What if I Like You? Book 1

Santa Barbara, California

January 2017

The machines had become easier to listen to once Louis stopped trying to understand what every sound meant. The steady beeping was good. He knew that much. He knew which sounds brought a nurse into the room and which ones nobody seemed concerned about, and he had learned far more about hospitals in the past few days than he had ever wanted to know.

Jamie still hadn’t opened his eyes.

Louis sat beside the bed with both hands wrapped around one of Jamie’s. His fingers were warm. That was what Louis kept coming back to whenever his thoughts went somewhere he couldn’t follow them. Jamie was warm. His heart was beating. He was breathing. He was here.

Outside the window, Santa Barbara looked offensively normal. The January sun had come out again, and the sky was blue. Louis hated that the world could look exactly the same when his had stopped.

“You are missing a beautiful day, James,” he murmured. “Although I suppose you would tell me every day in California is beautiful.”

Jamie didn’t answer.

The doctors had told them to talk to him, so they did. Lilly talked until she cried, Harry talked when he thought nobody was listening, and Hetty had spent hours telling her brother everything he was missing. Louis talked too, although sometimes he ran out of meaningless things to say and was left with only the things that mattered.

He stroked his thumb over Jamie’s knuckles. “You need to wake up now.”

Nothing changed. The monitor continued its steady rhythm while Louis watched Jamie’s face for something, anything, even though he knew he had done the same thing a thousand times already.

He could still see the truck.

Sometimes that was all he saw when he closed his eyes. Jamie in the road, the sound of brakes, people shouting and Louis unable to understand why Jamie wasn’t getting up. He had replayed every second so many times that he no longer knew which parts he remembered and which his mind had created afterward.

None of it mattered. Jamie was here because of him.

Louis lowered his head until his forehead rested against their joined hands. “I’m sorry.”

He had said it hundreds of times. Jamie had never heard him.

“I am so fucking sorry, James.”

The door opened quietly, and Louis lifted his head. Lilly stepped into the room carrying two cups, her eyes going immediately to her son before she looked at Louis.

“I brought you something to drink, honey.”

“Thank you.”

She put the cup beside him and ran her fingers gently through Jamie’s hair. Louis watched her bend to kiss her son’s forehead.

“Any change?”

Louis shook his head.

Lilly pressed her lips together before straightening. “Harry and I are going home for a few hours. Hetty finally agreed to come with us. You should too.”

“I don’t want him to wake up alone.”

“He won’t. The nurses are here.”

Louis looked at Jamie. “That’s not what I mean.”

“I know.” Lilly rested her hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “Call us if anything changes.”

“I will.”

After she left, Louis picked up the book lying beside his chair. Le Petit Prince. He had brought it because the doctors kept telling them familiar voices could help, and reading was easier than finding new things to say when Jamie had already heard everything Louis had to give him.

He opened the book and began to read in French.

The room disappeared after a while. There was only the story, the quiet machinery and Jamie’s hand beneath his. Louis read until his throat hurt, then closed the book without letting go of him.

“You learned my language for me,” he said softly. “The least I can do is read you one of my stories.”

Jamie remained still.

Louis studied his face. He had never imagined silence from Jamie could be this unbearable. Jamie laughed too loudly, talked too much when he was nervous and asked questions Louis sometimes didn’t know how to answer. He filled spaces without even trying. Now there was nothing but the mechanical proof that he was still here.

Louis leaned forward and pressed his lips to Jamie’s fingers.

“I love you, James.”

He waited, knowing there would be no answer.

“You know that, don’t you?”

For the first time, the question frightened him more than the silence.

Louis tightened his fingers around Jamie’s hand and looked at the boy he loved.

“Wake up,” he whispered. “Please.”