by Shelia Grace
“Are you taking her to the medical center or local?” I snapped.
“Med center.”
“Good.”
If he had said local, I would have fucking jumped into the ambulance and taken her downtown myself. I watched as her mother got into the back of the ambulance with the other medic. Bolting back across the street, I jumped into my car, which had caused a massive fucking traffic jam. Swerving around the gridlock, I cut across and followed the ambulance toward the freeway.
Fuck! Why the fuck had I dropped her off on the corner? I gritted my teeth as I chased the ambulance. The thought of losing her—like this … No. It wasn’t going to fucking happen.
It couldn’t.
The drive downtown, which would have normally taken twenty-five minutes, took fifteen behind the ambulance. I pulled into the parking lot and left the car in the first space available. They could fucking ticket me all they wanted. I followed the signs toward the emergency room, knowing that they wouldn’t tell me a goddamn thing once I got there.
Stepping into the waiting area for trauma cases, I looked around at the weary and beleaguered faces. Then I saw Alex’s mother at the counter pacing anxiously. She was on her cell phone, crying.
“I’m at the hospital. They’re doing a CT scan. No, they didn’t tell me. No! Don’t tell Stephie. Wait until we know something. Stephen, it was terrible. I saw the car hit her.”
She started sobbing, and I stood and waited until she ended the call. Then I realized that, as obsessed with her daughter as I was, I didn’t even know this woman’s name. Alex had told me that she lived with her mother and stepfather, so it was completely possible that the woman in front of me wasn’t Mrs. Reed. I walked over, and she looked up.
“You were there when …”
I nodded as she sniffled.
“I’m a friend of your daughter’s.”
I could practically see her mentally calculating my age, but she didn’t say anything.
“Have they told you anything?” I asked quickly, unable to keep the anxiety out of my tone.
“They’re running tests.” She paused. “I’m sorry, honey. What’s your name?”
I held out my hand.
“Ryan.”
Her smile was brief.
“Michelle.”
A woman came out of the double doors and looked around.
“Michelle Gold?”
I watched Alex’s mom turn and walk quickly toward the woman, and it took all I had to keep from following her. Then I figured, fuck it. I walked over, keeping enough of a distance that the nurse didn’t notice me.
“… lacerations, contusions, a concussion, two fractured ribs—”
“Can I see her? Is she awake?” her mother asked.
“I’ll take you back. She just had a CT scan, and they’re bandaging her up. As long as her vitals remain stable, she’ll be transferred to observation overnight.”
“That means she’s going to be okay, right?” her mother asked nervously.
Watching as the two women disappeared through the double doors, I sat down and stared at the floor. Eventually I took out my phone and texted Jess, asking if he could check on Finn. Then, after an hour or so of staring at the floor, I saw Alex’s mother emerge from another door and look around. When she saw me, she waved, and I walked quickly to where she was.
“She’s awake, and she keeps asking for Ryan. Anyone else named Ryan out here?” she asked.
Her relief was palpable, which meant Alex was okay. I exhaled.
“Can I see her?”
She nodded, and I followed her through the doors to the recovery unit. When we reached her room, I looked through the glass at the top of the door and saw Alex in a bed with a pale blue blanket drawn up over her chest. My stomach lurched. I had almost fucking watched her die in front of me because I had been stupid enough to leave her across the street instead of at her dorm.
“They said only family members could see her, but I won’t tell,” her mother whispered as I pushed open the door.
Alex blinked and then smiled drowsily at me as I walked up to the bed.
“This time it totally wasn’t my fault. That asshole didn’t stop at the light.”
When I touched her hand, she winced.
“Sorry. The IV is making me sick … but I think they’re pumping some good drugs into my system.”
“I should have dropped you off at Mercer.”
“I told you not to.”
“Then that might be the last time I listen to you.”
She laughed and then winced again.
“It hurts to breathe.”
“You should get some sleep.”
Her eyes widened.
“Aren’t you supposed to stay up all night or something if you hit your head?”
She reached up and touched the bandaged spot on her forehead before I could catch her arm.
“Ow! Shit that hurts.”
I looked at her pupils. They were even and not overly dilated. And she wasn’t slurring.
“Do you feel sick at all?”
She shook her head.
“I’m not nauseous, if that’s what you mean.”
“Then you should be fine to sleep.”
“Oh! Did you meet my mom?”
“I did. She’s right outside. Do you want me to get her?”
Alex shook her head and then reached up suddenly with her left arm and grabbed my wrist. Her eyes were glittering with tears, and I felt the same wrenching sensation as the moment she’d been hit.
“Ryan, I should have said it before I got out of the car, but I didn’t think I was going to get mowed down two seconds later. … I love you. And I don’t care if you love me back. I just want you to know that, you know, in case I’m living in some fucked up Raymond Carver story, and I don’t wake up tomorrow.”
She said it in the same dry way as she said all the other morbid shit that came out of her mouth, but it just ripped open the hole in my chest. A nurse came in.
“She needs to rest. You can come back later.”
