I couldn’t drop the bomb on him like this. Not now. Not while we were all going to be sitting here with our hearts in our throats waiting to make sure Nash was going to make it.
“Do you know what happened?”
“A car ran the light as the ambulance was crossing the intersection,” Dayton said softly. “They flipped a couple of times, and from what the other EMT told me, he has a pretty nasty break. Compound fracture,” he clarified.
I didn’t know a lot of medical stuff, but I knew that was the one where the bone was showing.
But those usually weren’t fatal, and so as long as he didn’t have any other internal injuries or anything wrong with his head, he’d heal.
I let out a trembling breath and made it to the chair to sit. Everyone’s gaze was heavy on me, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t. Not yet. Not until I knew he was okay.
“And you?” Tameron eventually asked. He pointed at my cane. “Bad day?”
I shrugged and passed a hand down my face. “It’s been bad since everyone found out. It’s a stress flare. I’ll get over it.”
“Shit. I’m so sorry,” Dayton started.
I shook my head and met his gaze. “No. That’s not on you. We should’ve been honest from the start. I just…”
My words died when a shadow appeared in the waiting room doorway, and when my vision cleared, I immediately set eyes on my brother. I shot to my feet as he walked up and swept me into a hug, his cane knocking into mine.
“What the fuck?” he asked, pulling back. His gaze was fixated on it.
“It’s a long story. I’ll explain later,” I tried.
His eyes narrowed and he looked over at Tameron. “Top’s alive?”
Tameron nodded.
“Going to survive?”
“Compound fracture. They’re repairing it now,” Dayton offered.
Creek’s gaze returned to me, and his hand shoved me back into my seat as he followed, grunting as his prosthetic creaked a little. “I have time. You’d better spill because I know something’s been going on and you’ve been hiding it from me.”
I let out a slow breath. “You really think this is the time?”
“I think whenever this happened”—he gestured at my cane—“was the time. But we’re here now.”
Fuck. Okay. It was now or never, I supposed. “A while back—a long while back—I started to notice weird symptoms. Fatigue, stiffness, seizures?—”
“Seizures!”
“Let me finish,” I begged.
Creek bit the inside of his cheek so hard I could see it cave in. He let out a breath. “Fine. Go on.”
A sorry would have been nice, but whatever. I bowed my head. “After I moved here, it got worse. I thought it was work stress, but it became pretty obvious it wasn’t. After some really intense testing and a lot of time with a neurologist, it turns out I have FND.”
“Which is?—”
“Functional Neurological Disorder. And I don’t have the energy to explain it all right now, okay? I’m exhausted and freaked out about Nash, and…and this has been a lot. It’s not terminal or anything, but it’s…also kind of forever. There’s no cure.”
He was quiet for a long beat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you would’ve freaked out. I wanted to figure this out on my own. But things got complicated when the university found out, and I lost my?—”
“Hello, gentlemen.”
