by M. S. Parker
I started to cry again. “It’s my fault. If I hadn’t asked Cody to drive me home…” And I couldn’t even tell him the worst part, the real reason why I’d wanted to leave. I couldn’t tell him. Not without ruining his relationship with Flynn. Not without risking losing him.
“No.” Edward wrapped his arms around me. “It’s not your fault. Some bastard was careless. It’s his fault. His alone. Not yours.”
“But…” I swallowed. “Edward, your mother…I heard her when I was…” I stopped, unable to say the words. I shivered as I remembered how awful it had been to be locked inside my own mind. “She wasn’t wrong. Cody wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me.”
“She was wrong, because Cody wouldn’t be here and neither would you, if the man behind the wheel of the truck had been paying attention.” Edward’s voice was harder, colder than I’d ever heard it. He pulled back and cupped my cheek, staring at me, his eyes more intense than I’d ever seen. “She was wrong.” He blew out a hard breath. “It took me seeing your mother slap her, hearing what your mother said to realize it, and even then, it took some time before it fully sunk in. But you were just in the car. Your mother blames nobody but the driver. It could have been me in the car, Flynn…my mother. Mom’s furious because it’s you and she’ll always find a reason to be angry. She needs to get over it.”
A little stunned, I blinked, not sure I’d heard him right. While Edward had never actually taken his mother’s side, he’d also never really taken mine either. It had always been about keeping the peace.
“Edward?”
He bent down and kissed me lightly. “I’ve talked with her. She’s not happy with me. But I almost lost you. Cody…” His jaw clenched as he looked away. “Now isn’t the time for blame.”
Eighteen
“I feel silly doing this,” Kendra said, her voice low. “Like something out of a bad action flick.”
“You’d feel bad, though, if I ended up coming over by myself and Claire was here and we ended up yelling at each other,” I countered.
“No,” Kendra retorted. “I’d be taking a page out of your mother’s book and slapping her.” She shook her head. “No, I just might punch her if she came after you like that.”
The fierceness in her voice had me reaching up to lay a hand on hers.
“Anyway, it’s not like I’m the one who needs to worry about keeping a good relationship with the Bouviers,” she added.
She had a point there, I had to admit.
She was pushing me in a wheelchair down the long hall, maneuvering around nurses, carts and visitors. It had been three days since I’d woken up and I had the energy now to walk halfway down the hall outside my room, but no farther. I definitely couldn’t walk to Cody’s room. He was on another unit. I had to see him.
I’d asked Edward about him earlier and Edward had said he’d get his parents out of there so I could, but it would have to be later in the day, around dinner time. He’d texted Kendra just a few minutes ago and Kendra had said that all the cloak and dagger stuff was silly. I had a right to visit him whenever I chose. She was right, but so was I. Claire didn’t want me there and I wasn’t up to a confrontation yet.
No one commented on the fact that neither of my future in-laws had come to see me. Well, aside from the one time when I’d been in the coma, and I didn’t think that counted.
My phone buzzed as we rounded the corner and I glanced at it. It was Edward.
Are you holding up okay?
Rolling my eyes, I sent him back my response.
I’m sitting in a wheelchair while Kendra pushes me around. This couldn’t be easier.
“Edward?” Kendra asked, pausing outside a door.
“Yeah.” I read the message on the screen.
Don’t overdo it. Even sitting up exhausts you right now. I love you.
I told him the same and let him know we were at Cody’s room, then I muted the phone. “Take me inside please.”
If my voice shook a little, I tried to ignore it.
I could do this.
It was a punch in the gut to see him there. Cody was such a beautiful, laughing, vibrant person. Cody was life.
Now he looked like death.
Pale and still, connected to wires and tubes, he somehow looked frail despite his size. At six-four, broad shouldered and muscled, he was even bigger than his brothers, but now he looked younger, smaller somehow. One arm was in a cast. Kendra said it was broken in three places and his wrist had been shattered. Three fingers broken. The doctors said it looked like he’d thrown his arm out to protect...someone.
