by Mindy Hayes
“If she would’ve listened to me and stayed away from that clown, this never would have happened,” I mutter. “We were just fighting about this, and she still thought getting in the car with him after he had a drink was a good idea.” I can’t keep my temper in check. I take a beat and breathe. “If my parents were still here, this never would’ve happened.”
“Accidents happen all the time,” Alix says quietly, leaning forward with me.
“But this wasn’t an accident,” I retort. “This was a choice. She did this to spite me or prove a point. A point in which she didn’t make.” It’s like karma barking at her back door. Did you not learn from how your parents died? From the mistakes of your brother?
“I can’t disagree with you there, but getting angry about it right now won’t help you. Take a breath,” Alix says softly and soothingly rubs my back. “Breathe with me, Aiden.”
She inhales and slowly exhales through her mouth. I peer over at her and watch her breathe, watch her bring me back to earth, back to her. I inhale through my nose and out my mouth. She smiles gently.
“She’ll make it through, Aiden.” Confidently, Alix stares into my eyes. “She’ll make it through.” I take her hand in mine as if she were an anchor, tying myself securely around her. I don’t care that she’s not mine. Her touch grounds me, gives me peace for the moment. Squeezing her hand in mine, she clenches back, and we stay like that until the next update.
***
Around three in the morning Savannah makes it out of surgery, but is now in a medically induced coma to continue to reduce the swelling on her brain. They can’t tell me how long she’ll be under, which isn’t comforting, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Savannah made it through step one. Alix convinces me to go home and rest, but I don’t want to leave. I can’t be alone right now. And there’s no way that I could sleep.
“I’ll go with you, if you want.”
I blink. “Okay.”
***
Looking up at the ceiling in my bedroom, I try to convince my brain to shut off, but it won’t. After I showered I went straight to bed. Alix refused to sleep in my bed or let me take the couch, so she’s out there now with a pillow and blanket. And here I lay, restless and worried. Finally, I get up and go to the kitchen to get a glass of water. When I reach the end of the hallway into the living room, Alix rolls to her side.
“Can’t sleep?” she asks.
“Not a wink.”
She sits up. “Me neither.”
I walk through the living room to the kitchen and get two glasses of water. When I get back to the couch she makes room for me.
“Thanks,” she says as she takes the glass.
We sit quietly and sip our water until she breaks the silence. “You went to see Phil.”
I hoped he wouldn’t say anything to her. It wasn’t a tactic to try and win her back. I just want to see her happy again.
Leaning forward, I rest my elbows on my knees and nod, but keep my eyes on the floor. “I did.”
“What did you say to him?”
I work my jaw, trying to find the right words. How do I tell her I went to try and be the knight in shining armor, only to fail? “I just… I told him it would be a good idea if he didn’t stick around, but I guess it didn’t make a difference.” I turn my head to her. “Sawyer says you got him to leave?”
She nods, biting her lips. I can’t tell if she’s relieved or upset. I suppose it could be both. “I don’t know how long he’ll stay away, but maybe I’ll be more equipped to deal with him the next time.”
“Well, hopefully he doesn’t come back.”
As much I want her here, it’s painful to look at Alix, to have her this close and not be able to do a thing about it. But I can’t handle the thought of her leaving now either. She makes this just a little more bearable.
“Aiden?”
Our eyes meet. Hers shimmer in the dark. “What else did you say to him?” she asks softly.
Sighing, I murmur, “That you deserve the right to chose when and if your relationship gets mended…” I swallow. “And that I love you.”
Her eyes are so sad I want to take it back. It obviously wasn’t the answer she was looking for.
“Aiden…” she says apologetically.
I hold up my hand. I know what she’s going to say. “I'm not asking for anything, I know you're not ready for this. There's too much going on in your life. I get it." I offer the best smile I can muster. "I just want you to know I'm here and I'm not going anywhere."
She presses her lips together like she’s holding back tears. With a nod she says, “Thank you.”
