by Katie Cole
“It says you’ve been accepted,” her mom breathes. “But that would mean that you applied. Without telling us.”
She’d been accepted? Her heart soars for just a moment. Then, when she realizes the gravity of this situation, Isa hangs her head. “Yes,” she says simply.
Her father seems incapable of voicing his thoughts. He keeps taking in a breath like he’s going to say something, but no words come out.
“What is wrong with you?” he finally asks. “I thought you knew better than this. Or did you forget the last time this happened?”
She clenches her jaw and looks back at her parents. “This has nothing to do with Adam.”
Mom tilts her head. “What does Adam have to do with this?”
“That’s what I came in here to tell you,” Dad says before Isa can speak. “He has been taking advantage of our daughter.”
Isa guffaws. “Taking advantage? What are you talking about?”
Mom looks between them helplessly. The constant turning would be almost comical if not for the situation at hand.
Dad’s eyes harden. “It’s just like with that other boy. What was his name? David?”
Isa shakes her head. “No, this is nothing like David. When David came around, I was sixteen and naive. And he did take advantage.” She’d been upset when Dad had kicked David out initially, but now that she’s older, she knows that what was happening had been wrong. This is different. She looks at Mom. “Adam and I have been seeing each other for the past three weeks. I didn’t tell you because I knew that this is how you would react. But I applied to Syracuse University before anything started with him.”
Dad laughs incredulously. “You expect me to believe that? A boy from New York comes to town, I find you in his bed, and then I find out that you’re trying to leave? To go to New York?” His voice doesn’t get louder, but he’s clearly getting more agitated.
Isa clenches her fists. She hates being treated like a child. She is twenty-two years old. And Adam is hardly older than her. This is not even close to the same as before. Dad is blowing this way out of proportion. “We weren’t even doing anything. You don’t have to believe me. But if you make Adam leave tonight, I will go with him. And I will return when you decide to treat me like an adult, or I won’t return at all.”
Mom’s voice is small when she finally speaks. “Where will you go?”
Isa pauses. She hadn’t considered that, so she lies. “I have a job offer in Dortmund. And another back in Münster. Either of those should be fine, and I’m sure Ursi would be glad to have me back. Or maybe I’ll go to New York early.”
“Fine,” Dad spits back. “If you’re going to be like this, then go. You’re right, you are an adult. And I don’t want that man in my home. If you can’t handle that, then go.”
Isa’s breath catches, and her eyes water. She hadn’t actually expected him to take her up on the offer. Mom puts a hand on his arm, and they make eye contact. He clenches his jaw and looks away after a moment. He knows what he’s doing is wrong. Isa just has to make him see.
“Isa,” Mom says, “let’s discuss this. Please. Adam can stay in town. We will get him a hotel.” Dad is clearly about to protest, but Mom’s eyes are daggers.
Isa considers this for a moment. She can’t go to Syracuse, she knows that. Seventy thousand dollars is impossible. She would need a high-paying job in her field to pull it off, but a student visa wouldn’t allow her to work. There’s no way. Which means that she only has this week left with Adam.
She sets her jaw and looks each of her parents in the eye in turn.
“I’m leaving with Adam tonight. If you would like to speak again, I will see you tomorrow.” With that, she takes her laptop and turns around. She goes to her room first, and her parents don’t follow her. She packs a few days worth of clothing and her toothbrush, then she goes to the barn and up the stairs behind the grain room.
When she opens the door, Adam is still sitting on the bed. Has he moved at all since she left?
She looks out the window at the fading sunlight.
“Let’s go,” she says.
It doesn’t take him long to pack, and before the sun is all the way behind the hills, they’re in her beloved Volkswagen. She shifts gears quickly and hurdles around corners. It’s usually a twenty minute drive into town, and the only dog-friendly hotel she’d found in Arnsberg locks their doors in twenty-two minutes.
“Isa,” Adam says, his voice tight as his hand grips the door handle.
She doesn’t respond, just shifts down to slow around the next curve before speeding right back up.
