Over You by Christine Kersey Page B

under the hot water, enjoying the feeling of getting clean after spending the morning in the dusty attic. Suddenly the lights turned off and with no windows in the room, it became pitch dark. An involuntary scream left her throat.
    She heard Kyle swear in apparent frustration and realized he was only inches away from her, in her aunt’s bathroom. Wondering what had happened, she shut off the water and blindly reached for her towel.
    “Jess?” Kyle asked a moment later from just outside the bathroom door. “Are you okay?”
    Her eyes shot open, though it didn’t help her see anything. The idea of Kyle talking to her when she was stark naked unnerved her and made her feel completely vulnerable, which in turn made her angry and self-defensive. “What did you do?” she yelled out, certain it was his fault.
    “Me? I didn’t do anything.”
    She toweled herself off as best she could without being able to see what she was doing. “Of course you did. You’re the one using power tools and cutting and drilling.” When she was done drying off, she wrapped the towel around herself.
    “It’s as much your fault as it is mine,” he said.
    For some reason, his comment infuriated her. He was encroaching on her territory and inconveniencing her , and now he had the nerve to blame her for his mistake? She flung the door open. “How could it possibly be my fault?”
    Kyle took a step back and threw his hands up in surrender. “Whoa.” Then his gaze lazily wandered over her towel-covered form. “Nice towel.”
    Jessica glanced down at herself and felt the blood rush to her face. In her fury, she hadn’t considered that there would be enough light in the hallway for Kyle to see her so clearly. Mortified, she rushed back into the dark bathroom and hid behind the door, just allowing her face to peer out into the hallway. “Well, just fix it. Okay?”
    “I wish I could, but since I didn’t break it, I can’t fix it.”
    “That is so typical.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    Jessica could see she’d gotten to him, which made her feel better. She opened her mouth to speak just as the lights in the bathroom came back on. Startled, she forgot what she had been about to say.
    “See?” Kyle said, a look of triumph on his face. “Like I said, it wasn’t me.”
    Embarrassed to be proven so completely wrong, Jessica slammed the door in his face. “Whatever,” she muttered as she dropped her towel and put on the clothes she’d brought with her to the bathroom.

Chapter Twelve
    Jessica left the house without speaking to Kyle, and drove to the hospital. When she gave Ellen the wood-carved bear, Ellen was pleased.
    “Oh, you found it.” Ellen set it on the table next to the chair she sat in. “I hope it wasn’t too hard to find.”
    Jessica sat in the chair adjacent to her aunt’s. “Tell me the story behind it. I’ve been curious about it ever since you asked me to look for it.”
    “It’s silly, really. Your Uncle Patrick and I liked to go on little trips and this was an object we found on one of those trips. Patrick found it in a little shop and wanted to buy it, but I thought it was much too expensive. It’s hand-carved, you see, so even though it’s small, it was a bit pricey.”
    Jessica picked up the carving and looked at it more closely, noticing the markings from the carver’s knife.
    “Patrick finally talked me in to it, and we brought it home. Well, he kept it right on his desk for the longest time. When he became sick, he wanted me to bring it to the hospital so he could have it near him.” Ellen paused, looking like she was trying to control her emotions. “He told me he loved it so because it reminded him of me and the powerful memories he had of that trip. You see, he and I had gotten in to a big argument on that trip and I had . . . well, I had threatened to leave him.”
    “Oh, Ellen, I’m so sorry.” Jessica set the carving on the table as she focused on what her aunt was saying.
    Ellen