Alarm skirts up my spine as he listens, but he doesn’t respond before shutting down the call.
Agony laces his tone so palpably, goosebumps raise on my neck.
“My mom’s been in another car accident.”
forty-four
PRESENT DAY
BRANDON
The night wind is black, but I rev my motorcycle and speed into the void. Stubborn spring snow left from winter edges the sidewalks, but the roads toward the hospital are clear. Icy wind slaps my bare arms, but I don’t care. I’m numb everywhere inside and out. If it weren’t for the two small arms clenching my middle to ground me, I’d believe I’m not here at all.
But Kate insisted on coming with me to the hospital, and I wasn’t going to take the time to fight her off. Although it did take half a second to convince her to take my jacket, I still feel her shivering against the curve of my back.
Or maybe that’s just me.
I slam my fist against the handlebar as another red light forces us to stop.
The hospital operator didn’t tell mewhathappened or how hurt my mom is. Only that she’d been admitted after a bystander witnessed a car getting t-boned on Stafford Avenue. I try to dissect that location, mapping it out in my mind to check for nearby bars, but I can’t remember.
I hit the handlebar again as a tear threatens to slip beneath my visor.
I’m going to kill Chaz if my mom dies.
Oh gosh, what if she dies? My shoulders crumble beneath the thought, and I start to quake. She can’t die. She’s the only family I have.
I hate the father I never knew. I hate him more right now than I ever have. Why couldn’t he have stayed with my mom? Why wasn’t I enough?
Kate moves against my back, and the corner of my eye catches her typing against her illuminated phone screen before she shoves it back into her bag and huddles against my body. I wrap my hand around her knee, rubbing up and down her thigh to try to warm her up.
At this rate, we’re still twenty minutes from the hospital.
I curse as the reluctant tear escapes beneath my visor.
Twenty minutes turn into thirty before I finally kill the engine and we rush to the emergency wing. The male receptionist appears barely fazed by my panicked questions, replying in a monotone so calm I want to shake the words out of him faster.
All I hear are the terms “operating room” and “unconscious” before my world tilts. The man keeps talking, but I’m stumbling away into a cloud of delusion. Because that’s all this is. Delusion. I’m imagining things. This isn’t real. It can’t be.
Kate’s voice is firm in the background as she talks to someone, but I can’t quite remember who. Her voice feels like silk across my brain, and I force my lungs to expand. She is the only thread keeping me tethered to reality. The only person I trust to help me navigate this moment.
I feel a hand wrap around mine, and a gentle tug leads me forward. Kate’s steps are small but confident as she weaves us through hallway after hallway until we arrive at a waiting room.
I pull up short, blinking hard.
The waiting room is almost empty, save for a group of people who stand when I enter. Eric Sanderson’s bald head reflects the overhead light, a pajama-clad Heidi by his side. Julia, Tuck, and even his sisters are here.
“I hope it’s okay I texted them,” Kate murmurs.
A whimper escapes on my breath as I step toward them, and they rush toward me.
I’m passed from embrace to embrace—Julia sniffling, Tuck squeezing my back, Heidi crying—until I end in Eric’s embrace. He holds me like a father holds a son, strong, firm, and unwilling to pull away. I sag against him, and the tears I’ve been swallowing for what feels like hours burst from my eyes.
He rubs my shoulder, not flinching away from this embarrassing display of emotion. Only holds me. Shows up for me again and again, despite biology not requiring him to.
By the time I’m able to speak, my voice is hoarse against Eric’s ear.
“Was… Was she drinking?”