“Isa, you need to slow down,” he says. Dee huffs in the back as if agreeing.
“It’s fine,” she replies. “I drive this way all the time.”
He keeps his mouth shut, and she relaxes. This is fine. She’s fine. She’s surprisingly fine. She should be upset. She glances at Adam, who’s staring out the windshield and holding on for dear life. His eyes are wide and terrified.
“Isabel!” he shouts, suddenly bracing himself. She darts her eyes back to the road, where a huge deer is crossing. She grits her teeth and slams on the brakes, twisting the wheel. The car spins out, and then everything stops.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Adam
He’s fine. Dee is fine, just shaken up. Isa is…
“Isa?” he asks, but she doesn’t move. Her head is hanging forward and turned just enough away from him that he can’t see her face. “Isa,” he says louder. She doesn’t respond.
His hands shake, and he looks up. The windshield didn’t shatter, but a spider web of cracks covers it. The frame around Isa’s side of the car is bent inward. Her forehead rests against that unnatural bend. His brain is too slow, and it takes him a moment to figure out that they’d spun off the road and hit a tree. He looks back to Isa.
She still hasn’t moved.
Hand shaking, he puts two fingers on her right wrist, the one hanging off the gear-shift. He’s shaking too much to feel anything. Or is there nothing to feel?
He makes a fist and takes in a breath to try again.
A moment passes.
The images of his parents’ peaceful faces in their caskets flashes across his eyes.
Another moment.
This can’t be happening again.
He holds his breath.
There, the smallest flutter of a beat. He holds onto that beat with every piece of his own heart. He wants to move her, but all of the first aid training drilled into him from years of living on a horse farm reminds him not to do anything.
His hands shake as he calls 9-1-1. Then, he hangs up as his brain catches up so he can dial 1-1-2, the emergency number in Germany.
When a woman answers, he says, “There’s been an accident. We need help.”
***
The hospital is frigid, and Adam can’t sit still. He’d insisted he was fine, but the doctors had given him X-Rays to ensure he hadn’t broken anything. Throughout this, they won’t tell him what’s going on with Isa.
They would tell you if she… He can’t even think the word. It can’t be possible. She can’t be dead.
Finally, they release him. Isa’s parents are in the waiting room, but he doesn’t say anything to them. And then the eternal waiting begins.
In the sickly green waiting room, he paces while Isa’s parents sit. Her dad has fallen asleep, and her mom is staring at a book, but she hasn’t flipped to another page for at least half an hour. Jen had been leaving for the day when she passed the accident at the exact moment they were loading Isa into the ambulance, and she’d taken Dee back to the house and informed Vinny and Katrin.
Isa’s parents haven’t spoken a word to him since he arrived. And the doctors haven’t spoken to any of them in hours, not since they said that she hit her head pretty hard and they’re doing everything they can. The doctors in New York had done everything they could for his parents. It hadn’t been enough.
If Adam sits, he’ll break down. H
e’ll cry, he’ll scream, he’ll beg. He refuses to cause a scene.
A doctor walks in shortly after Adam checks the clock. It’s well past three in the morning.
Katrin stands, and Vinny follows after waking from his light slumber. Adam freezes.
“I have news,” he says. Not good. Not bad. Just news. He directs his words at Vinny and Katrin, but Adam hangs on everything he says, although he can’t understand most of the words.
When he walks away, Adam looks at Katrin. “What did he say?” he asks. His voice is so much smaller than usual. He can’t speak to Vinny. If Vinny hadn’t screamed at her, Isa wouldn’t have been so upset. They wouldn’t have left if not for him.
That’s unfair, though. Adam knows there’s not really anybody to blame for the accident, but he needs something to grasp onto so he doesn’t fall apart. Still, he can’t make eye contact with her father.
Katrin says, “They don’t know how bad it is. She will live, but there’s still a lot of swelling. They’re going to keep her…” She takes a moment to search for the right word. “Asleep. She’s going to be asleep until it’s safe. With medicine. But she can breathe by herself.”
