by Ann Garner
“It’s fine.” What else am I supposed to say? I push the unlock button on the door, listening to the click reverberate in the silence of the car. I turn back around in my seat, listening to him open the door. I know he hasn’t gotten out of the car when I tell him, “I don’t blame you, Grant. I’m the one who screwed up with Jacob, not you.”
“I’m still sorry.” He whispers, just before he gets out of the car and stumbles his way up to the townhouse. I wait until he gets inside before pulling away. This is what my life has become, I can’t help but think. It’s almost four in the morning and I’m driving back to my apartment all alone, where I will no doubt curl up in my bed and hopefully sleep the majority of the day away.
I’d promised Holden and Ally I’d meet them for dinner when they got back into town. Mostly because I know that I needed to start trying to put my post Jacob life together, and not because I was feeling particularly social. More than anything, I’d like to call Holden and tell him I’m just not up to dinner.
I’m trying to think up a reasonable sounding excuse to get out of dinner when I catch the flash of car lights out of the corner of my eyes. I know what’s coming next, my brain processes the fact that I’m going to get hit by another car quickly enough that a scream tears out of me just seconds before impact.
Chapter Thirty-One
I can’t quite force my eyes to open. I want them to, I want them to open so I can assure myself that I’m not dead, but it feels like glue has sealed them shut, and I’m just too fucking tired to force them to open. I can hear the faint whirl swoosh of machines, followed with the beep of a monitor just seconds before I feel pressure start to swell around my right arm. Panic starts to settle in as the pressure builds, tightening around my arm, squeezing tighter and tighter until I feel like my arm is going to be squeezed right off my body. Another beep and the pressure instantly deflates.
Blood pressure monitor, I think groggily. Blood pressure monitor and machines, and I’m in a hospital bed. So definitely not dead.
That’s good. Not dead is good.
I can remember the accident with electrifying detail. The bright flash of the headlights from the car that hit me, the scream that had bubbled up and exploded from inside of me within seconds, because I knew. I knew what was going to happen before it even happened.
My scream had been drowned out then. Swallowed by the sickening crunch of metal against metal before my car went airborne. I wasn’t in the air for long, before slamming back down on street several feet from where I’d taken off. I’d rolled in the air. I remember the tilt of the world, everything spinning around me, righting itself just seconds before I landed.
Voices. I remember voices, a strange blend of them, pitched high as they surrounded me. I remember them asking if I was okay. Some logical part of my brain knew that this wasn’t an abnormal question in a situation like this, but logic had flown out the window while I was spinning in the air because I clearly remember saying that no, I fucking wasn’t okay.
That’s where it stops. Everything from then to now is a blank slate in my mind.
The not okay part was apparently true because now that I am semi-conscious again the pain is slicing through my entire body. Everything hurt. Jesus, even my fingernails hurt. I really, really, would just like to curl in a ball and cry, but seeing as moving any part of my body seems like a colossal effort, I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon. The crying though? I’m pretty sure I can feel the tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes.
The pressure cuffs starts to inflate again, squeezing painfully tight around my arm for what seems like forever before releasing once again. Over the sounds of the machines I can make out the faint sound of breathing. I force myself to focus on that sound, letting it drown all the others out.
Whoever is in the room with me is sitting close to the bed. I can feel the warmth of their skin along my hand, and the soft rush of air against my cheek every time they breathe out.
It takes an exorbitant amount of concentration to get my fingers to move, even just slightly, under the hand that covers mine. The breath against my cheek stalls for a second, before starting once again. Whoever is lying there next to me isn’t waking up any time soon, at least not with the pitiful movement I had managed.
But I hear the scrape of a chair sliding across the floor, the sound of feet moving across the room, and someone is touching my cheek. A gentle brush of fingers along my skin, and I know it’s Jacob. I know I’m crying harder now. Because of course it takes a freaking accident to get him next to me again.
“Pixie?”
