by Katie Ashley
“It sounds like Presley is very lucky to have her as a mother figure.”
“She is. I think that’s why, like Jonathan, she worries that if things didn’t work out between them, she might lose Evelyn.”
“What about Jonathan’s dad?”
Cade rolled his eyes. “He and my dad should belong to the Asshole Fathers’ Club.”
“Wow, he’s that bad, huh?”
“He’s a pretty big douchebag, but even though he was a hard-ass on his sons, he’s like a marshmallow with Evie. She brings out what little good there is in him.”
“The more I hear about asshole dads, the more thankful I am I haven’t had one in my life.”
“You ever think about tracking yours down?”
I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. No one had ever really asked me that.
“Sometimes. I mean, I know his name, and that he still lives in Georgia.”
“You should look him up. He sure as hell owes you and your mom some fat cash after all these years.”
Shaking my head angrily, I countered, “It’s not about his money.”
Cade held up his hands. “I’m sorry, and I know it’s not. It was just an observation.”
“Like my mom, I’m too proud to take his money. I just want to know him.”
“He should want to know you. Having a daughter like you is something to be proud of.”
My heartbeat thrummed wildly at Cade’s compliments. He had no idea that I had often fantasized about meeting my father. I dreamed that after he learned of my accomplishments, he would hug me tight and whisper, “I’m proud of you,” into my ear.
“Really?” I choked out.
Cade nodded. “I mean it. Although none of the credit goes to him, he should be impressed with how you’ve turned out, not to mention that you’re beautiful both inside and out.”
The song changed over to Aerosmith and Run DMC’s Walk This Way, but Cade and I remained intertwined in each other’s arms. The world around us melted away, and we only had eyes for each other. My heart started thumping erratically in my chest; it seemed I had been waiting for this moment for so long.
When Cade dipped his head, I closed my eyes in anticipation of his kiss. Just before his lips met mine, my phone started going off in my cleavage. I gave Cade an apologetic look. “I seriously wouldn’t take this, but that’s Tamar’s ringtone. I know she wouldn’t be calling unless it was an emergency.”
“It’s okay,” Cade replied.
After retrieving the phone from underneath my boob, I answered it breathlessly. “Hey Tamar, what’s up?” My heart plummeted to my feet at the sound of her weeping. “Tamar? What’s happened?”
“Darion’s been shot.”
“What? How?”
“It happened about thirty minutes ago. The paramedics called me on the way to Grady. The only number he had on him was The Ark’s. We can’t find his mother at the shelter or anywhere else. I’m forty-five minutes away if the traffic is decent, and it’s a Friday night.”
“It’s okay. Cade and I are only ten minutes from there. We’ll leave now.” I was just about to hang up on her to fill Cade in when Tamar said, “Avery?”
“Yeah. I’m still here.”
“I just wanted you to know that it doesn’t sound good.”
I gripped the phone tighter, desperate for her to quell my growing fears. “Like he might be paralyzed or something?”
Tamar’s reply came in between her sobs. “They don’t think he will make it.”
My eyes pinched shut in agony as the realization washed over me. Darion had been shot. Darion was going to die. Darion was fifteen years old.
“Avery? What happened?” Cade asked at my side.
When I flipped my eyelids open, I stared into Cade’s questioning face. My stomach lurched, and I fought to not throw up the tequila shots I’d had. I knew what I had to say was going to devastate him. Willing myself not to break down into hysterics, I said, “Darion has been shot.”
CADE
There are moments in life that seem to defy all logic, where your world shifts on its axis so fast and so hard that you feel the world shudder around you, and you fight to keep your footing on the shaking ground. One moment I was so close to heaven, holding Avery in my arms, then the next, I plummeted down to the depths of hell.
Darion had been shot. Darion had been shot. Darion has been shot. Those words echoed over and over in my mind, yet I still couldn’t seem to process it all. I shook my head a few times, trying to shake out of my disbelief, but the news still hadn’t changed.
