73. God, Can You Hear Me?
CHAPTER 73
GOD, CAN YOU HEAR ME?
NATE
The car is too quiet, just the low hum of the engine and Jay drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. I shoot a quick text to Nora, telling her I'm on my way back. To her.
I rub my hands over my face and exhale sharply. Scott's words, his sneer, still cling to me like oil on water. I wanted to tear him apart, but I couldn't let him win by dragging me down to his level.
Jay glances at me, his voice slicing through the silence. "You good, man?"
I nod stiffly. "Yeah. Just—keep driving."
The road stretches dark and endless ahead of us, headlights painting yellow ghosts on the asphalt. I stare out the window, watching the trees blur past, until something catches my eye—a flash of white off the side of the road that feels wrong, like a bone jutting through skin. It's nothing at first, just a car pulled over. Then reality fractures: the mangled front end, glass scattered like diamonds in the dirt, and the unmistakable curve of the Jeep's fender twisted into something grotesque. My chest constricts as recognition hits—I know that car. I know who drives that car.
"Jay—pull over."
"What? Why?"
"Pull the fuck over! Right now!"
Jay slams on the brakes as I fling the door open, the car still rolling. I'm running before my feet hit the ground, gravel crunching beneath my boots as I race toward the wreckage. The smell hits me first—gasoline sharp enough to burn my nostrils, mixed with something metallic and sweet that turns my stomach. Then I see the flames, hungry orange tongues licking at the hood, reaching for the night sky.
"Nora!" My voice shatters like the windshield I'm staring through, my hands trembling as I yank at the door handle until my muscles scream. It doesn't budge.
Jay appears beside me, his face ghostly in the firelight. "Shit. Is that gas?"
"Help me get her out!" The words tear from my throat.
We pull at the door until our arms shake, but it's sealed shut. My fists pound against the glass, each impact a desperate prayer. Jay disappears and returns with a rock.
"Stand back!" He hesitates for a heartbeat, his eyes locked on Nora's still form. "Sorry, Nora," he whispers before bringing the rock down.
The glass splinters, then explodes inward. I tear off my suit jacket and drape it over the jagged edges. Even now, with flames licking at the hood and time slipping away, I can't bear the thought of the glass cutting into her skin. I reach through the makeshift barrier, barely registering the shards that slice into my own arms. The heat from the fire crawls over my flesh, but pain is irrelevant. Nothing matters except getting her out.
Her seatbelt is jammed, the metal around her legs twisted like modern art. I hear myself whispering, voice cracking, "Leni, it's me. I'm here. I'm gonna get you out, okay? Just stay with me. Please, stay with me." Each word is a promise I'm terrified I won't be able to keep.
Jay's already at the other side, muscles straining against the crushed metal pinning her down. "On three!" he shouts over the growing roar of flames.
We heave together, and I feel the weight shift just enough. I slip my arms under her, and for one heart-stopping moment, she's nothing but dead weight against me. But then I have her, and I'm stumbling back, cradling her. The asphalt is cold and unforgiving as I lay her down, my hands shaking as they brush her face. Blood paints abstract patterns on her skin, her hair a dark halo matted with crimson. Her dress—the one she wore when she smiled at me across the ballroom just hours ago—is now a canvas of violence.
"It's okay, Leni," I whisper, every word a desperate prayer. My throat closes around the words, but I force them out anyway. "Hold on a little longer, please.”
Jay crouches beside us, his voice urgent. "Nate, we have to go. She's not gonna make it if we don't move now."
I can't stop the tears that fall as I kiss her forehead. "I love you," I repeat, like if I say it enough times it'll be strong enough to keep her here. "Don't leave me. Please. Please, not you."
"Nate!" Jay's hand clamps down on my shoulder, reality crashing back in. "Pick her up. Let's go!"
His voice breaks through the fog of terror, and I lift her as gently as possible. As Jay peels out, tires screaming against asphalt, I hold her close in the backseat, whispering promises into her hair. I cradle her in my lap, my trembling hands pressing against wounds that won't stop bleeding. The crimson seeps between my fingers, warm and relentless. Behind my eyes, memories flash in rapid succession. Little Leni in pigtails and that worn Mickey Mouse shirt, twirling until she's dizzy. Her voice filling the house with off-key Guns N' Roses at fourteen. The way her nose still scrunches when she's angry. How her green eyes catch the light when she's creating something beautiful.
"Stay with me, Len. Please."
Jay's voice cuts through the fog, stretched tight with panic but holding steady. "We're almost there. Hold on."
I press my lips to her forehead, tasting copper and salt, my tears mixing with her blood. "It's okay Leni." The words ghost against her skin.
"I've got you. I always got you. Hold on a little longer, okay? I love you."
