the townsfolk.” So, if he was new in town then the thought of him being involved in a bad drug deal was kind of out of the question now.

  “So, again, where do you live?” I asked as I examined a piece of newly chipped nail polish. Damn, that must’ve happened while shuffling him around everywhere.

  His head dropped and his shoulders slumped over. This was the moment he was going to give me some sob story about being homeless, and probably try to play on my pity. Sorry bud, not happening. He slightly lifted his head and cocked his head up to look at me from one eye. “Right now, here. Before coming here… a little bit of everywhere. I’m kind of what you’d call a world traveler.”

  “Hmm…interesting,” I said, nodding. Well he surely called my bluff. He might not have blatantly said he was homeless but I was pretty sure that was what he meant.

  I couldn’t stop there. I had to keep pushing forward. “Do you know why those guys jumped you? Or do you know any of them? I could take you to the police station to file a report,” I offered.

  He shook his head. “No. Still nothing.”

  I had a strange feeling he wasn’t being completely honest with me, but there was no proof to show it. The best I could do was stay on him; question him every day until he finally broke.

  My lips twisted up to the side while I thought about where I wanted our conversation to go next. “O—kay,” I drew out, “After everything you’ve gone through, I’m sure a nice hot bath would help to make you feel better. It will also give your muscles the chance to loosen up and relax. I think it’s safe to say your body is probably covered in bruises. You know where the bathroom is, and everything you need should already be in there. I’ll also get you another clean shirt and sweatpants. Once you’re out, you can tell me more about who you are,” I said, faking a smile.

  “I don’t know if I can remember enough to share with you,” he said.

  “Well, just try and we’ll go from there. But for now, you have to clean up. I can’t allow you to lounge around my house any longer in the condition you’re in.”

  His eyes stared at me for a quick moment, then nodded and stood up slowly. He was careful not to move too sudden, and he kept his body hunched over just the slightest.

  “I’ll have some breakfast for you when you get out,” I told him as he walked into the bathroom.

  An hour later, I heard the bathroom door open. Finally. I was starting to worry that he’d fallen asleep and drowned in my bathtub. Wouldn’t that had been a pile of shit, going through the trouble to save his damn life only for him to die in my tub two days later?

  During that hour, I’d cooked eggs and bacon, and had sourdough toast on the side. Without waiting, I ate while it was still warm and placed the rest of it in the microwave. When he emerged from the bathroom, a swarm of magnolias swirled out the door and dispersed throughout the house. “You smell nice,” I said, as I turned around to face him, not expecting to find a pleasantly groomed man standing before me. His face was tanned and smooth, a far cry from the layers of dirt previously caked on. I would’ve thought for sure it would be weathered and beaten. His long, sandy brown, not dirty blond hair was pulled back into a braid. The matted up mess I’d thought to be dreads were just the opposite. They were from weeks of not bathing. A chill ran up my spine from the thoughts of what kind of bugs could’ve been living in his head, and what remnants were thriving in my porcelain tub. The repulsive beard was still intact, but it was no longer full of dried blood and food.

  My compliment took me by surprise, and apparently it did him too. His green eyes widened, then easily relaxed as a crooked smile pulled to the side of his mouth.

  “Do you feel better?”

  He ran his hands over his face then lightly grabbed his beard as his hand gently slid down the length. “God, yes. So much better. I forgot how great it feels to be clean,” he admitted, continuing to graze his fingers through his beard. I wasn’t one to enjoy a man with a beard. A five o’clock shadow was more my style, but he wore it well. It gave him some sort of sex appeal. Maybe it was the way he stroked it. I could vision him stroking something else. God, I so need to get laid.

  He stopped stroking his beard when he saw me watching him. “Thank you.”

  Hopefully, he was thanking me for the bath and not my gawking while thinking dirty thoughts. I shrugged, “Not a problem at all.” If he only knew I was more appreciative of his bath than he was. “So, how bad are the injuries?” I asked in order to deter my attention away from his bruised hand stroking his beard again.

  He dropped his hand from his face and I sighed with relief. “I’d say I definitely broke at least two ribs, and there are bruises all along my abdomen, side and back. I have several lacerations on my knees and shin. They’ve scabbed up nicely though. Nothing I’ve not dealt with before,” he said nonchalantly.

  “Do you need any ointment or bandages?”

  “No, I’ll be fine. Just one of those things you have to allow to heal on its own.”

  It surprised me how we were able to talk comfortably to one another being the strangers we were. I didn
’t talk this much to anyone except my father and on occasion, Victoria. The contentment I found with Aaron should be alarming but, oddly I found it soothing. Most of the time people pissed me off, and I hated their company, but I didn’t feel that with him. “I made bacon and eggs. Would you like some?” I asked, pointing my thumb toward the kitchen.

  Normally I couldn’t make out his facial expressions from the hair on his face, but this time a hint of teeth told me he was actually smiling. “Yes, that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.” I guess bacon and eggs were a step up from the tomato soup, and probably anything he’d eaten in who knew how long.

  His smile was contagious and I found myself doing the same thing. “I also have sourdough bread if you’d like some toasted with butter.”

  He nodded, “No, thank you.”

  Aaron sat down at the bar while I warmed the remaining food in the microwave. “So, how long have you been in Gainesville?” I asked while taking out orange juice and milk from the fridge. I held each one up allowing him to pick. He pointed at the milk, so I put the juice back.

  “Just a few days. I grew up here, but moved away several years ago.”

  “Coffee?”

  He nodded.

  “Oh, did you go off to college or did a job take you away?” From his appearance alone, I knew he’d never stepped foot on a college campus, but I was throwing questions left and right in an attempt to get him to fulfill my curiosity.

  With a mournful chuckle, he replied, “No, I wish. It was more of an opportunity to start over. Things weren’t going well here. A fresh new start was needed so I decided to leave.”

  There was something about his words I found unsettling. I was usually good at reading people and knowing when they were feeding me a line of bullshit. Some of his story might’ve been legit, but the other part I wasn’t buying.