“The doctor’s supposed to be coming in,” she said.
I patted her arm and went to Colby’s side. His long, dark eyelashes rested on his cheeks in an achingly familiar way. I’d woken up to this sight many times.
A man in a white coat walked in and introduced himself as Dr. Tisdale. The nurse left the room, closing the door behind her, and the doctor sat down in a chair at the foot of Colby’s bed.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, looking between me and Carla. “His injuries are extensive.”
Carla went to the other side of Colby’s bed, across from where I was standing, and took his hand.
“What are our options?” she asked.
Dr. Tisdale shook his head. “I know this is difficult, but as Dr. Blake told you earlier, there’s nothing we can do.”
I sucked in a breath, willing myself not to cry.
“Is he in pain?” I asked.
“No. With the way the accident was described by the paramedics, I believe he was knocked unconscious immediately. He never woke. I’m very sorry to have to tell you that he never will.”
“You don’t know that,” Carla said, her voice strained with emotion.
“His head injuries are extensive,” the doctor said in a soft tone.
“Well, I want a second opinion,” she fired back.
“My opinion is second to Dr. Blake’s, and I concur with what she told you. I’m very sorry.”
“So there’s no chance?” I asked.
“There’s no chance.”
Carla’s eyes went wide as she looked between me and the doctor like we were both crazy.
“If you think I’m pulling the plug on my son, think again. I will never give up on him.”
“Mrs. Harrington—” the doctor started, his tone gentle.
“No. I won’t listen to this. Get out of this room, the both of you.” She pointed at the door. “Now.”
I looked at the doctor, who nodded once and stood.
“We’ll give you some time alone with your son,” he said.
I followed him to the door and then out into the brightly lit hallway.
“It’s very tough news to hear,” he said. “Some people need time to absorb it.”
I nodded silently.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked, his brown eyes warm.
I wanted to ask him to turn back time. To put me on that road next to Colby. Or to at least give me a chance to tell him that he’d changed my life. He’d changed me into a person who hoped and dreamed. And all my hopes and dreams involved him.
I just shook my head, unable to speak past the lump in my throat. The doctor clapped me on the shoulder and walked away.
I went to the waiting room and sat down. The shock gave way to grief. Colby was gone. In all the ways that mattered, his light had stopped shining on a rainy highway early this morning. And the darkness was almost unbearable.
Chapter 2
Drew
I gripped the steering wheel tighter as I made the turn by the hardware store, knowing Mercy Medical Center was only a couple minutes away. I’d just been with Colby last night. How the hell was it possible he was now on life support?
Because life can change in the blink of an eye. I knew that all too well.
“You weren’t supposed to turn here,” Murph said, looking up from the screen of his smartphone. “The sign back there with the H said to go straight.”
“This is a shortcut,” I said in a clipped tone.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s my fucking hometown, Murph. You can’t find your ass with both hands and a GPS, so shut your hole.”
“That was harsh,” Millie said from the backseat.
I sighed deeply. “Sorry.”
Murph pushed up his wire-rimmed glasses and waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. We’re all shook up right now. And he was your best friend. Or is. I meant is. Sorry.”
“Sounds like he’s a vegetable, though,” Tex said from the back.
“You’re such an asshole,” Millie snapped at him.
I glared at Tex in my rearview mirror.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Everyone handles grief differently,” Murph said in a diplomatic tone.
“You think we should grieve when he’s not even gone?” I asked, shaking my head with disgust.
“Aiden.” Murph had broken out his level, team-leader tone. “You know what the guy who listened to the radio traffic told me. His head was…Well, we all know there’s no way. He’s on life support so his loved ones can get closure. And you know I hate it. Of all the unfair crap in this world. He was helping someone.”
Murph’s voice was thick with emotion.
“That’s Colby,” I said, nodding. “He’d give the shirt off his back if someone needed it.”
I pulled into the Mercy parking lot and put my truck in park.
“Carla and Drew are in there,” I said, glancing in the rearview mirror again. “Either say you’re sorry or don’t say anything.”
We all got out of the truck and I looked around at the rest of my team, which was now four instead of five. What a sight we made, all of us still dressed in the clothes we’d fallen into bed wearing at around two A.M. We were dirty and sweat-stained from helping with storm rescue and cleanup.
“Aiden,” Tex said, sliding his red bandanna from his forehead and stuffing it into his back pocket. “I’m sorry.”
He squeezed my shoulder. Tex was my size—a little over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a football player’s build. He was brash and always wore a cocky smile. A simple, sincere apology from him hit me right in the gut.
“Thanks,” I said, clearing my throat.
We made our way past the front desk and up to the intensive care unit. When we rounded a corner on the way to the nurses’ station, I saw her and stopped moving.
Her elbows rested on her knees and her face was in her hands, the long blond waves of her hair keeping me from seeing even a hint of her expression.
Drew. Beautiful, strong, amazing Drew. I wanted to walk over and put my arms around her. She needed a strong shoulder to cry on. But that just wasn’t me. Colby, the love of her life, was her comfort. I couldn’t do anything but look at her and feel helpless.
