The life I remember started when I was eighteen, when I opened my eyes in a strange bed in a strange room wearing an ugly blue gown that tied in the back, hooked up to beeping machines, with an old nurse with kind brown eyes leaning over me and asking if I could hear her.”
“Don’t move,” says Brody, his voice tight. “I’m coming over.”
He hangs up before I can say another word. In two minutes, the front door flies open. I’m already sitting up in bed.
“You didn’t even put a shirt on,” I manage to get out before he’s on me.
He takes me flat to the mattress and crushes me to his chest, the covers smashed between our bodies. “Baby,” he says, choked, his face pressed to my neck. “Oh God, baby.”
He’s called me Slick. He’s called me sweetheart. He’s called me sunshine and princess and witch fa