Avery still stood before me with blackened tears streaking down her cheeks and her body trembling. I felt a hand on my shoulder and whirled around to see Jonathan and Presley. Both of their expressions were full of worry. “What’s going on?” Jonathan asked.
“It’s Darion.”
“The kid you brought to the scrimmage?” Jonathan asked.
I nodded. “He’s been shot.”
“Jesus,” Jonathan murmured.
Saying it out loud seemed to make it all the more real, and all the more devastating. “I have to get there…I have to see him.” I started pushing my way out of the crowd toward the front door. By the time I reached the front porch, my chest felt like it was going to explode from the emotional overload.
Just before I could break into a sprint to the parking lot, I remembered I hadn’t driven. “Fuck,” I muttered.
“I’m calling another Uber,” Avery said through her sniffles.
I jerked my hand through my hair in desperation. “It’ll take too long. He could be…” I swallowed hard.
Presley dug her keys out of her top. “I’ll drive you guys.”
We started hauling ass across the lawn to the parking lot. “Which one is yours?” I called over my shoulder to Presley. The girls were having a hard time keeping up with us in their heels.
“The black Honda Pilot. Fourth row.”
I nodded as I pushed myself a little harder. The SUV’s lights blinked as Presley unlocked the car. When I reached for one of the back doors, Jonathan pushed me to the front passenger side seat. Presley started the engine as I closed the door. Once we were all inside, Presley threw the SUV into reverse and then gunned it out of the parking lot.
The car remained deathly silent as Presley drove like a madman through the streets of Atlanta. Although I wasn’t overly religious or someone who prayed, I bowed my head and started asking for all the favors from God I could muster to save Darion.
We screeched into the ER parking lot at Grady Hospital on two wheels and I didn’t even bother waiting on Presley to park. Instead, I bolted from the car before it fully came to a stop. I sprinted up the walkway and blew through the mechanized doors. In my Navy uniform, I got quite a few strange looks on my way to the front desk.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked.
“Yeah, I need to know which room Darion Richards is in.”
After glancing at the screen in front of her, the receptionist narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you family?” she questioned skeptically.
“No, I’m not.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but only family are permitted in a trauma situation.”
I smacked my palms down on the counter in front of me. “But you don’t understand. He barely has any family. His dad is a junkie who disappears for weeks at a time, and the homeless shelter where he lives can’t track down his mother.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s hospital policy.”
My fists tightened with the rage that overtook my body. “Well, fuck your policy! If you think I’m going to just stand here and let a fifteen-year-old kid die by himself, you’re fucking crazy,” I bellowed.
The waiting room went deathly quiet as the receptionist reached for her phone. “Yes, we have a situation here.”
At the feel of a hand on my shoulder, I whirled around and prepared myself to go ape-shit on security. To my surprise, it was Avery.
“They won’t let
you back?”
I clenched my jaw, fighting the tears of both frustration and pain that threatened to burst from me. “No.”
Avery glanced past me and then nibbled on her lip. “Whatever happens, just get back there to Darion. Okay?”
Before I could question what she meant, Avery stepped away from me. She let out an ear-piercing shriek of pain before collapsing. At the same moment she hit the floor, Jonathan and Presley breezed through the mechanized doors. They met my frantic gaze for a brief moment before stepping into action.
“Help!” Presley cried a little overdramatically. Her heels skittered across the waiting room floor to Avery’s crumpled body. “My friend is dying! Isn’t someone going to help her?”
At Avery’s continued screams of faked pain, members of the ER staff came running from all directions. The chaos gave me the chance to slip back behind the mechanized doors without being noticed. Damn, the girl is brilliant. This was more her kid, but she made sure I got back to him. Once I was in the ER, I started reading the whiteboards outside the rooms to try to find him. Since Darion was critical, I didn’t know where they might have him.