“I’ll go,” Millie said, touching my shoulder lightly.
Good. Women needed other women at times like this. Millie wasn’t all that nurturing, but she’d do a hell of a lot better than I would have.
I went to the front desk and asked a nurse to tell Carla we were here. Less than a minute later, Carla came out of Colby’s room, her eyes red and swollen.
Her hair was the same dark shade as his, but hers was streaked with gray. Colby’s dad had left the family when Colby was a kid, and Carla had been a single mom. Her son was her world, which made it that much harder when she sagged against me and cried.
“Why?” she said through her tears. “Why would this happen to Colby? He was a good man.”
I nodded, wishing I knew how to comfort her.
“I’m so sorry” was all I could come up with. But what else was there to say? I knew how it felt to lose everything, and no one could take away that pain with words. Time eased the ache, but it never went away.
“Come on in and see him,” she said, turning to Murph and Tex, who stood off to the side. “All of you. I know how much you guys mean to him.”
We followed her into the room, where Colby lay motionless in bed. His head was covered in bandages and a ventilator forced air into his lungs. I closed my eyes for a couple seconds to gather myself.
“Aiden,” a soft female voice said behind me. I turned and saw Drew, who’d walked into the room with Millie. She approached and raised her arms to hug me. I wrapped my arms around her back and pulled her in close.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice raspy with emotion. “I’m so damn sorry, Drew.”
“He loved you. Thanks for being here.”
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She pulled away and I wiped the corner of my eye. Few people had ever loved me, and now I’d lost almost all of them.
An awkward silence fell over the room. The rest of the crew went out to the waiting room, but I felt like I needed to stay.
“Is there anything you guys need?” I asked, looking at Drew and then Carla. “Coffee or food?”
“I’d take some coffee,” Drew said. “There’s a station right around the corner.”
“I’m fine,” Carla said, her lips set in a tight line.
I went to the coffee station and poured a cup for myself and a cup for Drew, putting lids on both and grabbing a handful of cream and sugar in case she wanted it. I headed back to the room but stopped outside the doorway when I heard Carla’s raised voice.
“You don’t know that,” she said. “The doctors don’t know it, either. No one knows.”
“I don’t think they’d say there’s no chance if there was a chance,” Drew said gently.
“When he wakes up, how do you think he’ll feel knowing you gave up on him after just a few hours?”
Carla’s bitter tone made me tighten my grip on the cups in my hands.
“It’s not like that,” Drew said, sounding on the verge of tears. “I talked to the doctor some more in the waiting room. He said Colby was without oxygen for a very long time. Too long. That even if his body could recover—”
“I’m not listening to this,” Carla said, cutting her off. “I’m not pulling the plug on my son. This conversation is over.”
“He wouldn’t want this. He wouldn’t want his body wasting away in a nursing home if there’s no chance of his brain working again.”
“You’ve known him for two years. I’ve known him since the day he was born. My son would want to live.”
I walked into the room, unable to passively listen anymore.
“Thanks,” Drew said when I handed her the coffee. Her drawn expression brought back my feelings of helplessness.
“Colby always rode next to me in my truck on storm-chasing trips,” I said, walking over to the window and leaning against the counter there. “Just me and him. I drove and he did the computer and phone work. A lot of storm chasing is driving or sitting, waiting to see if a storm develops like we think it will.”
Carla and Drew both looked at me, their eyes imploring me to continue. To talk about something—anything—that would take their minds off why we were in this room right now.
“Last summer we had a long talk about life and death.” I stopped and sipped my coffee, remembering the conversation we’d had while parked on a dirt road next to a cornfield. “We both said we wouldn’t want to be kept alive by machines if it came to that. If we’d never be ourselves again.”
Carla shook her head and narrowed her eyes at me. “How convenient. You overheard us talking, and you happen to know he’d want to die right now.”
“He’s already gone, Carla.” I cleared my throat before continuing. “I wish like hell he wasn’t. And if you think I’d make up something like that, you don’t know me as well as I thought you did.”
She stared at her shoes silently.
“He said he wanted to be cremated,” I said, looking down at the cars and pedestrians on the street. “Said he’d want his ashes scattered on a lake in Wisconsin. I can’t remember the name of it.”
Carla let out a sob and covered her mouth with her hand. After a minute she looked over at me, wrapping her arms around herself.
“Castle Rock Lake. We took family vacations there when he was young.”
“From the look on his face when he talked about that place, those times meant a lot to him,” I said.
“To me, too.” She wiped tears from her cheeks and sighed deeply.
“It doesn’t have to be right now,” I said. “Spend today talking to him and…saying goodbye.”
My voice was hoarse with emotion and the lump in my throat was tight. This was so fucking hard, but I had to do it. The last thing I could do for Colby was be here for his mom and Drew.