Now I’m glad my eyes don’t want to open. I don’t want to see him. It will only make it worse, only make it harder later when he walks away again.
The only reason he is standing in this room with me is because I was in a car accident. The weight of that disappointing thought pushes down on my chest until I feel like it’s a struggle to even drawn in a hiss of air into my lungs. Guilt is probably eating him alive. Because he walked away, because he wasn’t there, because he didn’t do something, anything, to prevent me from getting in a car accident.
Just like with his mom and Lacey.
No matter how much I want to, and God knows every fucking part of me wants to, I can’t build a relationship with him based on his guilt.
“Please, pretty girl, please open your eyes.”
“Grace? Did she wake up? Gracie Lou, open your eyes.”
My mom’s voice whispers across my skin. The hand that had been bushing up against mine, squeezing softly. “Baby?”
My lips are so dry they feel cracked, and the jolt of pain that sears through my head when I tilt it toward my mother makes me want to cry harder. “Mama.”
“Baby, open your eyes. Jacob, go tell the doctor she’s awake.”
I feel the cool brush of his lips across my forehead. “I’ll be right back.” He whispers.
“Grace, you need to open your eyes for me.”
I whimper, “Hurts.”
“I know, baby, I know it hurts.”
You don’t, I can’t help but think. It’s not the physical pain that’s choking me, it’s the emotional. Because what I’m about to do, there’s no coming back from. I squeeze my eyes tight, before forcing them to open. The lights above me would probably be blinding, if my mother wasn’t leaning directly over me blocking the majority of them. It takes a moment for her face to come into focus. When it does I whisper, “Hey, Mama.”
“Hey, baby.” She’s crying. “Hey there. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be just fine. Your father is going to be so pissed that you woke up while he was off getting something to eat.”
“Jacob?”
She smiled softly. “He just went to get the doctor. He’s hardly left your side.”
“Make him go.” I close my eyes again. “Please make him go.”
***
“I just don’t understand why I can’t walk out of here on my own two feet.” I grumble, while trying desperately not to wince as I lower myself into the wheelchair that Cole is holding in place for me. Can I just say, breaking your ribs is no joke. I can’t get comfortable. Not laying down or sitting up. It all just hurts. Every time I breathe the pain spreads through my entire body.
“You’re the worst patient ever.” Cole tells me cheerfully. “The wheelchair is hospital policy.”
“Well hospital policy sucks. Why aren’t we moving?”
“Mom went to get the paperwork from the doctor. We just have to wait on her.”
I don’t want to wait anymore. I want to go home. Three days in the hospital is about three days too long in my book. Not that I’ve ever spent any significant amount of time in one before now, and now that I have, I’ve no immediate plans to come back.
How in the hell are you supposed to recover when they come in at all freaking hours of the day and night to take your pulse or draw so many vials of blood that I was starting to think they were feeding a contingent of vampires.
And the jo
kes about the suckage of hospital food? They aren’t jokes. True story, everything I ate tasted like sandpaper. Except the Jello, and now I’ve had so much of it I don’t ever want to see another Jello cup ever again.
“Can we meet her in the hallway? I don’t want to be in this room anymore.”
“Nope.” Cole has settled onto the little couch in the room, which I’ve been told is as uncomfortable to sleep on as it looks like it would be. He’s messing around on his phone. At first I think he’s playing a game, my brother has a hidden obsession with Candy Crush, but after a moment I realize he’s texting someone.
“Who are you talking to?” I miss my phone. Like seriously I could shed tears over the fact that my phone had been recovered from the scene in about four different pieces and apparently my begging and pleading hadn’t helped in moving getting it replaced higher up the priority list. I feel so lost without my phone.
“Jacob.”
“What? Why?”
Cole shoots me a look just as his phone chimes. He reads whatever is on the screen then starts typing out a response. “What are you saying to him? Why are you talking to him? Let me see the phone.”