After a few minutes of no luck, I resorted to stopping the first white coat I saw. “Can you tell me where I can find Darion Richards?”
“Are you family?”
Jesus, these people never let up on the family bullshit. “Yeah, he’s my stepbrother,” I lied.
The doctor appeared momentarily skeptical, but then her expression became grave. “Your stepbrother was shot twice, once in the middle chest and the second in the upper abdomen. One of the bullets hit his inferior vena cava. While we tried to repair it, it had sustained too much damage…”
I tuned the doctor out. With all my premed classes, I knew there was nothing that could be done for Darion. He would just slowly fade away. It wasn’t a horrible death when it came to levels of pain, but he was still going to die. “I want—I need to be with him.”
“Of course. Follow me.”
The doctor led me on down the hall to another area of the ER. It was part of the specialized trauma unit Grady was famous for. When we got to the door of the bay, the doctor turned back to me. “We’ve made him as comfortable as we can. It’s just a matter of time now.”
“Thank you—you know, for everything.”
She laid a hand on my shoulder. “My sincerest condolences.” She then hurried off to the next emergency.
A nurse was eyeing the machine’s in the bay when I stepped inside. Darion lay on a gurney with his eyes closed. His clothes had been cut away to access his wounds and they lay in blood-soaked shreds around his body. Lying there, he looked so small to me, like a child…nothing like the larger-than-life teenager he had been the day before when he was giving me shit while we played basketball.
As I made my way over to his gurney, it felt like I was trudging through quicksand. I had to work hard to put one foot in front of the other. The nurse nodded at me before stepping outside the door.
When I finally reached Darion’s side, I took his bloodstained hand in mine. “Hey bro, it’s Cade.”
Darion’s eyelids fluttered open. At the sight of me, a smile curved on his pale lips. “Hey, man.” His voice was so quiet…so quiet. When he widened his eyes to take in more of my appearance, a bark of a laugh came out of him. “Hell you wearin’?” he coughed out.
I grinned. “It’s ’80s night at my fraternity, and I’m Maverick from Top Gun.”
With a dizzy shake of his head, Darion mumbled, “Old movie?” Of course he wouldn’t know what Top Gun was. It was made fifteen years before he was born. When the hell did I see that movie?
“Yeah, man. Even before my time.”
Darion’s eyes made a sweep of the room before they came back to mine. “Cade, I’m…done.”
“Fuck that. You’re gonna be fine.”
“Always sucked at lyin’.”
Tears stung my eyes, and I hated myself for them. These were Darion’s last moments, and I didn’t need to be acting like a fucking pansy during them. “Jesus Christ, I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Ain’t ya fault. Shouldn’t gone, block party.”
I shook my head. “You couldn’t have known anything bad was going to happen.
With a weak smile, Darion said, “Didn’t like the scene. I’s about to leave.” He paused and his eyes became even more glassy. He grimaced and I wanted to do something that would take this fucked-up situation away. “Heard screechin’ tires. Pop. Pop. Pop. I was on…the ground.”
A grave expression came over Darion’s face. “Tell Mama I love her.”
My chest felt like someone had hit it with a sledgehammer. “Yeah, man. I will.”
“And Miss P.”
“Yeah, of course.” Yeah, of course? I had to say goodbye from this kid to someone amazing who had been in his corner? Someone who had invested time and love into this kid? God, it was so fucked up.
“Don’t let Marcus and Antoine…fight over my stuff. Ain’t got much. Don’t want them getting mad over it.”
“I promise.” Jesus, even when he was dying, he was thinking of others.
As if something truly important had woken him out of a stupor, he turned his dark but lucid eyes on me and said with more strength than just moments before, “Don’t look so sad, bro.” Darion gave a slight shake of his head. “Ain’t afraid of dyin’. Gonna go play football with all the greats in heaven.”
I choked on my rising sobs. “You’re gonna give them one hell of a run for their money.”
“Damn straight.” He took a ragged breath. “Thanks…being there…for me.”