Carla nodded and Drew went to her, wrapping her in a tight embrace. I left the room then, turning in the opposite direction of the waiting room. I went to a stairwell and climbed all the way up and then all the way back down. Up again, and down again. The exertion helped release the pent-up, stifling sense of helplessness.
I was sweating and breathing hard when I stopped after about thirty minutes. I sat down on the landing, gathering the strength to go back to the room.
He’d had everything in front of him. A life and a family with an amazing wife. Decades of teaching and coaching. Lazy afternoons drinking beer with me on the front porch of the cabin I was building.
But fate had yanked the carpet out from underneath him in a cruel way. Out from all of us, really. Colby had been that rare friend who truly understood me. For thirteen years, he’d been one of very few people I could always count on.
I stood up and walked to the stairwell door, wondering how it was possible to find the words to say goodbye forever to a man like that.
—
The end was surprisingly peaceful. After a day of everyone saying goodbye and all of us remembering him with stories, Carla gave approval for life support to be stopped in the evening.
She and Drew each held one of his hands, and I stood with my arm around Carla. Drew’s sister, Ashley, was there holding her other hand.
Once the machines were stopped, he slipped away fast. Carla shook and wept, which cut through me like a knife. Drew’s stoic, heartbroken expression hurt just as much. She had to be completely gutted, but she stayed strong. After the doctor pronounced Colby’s time of death, Drew kissed his cheek and slipped out of the room.
Carla’s brother led her to a chair and I left to follow Drew. I didn’t know how to comfort her, but damned if I wouldn’t at least ask her what she needed right now. I had to do something.
I saw her walk into a bathroom at the end of the hall and I went there to wait for her.
But then I heard her crying. She’d finally broken down, and hearing her mournful sobs was painful. I wanted to bust down the door and pick her up. Take her in my arms for as long as it took for the overwhelming ache to dull.
It wasn’t my place, though. I pressed a palm to the closed bathroom door, letting my tears finally escape, too.
After a minute, I gathered myself and turned toward the stairwell. There was nothing more I could do here. What Drew needed, I couldn’t give her.
She’d never meet another man like him. I’d never have another friend like him. Fate had stolen something precious from both of us. And I wasn’t giving fate any more cracks at me.
Chapter 3
Drew
ONE YEAR LATER
Cindy Jameson ran a hand over her freshly highlighted blond hair as she approached the salon’s reception desk.
“I love it,” I said of her new cut, color, and style.
“Me, too,” she said, grinning. “When I hit the lotto I’m hiring Shayla as my personal stylist.”
I smiled and typed a few numbers into the computer, giving her a total for her visit.
“So how are you, Drew?” She took out her checkbook and gave me a sympathetic look.
I’d gotten used to the look. In a small town like Lipton, everyone knew everyone. For the past year, I’d been unable to go anywhere without getting the look. I reminded myself it was because people cared.
Well, mostly. It was sometimes because they were gossips mining for information.
“I’m good,” I said, busying my hands with organizing papers on the desk.
“Really?” Cindy’s tone was skeptical.
I sighed inwardly. Cindy had been in my high school class. We hadn’t been close then. I was tired of people who actually knew me asking how I was, let alone people like her.
Besides, when I said I was good, I either got a skeptical no, you’re not look or a surprised you must be a cold bitch look. I couldn’t win.
“Really,” I sa
id, taking the check she handed me.
“Are you seeing anyone?”
Last week had marked one year since Colby’s death. Everyone knew it because of an article in the local paper with the headline ONE YEAR LATER, MOTHER HONORS SON’S LIFE. Carla had set up a scholarship fund with Colby’s life insurance money. I’d cried—happy tears, for once—when she told me about it. It would’ve made him proud.
But now that it had been a year, people were focused on my social life. Or rather, lack thereof.
“No,” I said to Cindy. “Between work and friends and family, I’m pretty busy.”
It was sort of true. My only friends were Shayla and Jackie. I was living in the basement apartment at Shayla’s house. As soon as Daniel moved for school, I’d left our mom’s house, too. There was nothing good left there. And those marathons of Law & Order I watched every weekend—well, they were close enough to friends.
“Do you feel ready?”
I tried not to cringe. Another no-win question.
“Because I know someone,” Cindy continued. “My brother’s friend Zane. Remember him? He was three years ahead of us in school.”
“Uh…” I tried to think of a tactful way to brush off the idea. Truth was, looking for a man had never been my style. I hadn’t been looking for Colby when I’d run into him at the grocery store. Specifically, the produce section. He’d loved telling the story of how he impressed me with his melon-squeezing skills.
“Drew!” Jackie cried from behind her styling chair. “Crap, I am so sorry. I need some color mixed right now. I ran out.”
I shook myself out of the daze I was in. “Oh.”
“Call me sometime,” Cindy said, waving and ducking out of the salon.
I went to the small room where the stylists mixed hair color and looked around, confused. I’d never mixed color before, and Jackie knew it.
Peeking around the doorframe, I looked at her. “Do you really need color mixed?”
“No. I just wanted to get rid of Cindy. Since when is your personal life any of her business?”
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