A wave of guilt washed over me. Even while his own life was in danger, he’d been trying to protect me.
There was a bag hanging off the side of his bed, full of yellow liquid, and I closed my eyes as I realized what it was. He had a tube in his nose too. “They’re feeding him.”
“They have to.” Kendra stroked a hand down my hair. Her voice was soft. “He’s been unresponsive ever since he went into the coma. The feeding tube, the catheter…it’s necessary.”
A knot settled in my throat. I thought I’d been ready for this. Thought. I was so wrong. But I’d be damned if I was going to run.
“Take me over there please,” I said.
Misery spread through me like poison and once Kendra had brought my wheelchair to a stop, I reached out and caught Cody’s hand.
“Do you want to be alone for a little while?” she asked.
I nodded.
I didn’t know how long I sat there. I doubted it was very long, but it felt like a lifetime. I might’ve just gone on sitting there, unable to cry, unable to speak, unable to move, but the sound of the door squeaking open broke me out of my daze. I spoke without looking. “I’m not ready to go, Kendra.”
There was no response.
The hair on the back of my neck started to stand on end. It couldn’t have been Claire, I knew. She would’ve been yelling already. Besides, I knew who it was. Oxygen trapped inside my lungs as I slid a look over my shoulder. I hadn’t heard him approach, but that was nothing new. Flynn had always been quiet.
He stood at the foot of the bed and he looked like somebody who’d been to hell and back. Then did the trip all over again. His cadet blue eyes were bleak, sunken and hollow, his dark hair messy. His handsome face was covered with thick stubble. It had probably been a couple of days since he’d showered and his clothes were so wrinkled, it looked like he might have slept in them every day for the past two weeks.
While I doubted he’d done that, it was clear he hadn’t been preoccupied by laundry or anything like that.
“It’s my fault,” Flynn said. He spoke in a rasp.
When I looked up at him, he gazed back at me with a red-eyed stare. I wondered how much he’d actually slept since the accident.
“It’s not—”
“What the fuck ever,” he said, his laugh bitter and harsh. His shoulders hunched forward. There was none of the arrogant swagger that I’d come to associate with Edward and Cody’s younger brother.
“Cody was only there because of me. You left your party early because of me. It’s my fucking fault.” He spun away and moved to the window, staring outside. “I swear…if he dies, I don’t know if I’ll be able to live with myself. If he doesn’t wake up…” His voice cracked and he ran his hands through his hair. His shoulders strained against the material of his wrinkled shirt as he bent down and braced his hands on the windowsill. “When I heard about the wreck, heard that both you and Cody were involved...I swear, Gabriella. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself. I’m so…”
A spasm wracked through him.
Unable to stand his pain anymore, I wheeled myself around the foot of the bed. “Flynn.”
He tensed at the sound of my voice and shoved away from the window, staring at me. I froze. The impact of his haunted eyes hit me hard enough for me to feel the breath go out of me.
“Look at you,” Flynn said, flinging a hand in my directio
n. “You’re bruised all over. You’ve got cracked ribs. You’re in a wheelchair—”
“I’m in a wheelchair because I get tired too easily. My ribs barely hurt and the doctors said they’ll be completely healed in another month or so. I’ll be fine.” Frustration and exhaustion had my accent popping back up and just then, I was too tired to care. Or maybe I was tired of hiding it.
“You wouldn’t be in a wheelchair if it wasn’t for me! Your ribs wouldn’t need to heal.” He spun toward his brother, his face twisted in torment. “He wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for me! His arm broken so badly that they don’t know if he’ll be able to use it right again.”
I didn’t know how to help him, what to say to him. So, I said the only thing I could. I repeated what Edward had told me. “None of it would have happened if the moron behind the wheel of the truck had paid attention. If we have to blame someone, we can blame him.” I paused to let that sink in before I made my tone more firm. “Now…why don’t you stop feeling sorry for yourself and talk to your brother?”