Alex smiled sleepily at me, and I watched as her eyes closed. Then I stumbled toward the door, looking back once before pulling open the door. I didn’t say anything to her mother, who had been sitting on a bench outside with an e-reader. Instead I took off down the hall, telling myself that this was the right thing to do. Alex didn’t deserve to deal with my twisted emotional wreckage. No one did.
For the longest time, I had thought that I was okay—that I could pass for human. But looking down at Alex and seeing in her everything I would be destroying if I held onto her—it had just made me realize that I didn’t deserve a grain of the happiness I felt when I was with her. I couldn’t make her happy. Not for long. Eventually she would see the extent of the damage, and she would run screaming. The thought of bringing her more pain … I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t.
When I got to the parking lot, I snatched the ticket off the windshield and opened the car door. The drive back was bad. I had nothing to look forward to, no one I wanted to see. I should have been looking forward to defending my dissertation, but who the fuck cared? Right now, the past four years just seemed like one big fuck you to my parents. Hadn’t I wanted to show them that I wasn’t Reece?
I had to wonder now—was it them or me I had been trying to convince?
###
The rest of the term passed in a blur. At one point, I showed up at Alex’s dorm and went to her friend’s room. She had opened the door and looked at me like I was dog shit on the bottom of her shoe. And when I had asked her if Alex was all right, she had laughed.
“What the fuck do you care?” she had spat.
I had deserved her scorn. In fact, I had been pretty sure she had been about to kick me in the nuts. Instead, she had slammed the door in my face. It had been worth it, though. I needed to know that Alex was all right. Because every time I closed my fucking eyes, I saw her being hit by the car. It was my eternal punishment for not letting her go in the fir
st place.
A week before the end of the term, McDevitt called with his usual hard sell about spring break, and for the first time in years I agreed—to Vegas. I refused to fly to Mexico or Florida just so James could satisfy his time travel journey back to our college days. He had already enlisted Dave and Mike, and I hadn’t seen either of them in years. Dave was managing his father’s construction company somewhere in fucking Texas, and Mike had had a cushy job at his father’s investment firm in NYC. McDevitt was a fucking reprobate, but I had seen him more often than Dave or Mike, mostly due to geography.
Before leaving, I boarded Finn, who had developed a case of canine depression after Alex hadn’t returned to see him. I was pretty sure my own dog hated me. But no more than I hated myself. Dropping him off at the boarding place for forty-eight hours was probably the nail in the coffin. I fully expected him to bite me when I came back to pick him up.
When I got off the plane at McCarran International, I looked around at the banks of slot machines and groaned inwardly. I had forgotten how obnoxious Vegas was—unless, of course, you were the one who was shit-housed drunk and irritating the fuck out of other people instead of the other way around. I made it as far as the first bar, which was, not surprisingly, where I found McDevitt. Generally the best place to look for him was the closest establishment that served alcohol.
“Hey, Bennett, you fucking dick. You wanna place a bet?”
His face was red, and his eyes were nearly black. He was hammered already.
“How about you lose some cash for both of us?”
“Barkeep! Fucking Jaeger shots for my buddy and me.”
The bartender looked like he was more likely going to kick McDevitt in the face.
“When did you get in?” I asked, sizing up the state of his suit.
“Yesterday … this morning. Fuck, I don’t know.”
“You’ve been in the airport this whole fucking time?”
He still had his eyes glued to the TV screen above the bar, so I had to assume he was down at least a few thousand. When the bartender set down the shots, McDevitt finally turned and grinned at me.
“No. Check it. I’ve got a limo outside.”
“Classy.”
“Right? It’s fucking awesome.”
I could almost see the look on Alex’s face if she were here, and the fact that I was even thinking of her right now caused me to pick up the shot of Jaeger.
“Vegas, Baby!” McDevitt said.
I knocked back the shot and added it to my list of regrets. Fucking Jaeger. Getting up, I walked over to a table in the corner. When James followed me, I thought that maybe the slightly longer distance to the bar might slow him down. Fuck no. He just flagged down the server.
“So, what happened to your almost under-aged piece of ass. Did you nail her finally?”
“Fuck you.”
“Bennett, you pussy. You should’ve told me you were gonna wuss out, and I woulda properly spanked that shit.”
I smiled and hoped that someone would properly kick the shit out of James while we were in Vegas.
“I’d like to see you try. I think her pet names for you were dick and asshole.”
“I wouldn’t mind sticking my dick in her—”
“Four Jaeger shots,” the server announced.
A few more shots, and I would kick his ass.
“Stick to your strengths. Strippers and drunk sorority girls.”
McDevitt guffawed.
“Like your ex? Damn, that fucking chick needs a demonic exorcism.”
“Wow, and I thought you had been too busy slobbering on my date to notice.”
“Fuck. When you showed up at your parents’ little soiree with Alex, I thought good ol’ Gretchen was gonna stick a fucking high heel up my ass.”
Right now I wanted to stick a foot up his ass. Feeling an arm lock around my neck, I swung back with my elbow and hit a doughy gut. Turning, I saw Mike doubled over with Dave laughing his ass off next to him.
“Borelli, you’ve gotten fucking soft,” I laughed at Mike.
Dave and I were in jeans and T-shirts, McDevitt and Borelli both in suits. I slapped my hand to Dave’s.
