Page 18 of Half Truths (Secret Society 1)
Mom and I both gasped loudly.
“How can that be? Felipe. He was dead. We saw him,” she said rapidly. “How? Did he—”
“They revived him. They revived him,” Dad said, and then he stumbled into the nearest chair, buried his face in his hands and started to cry. “Oh my God, that was so scary. Oh my God. I thought I lost him.”
Mom rushed over to him, taking the seat beside him and wrapping an arm around him. They cried together as I stood there. My brother wasn’t dead. They didn’t let me see him until the next day. When I walked into the room, he was attached to tubes, and needles were protruding from his skin. He looked frail and uncomfortable. It was just the two of us in the room when his eyes snapped open. I stood right beside him, holding his hand. His eyeballs moved to look at me. He looked scared, as if he was trying to tell me something, but couldn’t with the tube that was in his mouth.
“I’m going to call for the nurse,” I said.
His hand squeezed mine slightly. He shook his head no.
“But, Linc, I can’t do anything.” My hand shook over his. “I need to tell them to come—”
His hand squeezed again. He shook his head no.
“Why’d you try to kill yourself?” I asked, unable to keep from crying. I brought a hand up to wipe the tears from my face, but they kept coming.
He squeezed my hand again. Shook his head no, but his own eyes filled with tears.
I stared at him. “You didn’t try to kill yourself?”
He shook his head slightly.
“Why would . . . ” I frowned. “I don’t understand.”
He started tapping on my hand. At first, I thought that was all it was, but then he tapped harder, squeezed harder, opened his eyes wider as if he needed me to pay attention. Morse code.
“Morse code?” I asked, my voice barely audible over the knot in my throat.
He nodded.
I took out my phone and opened my notepad, writing down all of the dots and dashes. I couldn’t remember the alphabet.
“I’ll have to translate this,” I said. He shot me an exasperated look. “I can’t remember the alphabet.”
His eyes twinkled and he made a noise from his throat, as if he wanted to laugh, and then fell into a fit. I hit the button for the nurse and stepped away when they rushed in. His entire body shook the bed and his eyes rolled back.
“What is happening?” I shouted. “What is happening?”
More nurses rushed inside. “Step back, he’s having a seizure.”
“Get her outside,” another shouted. Arms wrapped around me as they ushered me towards the door.
“Lincoln,” I yelled, fighting against the nurse. “Lincoln. I love you.”
Lincoln was forced into a coma that day. In twenty-four hours, I went from having a brother, to losing him, to having him again, but not quite.
Chapter Six
It wasn’t fair.
I walked around my parent’s house in a haze, with that thought in mind. It just wasn’t fucking fair. Travis wrapped his arm around my shoulder and kissed the top of my head.
“You okay?”
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. No, I wasn’t okay. My brother was in a coma. A medically induced coma, my father reminded me constantly. He was going to be okay. Mom had all of the scientific facts to back it all up, too. They’d flown in a doctor from Cleveland to treat him and nurses who worked strictly with coma-induced patients, to monitor him. Still. A coma meant I couldn’t speak to him, and he was my go-to person. Now, I was in my parent’s backyard, sitting on a chaise lounge, as the house filled with people from everywhere who had just attended the mass mom set up for him. Prayers for Lincoln’s full recovery, was what she’d asked for. Of course, I prayed too, but seriously? My brother was in a coma. They needed to get him out of it and let him heal while he was awake.
“Your parents said you may not go back to classes this semester,” he continued. Travis said I talked a lot, but he never seemed to mind voicing his opinions about my life. “Maybe you should come back to Duke. Finish school there.”
I didn’t respond.
“Mae. You need to talk to someone,” he said.
I continued to stare at the pool, where Lincoln and I took swimming lessons when we were kids. Where we hosted pool parties every year for his birthday, since it was at the end of May. Where he jumped in from the second-floor balcony of the house during a party we had while our parents were out of town and broke his nose. I felt myself smile at that memory. Idiot Lincoln. And then just as quickly, I was crying again. God, I was so tired of crying. I wiped my face quickly and looked around at everyone here. Most were our neighbors, parent’s friends, Lincoln’s friends from high school. I spotted Lana’s parents, talking to dad. They all looked somber.