He flinched as if I’d slapped him.
I forced myself not to look away or apologize. I knew he was hurting. But this wouldn’t help Cody, and while I hated Flynn hurting, Cody was my top concern.
“I heard them talking to me when I was…” I took a deep breath, then shoved the words out. “When I was in the coma. I heard people. He can hear you. People need to talk to him. It could help him come back.”
People need to talk to him.
As the aide pushed me down the hall, I reminded myself of what I’d told Flynn yesterday.
Kendra hadn’t been able to come in today. She’d taken a lot of time off over the past two weeks and I’d assured her that I understood. Honestly, she’d been almost hovering since I woke up. I’d just gotten off the phone with Edward. He’d told me he would be in that afternoon, hopefully in time for me to be discharged. But he wasn’t here now and I wasn’t going to sit in my room and twiddle my thumbs.
A few well-placed questions had turned up the information that Cody’s parents usually arrived around ten. It was just before nine and I was going to spend some time talking to Cody. Flynn had talked to him for nearly thirty minutes yesterday before Kendra had come in and taken me back to my room.
I’d spend whatever time I could today doing the same. Edward, Kendra, my parents, my sister, my brother...all of them had all guided me through that dark period. I didn’t want Cody alone in the darkness. I knew Edward would talk to him and Flynn would now. But his parents? Would they talk to him? Or just at him, over him, about him?
“You ring when you get too tired,” the aide said. Her name was Sarah and she was a bright, perky woman. She seemed to have boundless energy and was always smiling. Just looking at her made me tired, but I nodded and smiled.
As she walked away, I reached for Cody’s hand.
“Hey there, gorgeous. It’s Gabs. So, exactly what is it that you’re dreaming about that’s keeping you from coming back to us?” I managed to inject a little bit of humor, even though I wanted to cry.
There was no response. Not physically and not on the monitors, but I didn’t let that stop me.
“Okay, sleeping beauty. If you won’t talk, I will.”
And so I did.
I lost track of time.
Caught up in a story about how Catherine and I had played a prank on Suzanne when we were growing up, I didn’t realize it was ten until I heard a furious voice.
“What are you doing in here?”
Instinctively, I squeezed Cody’s hand as I turned my head. Meeting Claire’s gaze, I said, “I’m talking to him.”
“He’s in a coma. Thanks to you.”
Blood rushed to my cheeks. I couldn’t stop it, but I didn’t let her see that she’d all but sucker-punched me. I kept my voice even. “No, it’s thanks to the man who hit us. I guess you didn’t speak with the police, but I’m happy to clarify.” I didn’t let go of Cody’s hand, gaining strength just from his presence. “I’ll clarify something else too. Being in a coma doesn’t mean he can’t hear you. Trust me, I’ve been there. I know.”
Albert McCreary, Claire’s second husband and Flynn’s father, stood just behind Claire, a silent presence. He reached up and rested a hand on her shoulder, watching me with curiously unreadable eyes. In the time I’d known him, I’d gotten the impression that he didn’t have much of a personality of his own, but rather just reflected his wife’s abrasive nature.
“I don’t want you in here,” Claire said, her voice shaking.
“Fine. I’ll go.” I pushed the call button for the nurse with my free hand and looked back to Cody. “I’ll come back and visit you when I can, Cody. I’m not kidding, buddy. You need to wake—”
“You will not come back,” Claire said. Her eyes, so like Edward’s in their ice blue color, shone with a fury I’d never seen in my fiancé’s eyes.
I barely noticed. Staring at his hand, I whispered, “Cody?”
He squeezed, weakly. For the second time.
And one of the monitors made a beeping sound. A new beeping sound.
Without thinking twice, I grabbed the panic button. Nurses came rushing in and I whipped my head around. “I think he’s waking up!”
It was Edward who got me back into Cody’s room later that day.
Coma patients don’t just wake up. It’s not like they hear an alarm clock and just pop open their eyes and jump out of bed. I knew that from the time I’d been in a coma, but it was a bit different seeing it from the other side.