The hospital doors part like gates to purgatory, flooding us with harsh fluorescent light. The antiseptic smell burns my nostrils, mixing with the metallic tang of blood that's soaked through my shirt. Everything moves in slow motion and too fast at once—a herd of squeaking shoes on linoleum, metal instruments clattering, voices overlapping in urgent tones.
"Help!" The word tears from my throat. "Somebody help her!"
A nurse emerges followed by doctors. When they take Nora from my arms, the void left behind is physical, an amputation of something vital. I stumble backward, my vision tunneling to my hands—red, so red, like I've been finger-painting in nightmares.
"What happened?" The question floats somewhere above my head.
It's Jay's voice that cuts through. "Car accident—she was trapped, unconscious. We broke the window to get her out—there was fire, gas everywhere. I don't know how long she was there. It was a hit and run. She's lost a lot of blood and she's not breathing right—please, just help her!"
They disappear behind swinging doors, taking Nora with them. I'm left staring at my hands, at the abstract art of her life force drying on my skin. The room tilts like a carnival ride gone wrong.
She's not breathing right.
No, she isn't breathing at all.
My knees give out and a sound escapes me—something primal and broken that I barely recognize as human. The truth hits me in waves: nobody knows. Her mom is still laughing at some joke, Ollie's probably rolling his eyes at another of Marcus's stories, all of them existing in a world where Nora is still whole and safe.
"Nate." Jay's voice anchors me as his hands grip my shoulders. He crouches before me like a shield against the fluorescent glare. "She's a fucking warrior, okay? She's gonna pull through this. That girl is stronger than you think."
The words bounce off me like rain on glass. Even if she survives—even if by some miracle she opens those green eyes again—will I ever forgive myself for being the reason they almost closed forever?
Jay helps me to a row of cold, plastic chairs. My legs won't stop shaking, hands twitching in my lap like dying birds.
"I need your phone," I manage, my voice hollow and cracked.
Jay hands it over. My fingers tremble as I dial Mom's number, each ring echoing in my skull like a death knell.
"Nate! Thank God!" Kat's voice bursts through, bright as sunshine. "Your mom has been worried sick. Where are you? Is Nora with you?"
I try to swallow past the razor blades in my throat. "Kat." The words splinter, and I have to squeeze my eyes shut against the burning. "We're at the hospital. Nora… she's hurt."
The silence that follows is deafening. When Kat's voice returns, it's sharp with fear. "What? What do you mean she's hurt? Nate, what happened?"
I can't do it.
Can't form the words that will shatter their world like mine. My throat closes completely, and I just hand the phone back to Jay, pushing to my feet. I need to move, need to escape the fluorescent interrogation lights and the nurses' pitying stares. Jay's voice fades behind me as I stumble away, explaining what I can't.
The waiting room erupts when they arrive, a tsunami of fear and desperation crashing through the sterile calm. Kat charges toward the nurses' station, her voice razor-sharp as she demands answers. Mom appears before me, her face drained of color, and wraps her arms around me. Everything shatters. My knees give out, and I fold into her embrace, my body wracked with tremors I can't control. The weight of tonight—the blood, the flames, Nora's lifeless form in my arms—crushes me beneath its magnitude.
But Jake stands like a statue carved from fury, his fists clenched at his sides. His eyes burn into me with an intensity that could melt steel, holding none of the brotherly warmth I once knew. Only raw, unfiltered hatred.
And I welcome it.
The doctor's entrance splits the tension like lightning.
"She's in surgery and we have her in a stable condition for now, but it's touch and go," he announces, and oxygen floods my lungs for the first time in hours. "Multiple fractured ribs, severe head trauma from the impact. We're running additional scans for internal bleeding and checking organ function, but she's incredibly lucky. If she hadn't arrived when she did…" His eyes find mine, softening. "You may have just saved her life. Any later, and we might have lost her."
The words should feel like absolution, but they taste like ash in my mouth. Saving her isn't redemption, not when I'm the reason she needed saving in the first place.
Jake steps forward, his face contorted with fury I've never seen before.
"This is your fault."
The words slice through me, finding every vulnerable spot. I meet his gaze, but there's nothing left in me to fight back. Instead, I feel myself sinking into the familiar darkness that's always lurked at the edges of my consciousness.
He's right.
This is your fault.
If you'd just answered her call, like you promised.
You did this.
You fuck up everything you touch, remember?
"She wouldn't have been out there if it wasn't for you," Jake spits, each word a bullet. "She was looking for you, Nate. You! But you didn't answer your fucking phone."
The darkness whispers, you know what you need to do to make this pain go away.
"Jake," Lydia starts, but he steamrolls over her, voice rising like thunder.
It’ll be quick and easy. Like old times.