“Don’t you know by now? I’d do anything for you.”
A regretful smile takes over her face but she says nothing more. I take a few more sips of water and my thoughts drift back to Savannah.
Minutes pass as I stare forward, replaying memories over and over again. Memories I can’t let go of.
“You’re thinking about more than just the surgery,” Alix deduces.
I never wanted anyone to find out about the night my parents died, least of all Alix. Her opinion of me was low enough. She’d never look at me the same. But now, what else do I have to lose? It’s not like I can lose her again. “There’s more to our fight than her drag racing and getting arrested.”
Alix watches me in the dark. “What happened?”
“The night my parents died didn’t happen the way everyone thinks it did.” I run my hand down my weary face. Tears come knocking, but I lock the door. I will not freaking cry. “There’s a lot more to the story than someone running a red light and crashing into them.” I breathe. “I’m the reason they’re dead.”
“Wait.” She pauses. “What?”
Snow drifts down onto the car as I wait for Josh. It freaking sucks that the heater doesn’t work in this car. It never snows. I clap my gloved hands and rub them together, breathing hot air into them. My phone buzzes.
Dean: Need to get out of the house. What r u and Josh doin?
I take off my gloves and text Dean back.
Me: We’re getting some beer. Meet us at the barn?
Before Dean responds, Josh jumps into the car, clutching the beer in his lap. His eyes widen with a mixture of excitement and panic.
“Dude, what did you do?”
“Nothing,” he huffs. “Just got us some beer. Go, go.”
“You said you had it handled. Why are you out of breath?”
“Kent was in there, and I might owe him some cash.” Josh motions for me to go and Kent comes rushing out the store, ready to kill a man. When he spots our car his eyes turn murderous and he comes at us.
“And that’s my cue.” I put the car in reverse and peel out of the parking lot. “How much do you owe the guy?”
Josh shrugs. “Five hundred bucks.” He looks out the rear window with a thrill gleaming in his eyes.
“Are you freaking kidding me? Five hundred bucks?”
“We’ve got the beer.” He chuckles like it’s no big deal. “It all worked out. Just move. Keep going.”
Headlights appear in my rearview mirror. “Oh my freakin’… Do you see that? Kent is tailing us! He’s going to kill us, isn’t he? I’m not going down for you, man. This is all on you.”
“Not if you don’t get away,” Josh argues. “Step on it. Go!”
“I’d like to live to see tomorrow.” The headlights are gaining on us. “You see this road? I can only step on it so hard before the snow kills us. What if there’s black ice?”
The headlights are blinding in my rearview mirror. Josh swears under his breath and smacks the dashboard. “If Kent catches us, you’re going to wish the snow killed us instead.”
My heart exhilarates.
“Floor it,” Josh says. And I do, pressing the gas pedal as far as it will go. I clench the steering wheel. As we approach the next intersection, the light turns yellow. We’re too far away to make it, but I’m not about to slow down.
“Dude,
we’re not gonna make it,” Josh warns, tightening his fist on the door handle. The light turns red, but we’re still at least twenty feet away. “Aiden!” I blow right through the intersection, swerving to miss a car and I hear a loud crash behind us. I whip around to see the collision and a car rolling into a ditch. In the dark I can’t see much. Hopefully, it’s Kent’s car rolling away. If not, I hope they’re okay. I let out the breath I was holding.
Josh cackles maniacally, shifting in his seat to look back over his shoulder. He laughs again. “Sucker!”
“That was pure luck.” I sigh, running my hand down my face and chuckle breathlessly. “I just saved your butt back there. You better kiss the ground I walk on.”
“For the rest of my life,” he says with a smirk, and relaxes back in his seat. “For the rest of my life.”
Alix’s hand covers her mouth, watching me as the realization of what I’m implying settles in. Her eyes tell me nothing.
I continue. “Nothing happened that night the way it was supposed to. It was going to be a chill night. We were going to head to the barn, kick back some beers, and hang out. No one was supposed to get hurt.”