That squeeze of my hand and beep on the monitors had been a sign of increased brain activity, the nurses had told us, and throughout the afternoon, there were other signs. I was discharged at some point, but I didn’t leave. Not yet. Edward wanted to take me home, but I wanted to be there, wanted to see Cody in the new rooms he’d been moved to as soon as he’d started improving.
I was so anxious that I wasn’t even fazed when Flynn sank down on the couch next to me. We were in what must have been the penthouse of hospital suites, because it more closely resembled a top notch hotel room than anything I’d ever seen. Even the nurses were dressed differently here. The décor was upscale and elegant.
The couch was so comfortable, I felt myself drifting off to sleep. That happened all too often. Even the irregular beeps from the machines didn’t disturb me.
The wreck.
We’d been in the wreck.
And Cody was…
“Gabs…you…sorry…”
No, I tried to say. Not you…
A hand touched my shoulder, quick and light. Then I heard Flynn speaking, “Gabriella.”
Hunching my shoulder, I tried to escape the sound. Sleep. I was so tired.
“Tennessee.” He was louder now. So were other people.
I cracked one eye open and heard a hysterical sobbing.
I jerked awake. “What…Cody!”
Flynn stood in front of me, one hand outstretched. “He’s awake.”
“What!” I lurched upright and fell against him, off-balance and weak.
He steadied me. A moment later, though, Edward was there. I didn’t think it was my imagination that Flynn’s hands lingered. I knew it wasn’t my imagination that the crazy racing of my heart began to slow when I went from Flynn’s steadying embrace to Edward’s.
But then it was all forgotten in a rush of tears and emotion as Edward guided me over to see Cody. He didn’t look anywhere close to healthy, but his beautiful blue eyes were open and clear.
Claire glared at me and Cody grumbled, “Leave it alone, Mom.” He cracked a grin as he looked up at me. “You. I heard you.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Sleeping beauty?”
I managed to laugh as I sank down into the chair Flynn dragged over to the side of the bed. I grabbed Cody’s hand and tears sprung to my eyes when his hand squeezed mine. It lacked the strength I’d always taken for granted, but it was solid and warm.
“Sorry, Cody. But I was too busy feeling like shit t
o find a prince to kiss you awake.”
The sound of him laughing was the sweetest thing I’d heard in a long, long time.
Nineteen
I went home.
With Cody awake, it wasn’t exactly where I wanted to be, but he didn’t need me there all the time.
The venom between Claire and I wasn’t going anywhere and I could respect that she had more of a right to be there as his mother than I did as his friend. Besides, I was tired and even the short period of sitting by his side was enough to exhaust me. The medicine the doctors had given me for my ribs kept the pain at a dull ache, but I still needed to take it easy. I could’ve asked for something stronger, and I knew if Edward had known I had any pain at all, he would’ve asked for me, but I didn’t want anything that would make my head fuzzy.
By the time Edward had me settled in at home, it was almost nine and although he tried to insist I eat, all I wanted to do was sleep. That was the extent of my first night at home after my aborted wedding.
I came home and fell asleep in the wide, fat armchair in front of the fire. I had vague memories of Edward coming over to pick me up and vague memories of him brushing a kiss across my forehead sometime later.
Then I woke up.
Bright sunlight shone into my eyes and I stared dumbly at the clock for a good five minutes before I realized it was after nine in the morning. I’d slept all through the night. I had no more sat up in bed when there was a knock at the door.
“Miss Gabriella?” a tentative voice called out.
“Come in.” I brushed my hair back as one of the servants, dressed in black, came in, pushing a cart.
“Mr. Edward wanted to make sure you had a good breakfast. Are you hungry?”
My stomach grumbled at the smell of bacon and eggs. With a laugh, I put a hand over it and said, “Yeah, I guess I can eat.”
She smiled approvingly, but when I went to get up, she shooed me back onto the bed. “No, no…you sit!”