"How are you gonna handle this one, huh?" His laugh is a knife across glass. "You gonna run off, get high and forget about all the collateral damage you've caused? Like every other time before?"
Without a word, I stand, the demon's whispers drowning out Mom's pleas. My feet carry me toward the exit, toward the familiar path I swore I'd never walk again.
Like father, like son.
Some cravings never die.
I re-enter the general waiting area at the front of the hospital to find Jay still here, sitting in the corner, watching me with eyes that have seen this look spread across my face before.
His arms are crossed, jaw set like he's bracing for impact. Even after I told him to go, he stayed.
The fluorescent lights suddenly feel like searchlights, the walls pressing in like a vice. I can't stay here, can't keep seeing her blood on my hands, can't stop replaying the way her body looked so small and broken. The rise and fall of her chest was so faint I had to convince myself she was still breathing.
Because of me.
All because of me.
My fingers rake through my hair, trembling with need and guilt and something darker. "Jay, go home," I mutter, voice scraping like gravel.
"I'm not going anywhere." He leans forward, elbows on knees, eyes never leaving mine. "You're not okay, Nate. And I know exactly what you're thinking of doing."
"Don't psycho-fucking-analyze me," I snap, but the words come out desperate rather than angry. "You don't know what's going on in my head."
"You're right—I don't. But I know you." His voice softens with a decade of friendship. "You think you can carry all this shit alone, but you can’t, and when shit gets too heavy, you implode."
A laugh tears from my throat, sharp and bitter as battery acid.
"Implode? Jay, I destroy. That's what I do.” The truth spills out like poison.
Jay stands, closing the distance between us, his face hardening.
"Don't you dare spin that bullshit," he growls. "That's a fucking cop out and you're not using it as an excuse to throw everything away. You're not him, Nate. Never once have you resembled Scott. So don’t start now."
"You saw her, Jay." The words explode from somewhere deep and broken. "She's here because of me. Because I couldn't do the one thing I promised her."
Keep her safe.
"You didn't put her in that car." Jay holds his ground, voice steady like he's talking someone off a ledge.
Maybe he is.
"Don't go down this path, Nate. You know where it leads."
It's too late. I'm already there.
The silence stretches between us like a tightrope. My fists clench and unclench, fighting the itch under my skin, the voice in my head getting louder with each passing second.
"I need to get out of here," I say finally, each word carefully controlled. "Give me your keys."
Jay's eyes narrow. "Where are you going?"
"Doesn't matter."
"It does to me."
"Just give me the fucking keys!” My voice splinters, revealing the desperation beneath.
He studies me for a long moment, and I see the exact second he realizes he can't save me from myself. Not tonight. With a heavy sigh that carries the weight of every time he's watched me self-destruct, he pulls out his keys.
"Nate, please," he says softly, holding them just out of reach. "Don't do anything stupid. She needs you."
I snatch the keys, unable to meet his eyes because we both know where I'm heading.
What I'm about to do.
The demons I'm about to welcome back with open arms.
The drive is a fever dream. My knuckles are white against the steering wheel as memories assault me:
The bar.
Scott's smirk.
Like father, like son.
The accident.
Fire blazing.
Glass shattering.
Nora's blood painting the asphalt.
Her eyes fluttering close as I begged her to stay.
The Bait Shop's neon sign cuts through the darkness like a beacon to the damned. The familiar purple glow bathes the street, promising relief in all the wrong places. My feet move on autopilot, carrying me down the path I swore I'd never walk again. He's waiting on that threadbare couch, cigarette smoke curling around him like a snake's welcome. Monty's always waiting. Like a spider that knows the fly will eventually tire of fighting the web.
"Well, well," he drawls, lips curling into that knowing smirk. "The prodigal son returns. What brings you to my humble abode this late at night, Preppy?"
The words stick in my throat like glass. Everything in me screams to turn around, to run, to be better than this.
But I'm so fucking tired of trying to be better.
"I need something."
Monty leans forward, eyes glinting like a predator scenting blood. "Rough night, huh?"
"I need to make it all stop." The confession tastes like surrender.
His grin widens, shark-like in the neon glow. "I thought you were out?"
"I'll give you whatever you want. You want money, fine. You want dirt on Scott Sullivan, whatever. I just need to make it fucking stop."
It's music to Monty's ears, I can see it in his eyes.
"Tell me, kid, how high do you want to fly?"
I hesitate, one last thread of resistance pulling taut. Then Nora's broken body flashes behind my eyes, and the thread snaps.
"As high as I can go," I whisper, each word a nail in my own coffin.
Monty nods, disappearing into the back room. The door creaks like Hell's gates opening, waiting for me to follow. I close my eyes and step through, letting the darkness swallow me whole. Some demons you can't outrun forever.
Sometimes you just have to lie down and let them take you home.