Haunted Love

Chapter 12 Part 14

Chapter 12

Lindsey paced the floor as worried eyes tracked her worried pathetic paths. She was too energetic to sit down and too nervous to keep walking. It was a vicious cycle. Her feet ached but her legs refused to rest. Her head was pounding from the stress of the evening and her stomach rumbled as she realized that she had forgotten to eat breakfast and now it was well past dinner.

The white floors and green walls seemed to be closing in on her. Hard plastic seats that numbed your butt and a few potted plants that needed to be wiped down surrounded her. The low hum of concerned voices and beeping machines whirled around her. Stale coffee and soda were sitting in the family waiting room and hard granola bar and sweet muffins were calling her name, but she was afraid to leave, afraid to sit, afraid to walk away from Thane's parents.

Surely they would be the first people he would want to see and she was not ashamed of the fact that she planned on tagging along. They could kick her out of the room if they wanted, but not until she laid eyes on Thane and saw for herself that he was okay.

Luke sat in a corner biting his nails as he watched her walk in circles. Thane's mom and dad sat holding hands while her head rested on his shoulder. They made a fetching sight, so lovely and brave. She could feel the compassion and contentment that they shared from ten feet away.

But the thing that kept catching her attention was the fact that Benjamin had Penny wrapped in his arms just beside the double doors that led into the treatment center. She never let her eyes stray to Luke. It was like she had replaced him with Benji and Lindsey felt small parts of her heart grow fearful.

What if she somehow took him away? Jealousy ate at her suddenly and she wished that she had someone to hold her, to whisper in her ear that everything would be all right. She knew that the doctors had said Thane would need surgery on his shoulder and on the back of his head and that everything should be fine, but her mind screamed at her about the millions of small things that could go wrong.

Her fingers shook as she rubbed her heart, finding her breath coming out in stiff pants. She looked around, not surprised to find no lingering spirits. Movies depicted hospitals as stations that held the souls of the departed because they died there. But the truth was that spirits hated hospitals as much as the living. They tried not to stay if they didn't have.

But since there was no one around that she could beg to walk through walls and check on Thane, she would just have to wait. Sure, Benjamin and Penny could do it, but she didn't feel comfortable talking to either of them at the moment. She jumped when warm, strong fingers wrapped around her arm. She looked up into Luke's concerned face and fisted her fingers, trying to make her body calm down and stop moving.

He pulled her to the lonely corner he was occupying and sat her down before he knelt in front of her and rubbed her frozen fingers. "You have to relax. All those circles you are walking in are making me dizzy." He gave her a stern look before giving her hand a squeeze, "Thane is strong; he's going to be fine. He wouldn't leave you because he is too damn stubborn to die."

He stood up and sat down beside her as she buried her face in her hands and took a shuddering breath, "I can't help it. I deal with death so much that it is the first thing I think of when something goes wrong."

Luke made comforting circles on her back and he listened to one fear after another. His touch was comforting, not flirtatious or uncomfortable. He nodded at appropriate times and made low humming noises in his throat as she told him story after story about different spirits she had met throughout her life. One man had died by plugging in a toaster; another had met his end by slipping on oil in a parking lot. But letting it out, saying that she feared death, made things easier.