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Chapter Twenty-Two

Trey

I pace back and forth through my apartment, debating if I should go back over there. I’m actually pretty fucking disappointed in myself. I told her that I would never give up, and then when I see Kyle at her house, I just drive off. Even thinking about what could be going on over there right now makes me feel like I could rip something apart with my bare hands. Growling, I grab my keys off the table and march out the door, ignoring the bar patrons milling around in the parking lot as I walk toward my car. Just as I’m opening the door, my phone rings, and I answer it.

“Hello?”

“Trey,” Emma says, her voice wobbling, and I freeze, every single hair on my arm standing on end.

“What is it, Em? What’s wrong?”

“Addy…there was an accident…you need to get to the hospital. It’s really bad.”

My heart seizes in my chest, and my mind spins. Accident? It’s my worst nightmare come to life. “How bad, Emma?” I ask, and my voice sounds tortured, revealing the depths of my agony.

I can’t lose her.

“I don’t know anything else right now, Trey. Just get here.”

She hangs up, and I’m motionless for a moment, suspended in my pain. Someone slams a car door, and I jump into action, climbing into my car and starting it before peeling out of the lot. I peek over at the passenger seat and I remember the way Addy looked sitting there with a smile on her face and the wind blowing through her hair.

Memories begin to plague me, one after another of the last three months we’ve spent together, and by the time I reach the hospital, I’m shaking. After I park the car, I race inside, practically running through the halls until a nurse calls out to me.

“Sir, can I help you find someone?”

I stop and turn to her. “Yeah. Addilyn Burke, please.”

“Are you family?” she asks, looking down at her computer screen.

I nod. “I’m her fiancé.”

The words spill out before I can stop them but I like the way they sound. My heart stops beating, and I suck in a breath when she looks up from her computer and gives me a sympathetic look.

No.

She’s okay.

She has to be okay.

“Looks like they brought her in earlier this evening after a car accident. She’s in the ICU. It’s right down that hallway.”

“Thank you,” I call over my shoulder as I take off again, making a beeline for the ICU. She was brought in earlier? How much earlier? Has she been here all alone this whole time? That thought kills me, and I know this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t started that stupid fight with her. Jesus, this is all my fault.

“Trey,” Emma calls as soon as I pass through the automatic doors into the ICU waiting room. She stands up and waddles over to me before wrapping her arms around me.

“Where is she? What’s going on?”

She just shakes her head. “We don’t know yet. They want to speak to her next of kin but no one can reach her mom.”

I look around the room, and everyone has equally harrowing expressions on their faces. I look over to the nurse sitting behind a large circular desk and run my hands through my hair.

“I’ll fix this.”

“Wait! What are you going to do?” Emma yells at my back as I march over to the desk.

“Excuse me,” I say, and the nurse looks up. “I’m looking for my fiancée, Addilyn Burke.”

She nods, looking back down at her computer. “Room 321. Right over there,” she says, pointing to the corner room. “The doctor will be in to talk to you shortly.”