Alix’s hand drops from her mouth and tears well up in her eyes, but they don’t fall.
“After we hung out at the barn for a couple hours, I dropped off Josh and drove home. I had one beer to calm down, but that was my limit. I didn’t want my parents to smell the alcohol on me. When I got there, the cops were already at my house. I knew that we were caught. That Kent had turned us in or something.”
After slamming my car door, I walk the path to my imminent doom. Snow falls. The red and blue flashing lights churn my gut. A couple of cops see me walking up to my house and meet me halfway. This is it. I’m going to jail.
“Aiden Ballard?”
“Yes, sir.” I feel my blood run cold. I wrap my arms around myself.
“I’m Officer Lima. This is Officer Young. I’m afraid we need to talk.”
This is where they will handcuff me for reckless endangerment. That’s a thing, right? I nod, waiting for the hammer to drop.
“There’s been an accident.” I blink. “Your parents were involved in a motor vehicle accident about two hours ago. I’m sorry, Aiden, but umm…we should probably go inside and talk about this.”
“What? No. I want you to tell me what’s going on.”
He licks his lips and clicks his tongue. The seconds it takes for him to tell me feel like years. “I’m sorry, son. They didn’t make it.”
The air in my lungs disappears. My head won’t stop shaking no. “What? What are you talking about? Where are my parents?”
“When your parents were crossing an intersection, they collided with another vehicle and flipped several times into a ravine. I’m very sorry. That’s all the information we know at this time.”
The words reverberate through my head like speakers turned up full blast. My parents were crossing the intersection. Flipped into a ravine. No.
An unrecognizable sound rips out of my throat. I drop to my knees. I did this. I killed my parents.
Alix’s hand is shaking as tears fill her eyes.
“It’s because of me that they aren’t here. It’s because of me that my parents are dead.” I should’ve been the one to die. Not them.
Her hand drops from her mouth, and the tears fall. “Stop it. Stop. No. You can’t blame yourself for that. You don’t know that it wouldn’t have happened anyway. The roads were bad that night, Aiden. I remember. Willowhaven’s never known that kind of weather before. It rarely snows.”
“But it did happen. No matter what I say, nothing will change the fact that they aren’t alive because of me. If I hadn’t gone to that gas station. If we had tried to work it out with Kent. If I hadn’t blown through that red light. They wouldn’t have died.”
I lived. The guilty always live.
She reaches over and latches onto my hand, squeezing it so tightly it should hurt. The pain doesn’t touch me. I feel too much already. “What you did was stupid, but you didn’t kill your parents. They left this world in a crappy way, but it was their time. I know you probably hate hearing that, but I have to believe there’s a reason for everything.”
Like a facet, my eyes gush. Alix hugs me. Her hand runs up and down my back. “There is no sense in beating yourself up over it. We all have demons, Aiden. How we face them reveals who we are. You’re better than that. Are you going to be someone who lets his past dictate his future? That doesn’t sound like you at all. You’re strong and dedicated and full of life. Don’t let this fester. Let it go.”
With Alix by my side, I feel like I have the strength to. It won’t be today. It won’t be tomorrow. But maybe someday.
“I wish they were here now,” I murmur.
“I can’t imagine how much you must miss them.”
“Yes, you can.” I pause and I look at her. “But that’s not why I wish they were here. I want them to know how sorry I am. I want them to know if I could, I would take back that night in an instant.”
“They know,” she says. “I promise they know.”
Alix brings my head to her chest, and I listen to the symphony of her heartbeats as we gradually fall asleep.
ALIX
AIDEN AND I wake up in a tangled mess in the morning. Arms and legs are twisted in such a complex pretzel, we can hardly tell whose limbs belong to who. But his cell phone is faintly ringing from his bedroom, and he’s desperate to get there. Finally, I shove him, and he falls to the ground, scrambling to his feet before bolting to his room.