“Been too long.”
“Yeah it has,” Peterson grinned.
“Now, can we please get the fuck out of here?” I asked.
McDevitt got on the phone with the limo driver, and I sighed. This was going to be a long forty-eight hours … and if I didn’t kick McDevitt’s ass, it would be a fucking miracle. Not surprisingly, the first destination on his list was a strip club. We got into the limo, and he was already pouring four shots. He raised his glass.
“I can’t think of the last time I was with the three of you assholes, so it’s high time we went out and caused some fucking damage. Drink up, pussies!”
In my past experience, there were four kinds of guys who frequented strip clubs. First was the guy who couldn’t get laid but somehow thought he was going to fuck a stripper. Second was the guy—in our case McDevitt—who might actually fuck a stripper. Third was the guy who worked at the club who was definitely going home with a stripper. Fourth, well that was every asshole who got dragged there by the first or second guy.
Generally, I had one word for strip clubs in: skeezy. Didn’t matter whether it was Vegas or NYC. But McDevitt had another word for strip clubs: warm-up. Strip clubs were like anything else to him—as in: why the fuck not? My theory as to why McDevitt managed to pick up a stripper almost every time I saw him was simple: there was always at least one stripper in every club who didn’t care how much of a dick he was, only how much money he had. Normally there was no way I would go into a strip club with McDevitt, but in Vegas even he knew not to mess with the bouncers. When I turned and asked Mike about the family business, he shrugged.
“So what happened with you and Goldilocks?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“I got off the party bus; Gretchen didn’t. What about you? Seeing anyone?”
Mike shook his head, and McDevitt chortled.
“The only dumbass in this limo aiming for monogamy is you, Bennett.” He turned to Dave. “A hundred bucks says he’s got a picture in his wallet of his new beloved.”
“You’re just disappointed because she thought you were a sleaze,” I said evenly.
“This chick hot?” Mike asked.
“She’s a fucking freshman,” McDevitt said gleefully.
“You saw her?” Dave asked.
“Yeah, he showed up at my place and fucking stalked her,” I pointed out.
“Is she hot, though?” Mike asked again.
“A six or seven maybe,” McDevitt said.
I shrugged but didn’t say anything. If I did, it would only cause McDevitt to latch on like a fucking pit bull. He was predictable like that. When the limo pulled to a stop, I got out and looked around. Neon signs, velvet ropes, a windowless building, two bouncers built like tanks, and a bunch of slobbering dickheads drunker than McDevitt.
Fuck, I hated Vegas.
Chapter 25
Alex
The minute I got to my parents’ house for spring break, I felt suffocated, even though the house was way bigger than our old house. Actually, it looked like something out of the movies. The new neighborhood was a little too well manicured, with sprinklers on a timer, unnaturally green grass in the Southern California desert. It was like a foreign planet, and I couldn’t help looking at Mom and Stephen like aliens, these bohemian hippies from my childhood.
The good part was that I had my own room in the new house, but it was more of a guestroom. There were a couple of pieces of furniture from home, but it was mostly new stuff. Stephie’s room already looked like she had lived there forever, when it was actually less than a year. But she was twelve. To her, nine months was an eternity.
The truth was I felt like I didn’t belong … anywhere. Everything had changed since I left. Irvine was unfamiliar. My family was busy with their own stuff. Stephie had her own little routine going.
Mom, who had stayed up north with me for a week after my accident, was now busy with finals since she didn’t have spring break until the week after mine. And Stephen, as usual, was off in his own world. If he wasn’t working on the syllabus for an online course, then he was checking stock prices. On the drive from the airport, Mom had very proudly informed me that they could afford to send me to school mostly because of Stephen’s investing genius. That, and the extra class she was teaching at the extension.
No thanks to my father, she had added. Mom was kind of a pro at guilt trips.
The first day I had gotten to Irvine, I had walked around the neighborhood twice just to get out. I had tried going for a run at school right before the break, but moving too much made my ribs ache every time my right foot came down. The doctor had told me that the pain would probably be gone within the next couple of weeks, but I now had a small scar on my forehead that probably wasn’t going to go away.
You’re a very lucky young lady, the doctor had said.
That had been twenty minutes before Ryan Bennett had walked out of my life with no explanation. I hadn’t been ready for it, but then again, I hadn’t been ready for getting hit by a fucking car, either. It was the way it was. I had known that things with Ryan were going to end. There had just been no way of predicting that they had been about to end so immediately.
Was I angry? Not really. For a while I had been too numb to feel anything. And after finding out that Ryan had told Mom that he was a friend of mine, it had been easier to explain why he had never come by to see me. When Julie had told me about him stopping by her room to see how I was, that had hurt. He had obviously cared enough to find out if I was still alive, but not enough to come see me.
Julie, who referred to him as the flaming dickhead, had said she would kick him in the balls if he came back. I had laughed at that—because it was better than crying. The funny thing was that I didn’t want an explanation, because what would have been the point? I had even told Ryan that I would end up getting hurt, and—surprise! I had.
The only good part about having been immobile after the accident was that I hadn’t had anything better to do than catch up on assignments that I had missed.