“I’m telling him that you must be feeling good because you’re your usual delightfully bitchy self. I’m talking to him because you won’t answer his calls and he’s worried about you. And no.” Cole answers my questions without even looking up from his phone.
“Don’t talk to him.”
Cole arches one black brow. “Seriously?”
Dammit all to hell. “No, not seriously. Just,” I hesitate briefly. “I don’t want him to think this is going to change anything between us. Because it can’t.”
“Why not? No, don’t give me that look, I’m serious. Why not, Grace? He obviously cares about you, God knows why.”
“Because I made a total fucking fool of myself trying to get him to listen to me and he wanted nothing to do with me. Wouldn’t even give me the time of day when I was standing in front of him begging for it, crying for him to just listen to me.” I knuckle away a tear. “He told me to stop.” I whisper, saying the words to someone else for the first time. Sharing my shame. “He told me I needed to stop calling him. And I promised myself after Grant that I wouldn’t let anyone else be in charge of my happiness.” Drawing in a breath I add, “So the break up hurts, but I’ll survive”
The room becomes silent. Like, quiet as a tomb, I don’t think either one of us are even breathing quiet. Cole is watching me intently, his eye dark and unreadable. His phone chirps, indicting an incoming text, but he doesn’t take his eyes of me.
“You hurt his pride, Grace.”
I snort. “Oh, well then, since I hurt his pride it makes perfect sense that he wouldn’t let me apologize, that he wouldn’t listen to what I had to say. So now that his pride’s all healed up I’m supposed to be like, okay sure let’s go again. I don’t think so.” Even as I say the words, I’m picturing him standing in that dirty room prepping to step in and fight for Grant. My mouth dried up as I remembered the way he’d looked when he told me why he was fighting. Because I was important to him. Even though we were no longer together.
Thankfully the door creaks open before Cole can say anything else and Mom comes back in the room. She looks so tired. For the first time ever I think my mother looks her age, and it’s all my fault. She’s been worried over me for the last few days, and has hardly left my side.
Both she and dad want me to go home with them and give myself a little more time to recuperate. I just want to sink back into my life. Or as much as my freaking ribs will let me. I’d been lucky, the cracked ribs, a ruptured spleen, a cut on my head that had been easily fixable with some stitches, a concussion, some bruises and a broken arm.
So while I would be in pain for a several more days, and sporting a lovely cast for an additional five weeks, I would heal fairly quickly. At least physically.
Hearing Jacob’s voice had set me back mentally about a million steps. Not that I had made very many steps in the getting over him direction to begin with. Hearing his voice though, listening to him call me Pixie, had been heart breaking. There was a large part of me that wanted to talk to him, to hear what he had to say.
There was just a larger part of me that remembered the pain of him not listening to me. I couldn’t go down that path with him again. I know that I would never be as happy without Jacob as I would be with him, I also know that I wouldn’t survive him walking away from me again.
“All right, you’re all set, Grace. Dad’s pulling the car around front. You ready?”
“So ready.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
One week after the accident and my crankiness has hit an all-time high. The stupid skin under the cast is starting to itch, and is nearly impossible to scratch without slipping a hanger down there, and my ribs still hurt like a bitch so getting comfortable is next to impossible. I’ve only made it to about half of my classes this week, and since I’ve become ridiculously bored with the crap on TV, I actually miss going to class. Cole and Delaney high tailed it out of town the second their last class ended on Friday afternoon. Cole had mentioned some lame ass excuse, but I’d known the real reason.
I was beyond bitchy.
I cried every night and bitched every day.
It had become my new normal since coming home from the hospital, and I hated every fucking second. I felt like I had lost all the control of my emotions that I had found, but now it was so much worse than it had been before.
My cell phone beeps for the millionth time this week, and without even looking I know it’s Grant. Guilt is eating him alive, even though I don’t blame him. They call them accidents for a reason, right? So whether it had been after dropping him off in the middle of the night or coming home from classes in the middle of the afternoon, my chances of getting hit by that car didn’t change.