He doesn’t get there in time, but from out here I can tell he called them back. I blink at the time on my phone. It’s 10:00. I don’t know what time we finally fell asleep, but it couldn’t have been before 5:00. Slowly, I approach his room with the blanket wrapped around me and wait in the doorway.
All I hear on his end is:
“Yeah?”
“Okay.”
“Uh huh.”
“Really?”
“Okay. I’ll be right there.” He ends the call.
“Is she awake?” I ask.
Aiden shakes his head. “Gran says she’ll probably be under for a few days, maybe even a week. They can’t say for sure. But Camille is going to be there soon, and she wants me there.”
“Oh yeah. Go. You need to be there.”
For a moment we stare at each other from across the room. I haven’t seen his room since the morning after Sawyer and Dean’s wedding. It feels like an eternity ago. I think about the night before and what he told me. It’s obvious neither of us know where to go from here. I want to be at the hospital with him, supporting him, but it’s not my place. He needs to be with family, not his… whatever I am. I don’t belong there.
Since Sawyer drove me to the hospital, and Aiden drove us here, I don’t have a car. “You want to drop me off at home? Then you can go to the hospital. Or I can have Sawyer come and get me, or Gina. Whatever is easiest…”
“Will you come with me?” he asks.
I don’t even hesitate. “Of course.”
***
When we walk in the ICU, the floor is filled with the sound of heart monitors and breathing machines, the beeping and buzzing of all kinds of electronic equipment. After we check in with the receptionist, we head to Savannah. Aside from the equipment hooked up to her, it’s quiet around her space. His grandparents are sitting in the corner, huddled together. Estelle gets up with wet eyes and hugs Aiden. His grandpa gets to his feet and hugs him too.
“How is she?” Aiden asks, peering over at her lying in the hospital bed.
“She’s hanging in there. She’s a fighter, that girl. But we already knew that.” His grandma smiles.
“When does Camille’s flight land? Do I need to go pick her up?”
“She’s having a taxi service bring her here.”
Aiden nods and walks carefully over to Savannah. She’s hooked up to a ventilator with a breathing tube feeding into her mouth. It looks
worse than I’m sure it is, but it looks pretty bad. It has to be painful.
“It’s good to see you, sweetheart,” Estelle says to me and wraps her arm around my shoulders, giving me a squeeze.
“Thank you.” I smile kindly. “You too. Though not under these circumstances.”
“Oh. We’ll be just fine. She’s doing great,” she says positively. “Our Vannah is going to be just fine.”
I look back to Aiden who sits down beside Savannah and takes her hand between both of his. Gently, he brings them to his mouth and looks tenderly up at her. He doesn’t look very positive. I’m so grateful he has someone like Estelle to lighten the mood and be optimistic about the situation. He’s going to need it. I don’t know what I would do if I lost Brooks at this point. And with everything that’s weighing on him, I know losing Savannah would ruin Aiden.
AIDEN
DAY AFTER DAY I go and stay with Savannah. Gran and Gramps never leave the hospital. Camille and I rotate throughout the day to eat and take a breather. As much as I don’t want to leave Savannah’s side, it’s hard being in the ICU for too long. There’s so much suffering and pain.
On day three I tell Camille how everything unfolded. The drag racing, the fight, and my confession. I was prepared to lose her, too, but all she does is hug me and tell me how sorry she is. I can’t figure out why she’s apologizing to me. I was the one who killed our parents. I should be apologizing to her. I should be begging on my hands and knees for her forgiveness, for taking them away from us.
“I can’t believe you’ve carried that for all of these years,” she says with tears in her eyes. Camille places her hands on my shoulders and shifts her gaze between my eyes. “You didn’t kill them, Aiden. Yes, you were a stupid teenager and your driving was reckless. But Kent Jackson chose to chase you. He forced your hand. You did what you thought was the only option at the time. There was no malicious intent on your part. He killed Mom and Dad. Not you. Not you, Aide.”
