Dr. Reeve stands near the door, examining something on the chart. I watch Lola for another second, then turn to him.
“Hey, Doc,” I say.
He looks up.
“Be straight with me. Is he gonna pull through this?”
He examines my face for a moment, probably assessing how much truth I can handle. “It’s hard to tell,” he finally says. “Everyone reacts differently to a stroke this severe. Age, overall health, how quickly treatment started. There are just too many variables.”
“So that’s a…” I say.
“That’s a wait and see,” he says gently. “The next couple of days will tell us more. The best thing you can do right now is be there for Lola. She’s going to need that more than anything. If he pulls through, the road to recovery will be long.”
I nod, knowing that’s all I can do.
He gives me a small, approving look, then he quietly steps away, leaving us alone with the machines and the low hum of the room.
I turn my attention back to Lola.
She’s still holding her dad’s hand, talking to him as if he were able to respond.
Chapter Five
Lola
He doesn’t look like my dad.
That’s the thought that keeps looping in my mind as we walk out of the hospital. I still see the wires, the machines, the steady rise and fall of his chest that isn’t really his anymore. The ventilator is doing the work now. Not the man who sings Springsteen off key while flipping pancakes of a morning. Not the man who once confronted a soccer referee because he thought I got fouled too harshly.
This version of him feels wrong. He’s too still, too quiet. Reduced to nothing but beeps and blinking lights. It makes my chest ache in a way I can’t find the words for.
I want to turn around, run back to the ICU, grab his shoulders, and shake him awake. I want to make him blink, smile, or say something goofy, warm, and Dad-like. I would do anything tohear him swear quietly, tease me about my posture, or threaten to scare off boys with a shotgun. Anything to prove he’s still in there.
Instead, I keep walking, my shoulder brushing Jace’s arm as we head for the exit. I don’t trust my legs to hold me up right now. The building spits us back out into the night, and I barely notice anything before Jace is already there, opening the passenger door before I can think about reaching for it.
He doesn’t say anything. Not a single word. He waits until I’m seated, makes sure I’m in, before he gently shuts the door, as if I might shatter if he slams it too hard.
That alone almost destroys me.
He’s been there for me today in a way no one else has. He’s been solid. Present. It’s unsettling how much that matters.
He gets in, starts the car, and the headlights cast a harsh white light over the hospital wall before we drive away. The building disappears from the side mirror, but the image of my dad hooked up to those machines still haunts me. I curl my hands into my lap, fingers tightly clenched.
“Do you want me to call Aubrey?” he asks.
I shake my head as I gaze out the window.
“What about Sam?”
“No.”
He glances over at me, quick but searching. “Are you sure, Bells?”
The way he says my name hits me deep in the chest. It’s soft, as if it belongs to him. I fucking hate it because it cracks something open inside my chest that I’m barely holding together.
It makes my eyes sting all over again.
“I said no,” I snap.