A coma. Isa is in a coma. It’s a medically induced coma, but still a coma. She’s alive, though. She’s going to live. That’s all that matters. As long as she lives, he can deal with anything else that happens.
Adam is just now beginning to realize how tired he is. He’s been up for nearly twenty-four hours, and it’s taken a toll on him.
“Can we see her?” Katrin asks the doctor. Before Vinny can speak, she says, “All of us?”
Vinny sets his jaw and glances at Adam, but he doesn’t argue with his wife. For that, Adam is thankful.
“She’s going to be asleep for a while, but you can come back for a few minutes if you’d like. Only one person can stay more than twenty minutes.”
Based on Vinny’s fierce expression, there’s a good chance Adam will be sleeping in the waiting room tonight.
When they enter the room, Adam stays back. Honestly, he’s not sure if he can get any closer. As soon as he sees her, his stomach turns.
Isa isn’t herself. Her skin is pale and washed-out, her hair a mess, and her body is covered in wires and tubes. She doesn’t react to their entrance, but of course she doesn’t. The blank expression is far from the way she looks when she sleeps. It’s more like Adam’s mother’s face. His father’s face. A funeral plays over and over in his mind. His body trembles, and he backs out of the room. As soon as he’s past the doorway, he runs.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Adam
He stays in the waiting room. He can’t see her like that. It’s his fault. All his fault. He should have stayed away from her, should have controlled his infatuation.
Or maybe he just should have left the moment her father caught them together.
The check burns in his back pocket, all the way through his leather wallet. He leans over his knees and puts his face in his hands.
For the first time since leaving New York, he cries. Memories of his parents run through his head, along with memories of Isabel. The memories mesh together with the earthy smell of horses, and then the antiseptic smell of hospitals.
He sucks in a ragged breath, but he chokes on it and lets out another sob. He must look ridiculous in that waiting room, but he can’t bring himself to care. Everything he cares about has been destroyed. Everyone he loves gets hurt.
When he’s finally caught his breath, a hand rests on his back. He glances up, but his vision is blurry. He blinks away the tears to see Vinny sitting beside him.
“I’m sorry,” Vinny says quietly.
Adam sits up and wipes his eyes on his arm.
“I overreacted,” Vinny says. He doesn’t sound angry or confrontational anymore. He just sounds tired. Adam knows exactly how he feels. “I was afraid of what could happen to Isa. About her ruining her future. I don’t know.” He sighs, but it comes out shaky. “But I realize now that all that matters is that she has a future. Whether that means raising horses or moving to New York or doing something else. She just,” his words catch, and a tear slips out of his eye. “She just needs to be okay.”
Adam nods. He would cry too if he weren’t all out of tears.
“I grew up on a Quarter Horse farm,” he says. This is the first time he’s said any of this out loud. He hadn’t even mentioned his parents’ death to Isa. “My parents’ farm. I thought I would run it someday, but…” He hesitates. Vinny raises an eyebrow, prompting him to go on. “They died. Last summer. Right after I graduated college. They got in a car accident.”
Vinny nods, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“I planned the whole funeral so my sister wouldn’t have to. I dealt with the hospital. Insurance. Lawyers.” He stares down at his hands. “I was fine. But then, months later, I got a check in the mail.” He pulls the slip of paper out of his back pocket and hands it over.
“Wow,” Vinny whispers when he sees the number.
Adam nods. “They left half to me and half to my sister. And half the farm to each of us. When I got the insurance check, I freaked out. I ran. I couldn’t deal with it.” He sucks in a breath, then breathes it out through his nose like Isa had done earlier. “It’s like someone told me ‘Here’s how much your parents are worth in dollars.’ But I would pay this a million times to have them back. A billion times.”
An arm wraps around his shoulders, and Adam leans into it. He’s too tired to be embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” Vinny says again.
