Her phone was in her hand again when she tried calling once more.
But again his phone went to voicemail.
She clicked out, moved to her text app. Clicked on his name and immediately went to typing.
Rylee:Please tell me you’re okay.
Rylee: Xander??
Rylee: Where are you???
With each moment that passed where she had no confirmation, she felt every ounce of her weight on her bones.
Her leg was bouncing in her seat on the bed, body strumming from the rush of blood that was moving throughout her too fast.
She was now shaking all over. Pressing his name over and over again in her call log only for voicemail to pick up.
“Oh, God,” she cried, touching her face and realizing it was wet with tears.
This can’t be happening, she thought to herself.Not again. Not like this.
She had thought she’d moved past the sharp edges of that night… the night she lost her best friend, the father of her children. But now, with no word from Xander, the grief ripped itself from the corner she’d tucked it into, reminding her it had always been there, quietly waiting to reemerge at the least opportune time.
Like now.
And just like that, she was back in Brooklyn Bay Medical Center… the night Lennox never woke up.
But the night she recalled, that was sitting as heavy on her chest as that moment with her sitting on her bed, was when her best friend Lennox was taken there.
She recalled feeling a little optimistic, because Lennox was in her father’s hospital. And Lennox had passed out before but he turned out to be okay, able to walk out of the hospital once, so of course he would have to do it again.
But that night was not like the other. And Lennox never woke up.
Rylee watched her best friend take his last breath against her, watched the life leave him in front of her.
She played that moment over and over in her head so much she could remember everything about it. From the sound of his last exhale to the warmth that seemed to leave his skin as she held his hand for too long after.
Rylee squeezed her eyes closed, feeling herself sinking. She felt powerless, untethered, and unable to breathe. So she did the only thing she could think to do, the only thing she ever felt brought her relief in her moments of despair whenever thoughts of Lennox grabbed a hold of her and refused to let go.
She prayed.
Loudly.
“Godpleasedon’t do this,” she pleaded, pressing her palms tightly together and pressing her fingertips to her lips. “I know Idon’t talk to you often and I know I only talk to you to ask you for things but please. I am begging you to please don’t take someone else I love.Please.”
As soon as the words left her lips a cry soon followed. She got down on her bedroom’s floor of her room and sobbed, doing her best to keep the sound down but finding it so hard to.
A second later, her phone rang.
She gasped, popping her head up, raising her hand to her mattress and feeling for her phone before she could balance herself on her shaky knees to look.
Xander’s name appeared on the screen.
“Xander?” she exhaled into the phone. Her voice was a mix of panic and sadness, too many emotions all at once.
“Rylee?” Xander answered. “Baby, why you sound like that? What’s the matter?”
Another cry left her as she asked, “Where the hell have you been?”