“I should be the one saying that to you,” I protested. He closed his eyes, but I wasn’t ready, wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Deep down, I knew I would never be ready to say goodbye.
“Had each other’s back, right?” he asked me suddenly, his voice dull.
“Hell yeah.”
“All good.”
“It was good that I met you, D. I know it might sound like a bunch of bullshit, but you taught me a lot, man, like how to be a better person with a good heart.”
Darion looked at me skeptically, but didn’t utter a sound.
“You sure as hell did teach me that. I owe you so much.”
“That’s…tight,” were his whispered words.
“It is.”
He squeezed my hand. “Love.”
The finality of his words hit me. Since I couldn’t speak, I merely bobbed my head as I knew he was coming to the end. I’d never been with someone when they died. I’d wanted more than anything to be with my grandfather, but my parents wouldn’t let me. Instead, I’d had to sit in the waiting room. I didn’t know what to expect. Would it be like in the movies where the body shook a few times, or would Darion gasp for breath as he clutched the chest where his heart was ceasing to beat?
Instead, it was one of the most peaceful things I had ever seen. After turning his head away from me on the pillow, Darion tilted his gaze to look up to the ceiling. The corners of his lips quirked up in a smile, and then he was gone.
The long beep was a sound I never wanted to hear, but it stormed in and eradicated the momentary peace.
Darion was gone.
There weren’t words to describe what that moment felt like. It was like five different emotions crashing together in a head-on collision that rocked me both body and soul. “No! Please no!” I cried. Even though I had known it was going to happen, I wasn’t prepared for the actual moment. The agonizing pain in my chest grew even more intense, and I had to fight hard to breathe.
Pulling Darion into my arms, I began to cry so hard it shook the both of us. I threw my head back and wailed. “Oh God, no, no, no!”
The noise drew some nurses to the doorway. When they tried to pull me away from Darion, I fought against them. “Sir, please. He’s gone. There’s nothing more you can do,” a nurse said.
“Turn off the fucking noise. Turn it off.”
When she hit the button on
the machine, the silence was almost louder than the incessant beeping.
Although I knew she was right, that there was nothing more I could do, I still just wanted to hold on to him. It felt like as long as I could touch him, he wasn’t really gone.
Then it was like I could hear Darion’s voice in my ear. Dude, enough with the waterworks. Pull it together. Man up and let me go. I promise it’s okay.
So I did what he asked.
I let go.
AVERY
Once I saw Cade enter safely through the ER’s doors, I stopped my crazy screams. I calmly rolled into a fetal position and remained on the floor. Inwardly, I fought the extreme mortification of what I had done, but I had to get Cade back to Darion. If one of us could be back there, it needed to be Cade.
“Miss?” one of the nurses questioned.
“The pain…it’s better.”
“You still need to be seen by a physician. Let us help you up and then we’ll get your medical information.”
“No, really, I’m fine.”
“But you—”
Presley held up one of her hands. “Look, lady, she said she was fine.” She then swirled one of her fingers around her temple like I was crazy. In a low voice, she said, “When she has one of her episodes, we just try to humor her. I’m sorry we bothered you. We’ll leave now.”
“Perhaps she needs to be checked into the psychological facility for evaluation?” another nurse suggested.
I threw a panicked glance up at Presley and Jonathan. “She’s good. We’ll get her home and get some medicine in her,” Jonathan said before he lifted me up off the ground and started hustling me outside.
“Sir, wait!” the nurse called, but Jonathan ignored her. He practically broke into a sprint getting us out the door. When we were around the side of the building, Jonathan sat me down. “Jesus, that was a close one,” he said with a grin.
I fluffed my skirt down. “Tell me about it. You weren’t the one about to be committed.”
“In these costumes, we probably all looked like we had escaped the loony bin,” Presley joked. I welcomed the laugh that came bubbling out of my mouth; it had been such a tense last half hour.