They sit in the waiting room together, just existing together for the remainder of the night. If love could keep her safe, there’d be enough in this building to make Isa immortal. Adam prays that it’s enough.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Isabel
Everything is dark. It’s like Isa doesn’t even exist unless she’s awake, but those instances come brief and swift. A flash of dark eyes, a calloused hand on hers, her mother’s perfume, her father’s voice. Adam.
Adam, Adam, Adam. His hand on hers, a thumb on her cheek, his voice as he speaks while brushing her hair. These moments are just flashes, but she holds on to each one as hard as she can. It’s like grabbing at a frozen door knob in winter gloves, though. No matter how much she tries, she keeps slipping.
Once, Adam is crying, his head bowed as he quietly begs her to be okay. She’s never seen anyone so broken in her life, and it breaks her heart.
“Please, Isa,” he whispers. “You have to be alright. I can’t do this without knowing you’re okay.”
I’m okay, don’t worry about me. Why are you crying? she wants to ask, but the words don’t come out. She tries to squeeze his hand back, but her fingers don’t work. And then she’s gone again.
***
Thirsty. She’s so thirsty. When Isa opens her eyes, really opens them, a light blinds her, burning into her retinas. She tries to lift her right hand to block it, but something tugs at her. She glances down, but the movement makes her dizzy. She takes a pause and tries looking slower. Her hand has a wire on it, taped to the back of her hand. What the hell is that?
And where did this white blanket come from? She doesn’t own a white blanket. Is she in the hotel? She doesn’t recall getting there last night, but she’d been upset. Maybe she’d fallen asleep the moment they stumbled in, but the night is a haze. She remembers driving, and she remembers Adam, but...
“Adam?” she tries to call, but her voice doesn’t quite work. She needs water. She scrunches her eyes shut and opens them again, then tries to sit up. Movement catches her eye, and pain sears through her brain when she looks.
An unfamiliar middle-aged woman walks through the door wearing a blue uniform. Is she the maid? No, something else. Why is her brain going so slow?
The woman looks at her, and her eyes widen.
“Oh,” she says, then looks to the side. “Isabel. You’re awake.”
The words don’t make sense. How does this woman know her name? Her mind fina
lly supplies the word nurse, and, thankfully, at that moment, Adam walks through the door behind her. Surely he’ll explain. Isa tries to say his name again, but it comes out as a hoarse whisper.
“Isa?” he asks. Why does he sound so surprised? No, not surprised. Scared? What does he have to be scared of?
He rushes to her side and takes her left hand in both of his. She hadn’t realized how cold it was in here until he did that. His familiar heat is heaven against her skin, and she presses her forehead to his.
“Water,” she whispers. “Please.”
Adam turns to the nurse, who’s still just standing there. Why is there a nurse? The reason is slowly circling her like a vulture, but it isn’t ready to plant itself in her head yet. “Can you get some water please?”
The nurse nods and leaves the room. Adam immediately turns back to her, placing his hand on her cheek.
“Isa,” he says again. He doesn’t say anything else, just stares at her. His eyes water like he’s going to cry.
Something breaks in another room, the smallest crashing sound, and she gasps as it all comes rushing back in.
The accident. She’d been driving. She lost control of the car. A sharp pain digs into her skull, and she shuts her eyes. It’s like a knife driving itself deep down.
“Isa, are you okay?” Adam’s voice is far away, on the other side of the agony. “Isa, what’s going on?”
“We need to put her back under,” another voice says.
“No,” she gasps. “Please. It’s just…” She doesn’t continue. This isn’t just a headache. Someone once described a migraine to her, but she’d never imagined one could be this bad. It’s like she’s dying. Is she dying? “Migraine,” she says with gritted teeth. Her stomach roils. “I’m going to…” Her body heaves, and a hand is in her hair as something plastic is placed in her hands. She hopes it’s not anything important, because she promptly vomits in it.
At least, she tries to. Nothing comes out of her stomach, so she’s just dry-heaving, which is somehow worse.
“No,” Adam says authoritatively. He could be talking to her, but she’s fairly certain he’s not. “She said no. It can wait.”