The silence in the apartment Saturday morning is overwhelming, hanging over me like a thick blanket as I shuffle around. I’d snagged my curls up in a messy knot on top of my hair, though half my hair was slipping out, it just hurt too much to lift my arms up like that, and I still wasn’t deft with the stupid cast on my hand. My white tank top is covered with an oversized gray shirt that hangs over one shoulder, paired with my all-time favorite sweat pants that have an anchor on the thigh. I have on fuzzy pink socks that Cole had given me as a joke two Christmas’ ago, but they were ridiculously warm so I wear them all the time.
So naturally this is how I look when Jacob knocks on my door at ten in the morning, and I answer without looking through the peep hole. Because maybe if I’d looked I wouldn’t have opened the door. Or at least taken the time to run a brush through my hair.
And maybe over my teeth.
It’s like a punch in the gut to see him there. A physical blow that sucks all the air out of my lungs. He looks perfect standing there in front of me. I want to touch him. The need slams through me to the point that I have to curl my hand into a fist to keep from reaching up to skim my fingers along his jaw. I miss touching him. I miss holding him, and smelling him, and just sitting in the same fucking room with him.
“What are you doing here?” The words feel like sandpaper coming out of my suddenly dry throat. His eyes skim over me and I just want to turn around and crawl back in my bed and hide under the covers.
“You look like shit, Grace.”
I can’t stop the snort the escapes. “Gee, thanks. Thanks for stopping by, Jacob, but I can’t do this.”
“I want to talk to you.” One of his hands lifts up, but just shy of touching my face it drops back down to his side. “Please, Grace. Hear me out.”
“Why don’t you look like shit?”
He gives me a weak smile. “I wasn’t in a car accident a week ago. Can I come in? Just for a few minutes, then you can kick me out again if you want.”
I must be a glutton for punishment because I step back, pushing the door open so there is room for him to come inside. Without waiting I turn in
to the apartment, moving to the kitchen to pull out a can of Diet Coke out of the fridge. Jacob follows quietly behind me.
“Where are Delaney and Cole?”
I lean against the stove, watching as he settles on to a bar stool. “They went home for the weekend.” I take a long drink. “I haven’t exactly been stellar company the last few days.”
“I’m sorry, Grace. So fucking sorry.”
“Are you?”
“I overreacted. I realize that, but you should have told me the truth.”
Flinching, I lift my can up for another drink. “That’s some apology.” I drop the can without drinking. I’m not thirsty in the slightest, but need something to occupy my hands. “Hey I’m sorry, but it was your fault to begin with.”
“You don’t think you should have told me?”
This time I do take a drink, because I need the cool hit of liquid to give me a second to get my shit together. “We’ve been over this, Jacob. Of course I should have told you. I know I should have told you.”
“You used to think you were going to marry the guy, Grace, and all of a sudden I’m hearing that he spent the night at your place and he kissed you when you and I were together. And I’m not hearing it from you. How am I not supposed to be pissed?”
“You’re supposed to trust me, that’s how.” I move across the small gallery kitchen, slamming the can of Diet Coke down on the counter right in front of him, some of it sloshing out and over my hand. “I told you that Grant and I were over, Jacob. I told you that there was nothing left between us. Why in the world should I give what happened between Grant and I any sort of credibility at all? It didn’t mean shit to me.”
“I was blindsided, Grace. Completely fucking blindsided.”
“I know I made a mistake, Jacob. I get it. I fucked it all up, but you didn’t even give me a chance to explain. You walked away.”
“I know. But I’m standing here now. I’m listening now.”
“You broke my heart. I’ve been down this road, Jacob. I’ve seen the ending. It didn’t work out so well for me. How do I know that this time it’s going to work? That this time I’m not going to get hurt?”
