Chapter 19
Bryn
Nothing could have prepared me. Stumbling into Wyatt, his arm wraps around my waist as I lift mine to my mouth, muffling a cry.
Dark red blood is pooled all over the kitchen floor, splatters of it on the white cabinets beside where the paramedics and firefighters kneel.
The space is cramped, Gran lying on her back in the middle of it all, a C-collar stabilizing her neck.
I can’t see much of her face because one of the firefighters has bandages all over, but I’m not sure I want to see it.
And yet, at the same time, I do. I want to see her. All of her. Her warm brown eyes, full of love, sass, and a little bit of mischief. I want to hear what she’d say if she saw a bunch of firefighters crowded around her, giving her all kinds of attention.
I need her to wake up.
I need her to be okay.
One of the firefighters shifts, and I see more of her, her nightgown cut open from the top to expose her chest, electrodes plastered to her skin. A machine beeps, something I didn’t hear before now, and it lodges my heart in my throat, my breath halting.
“Ruby?” one of the paramedics, a woman, says. “Can you squeeze my hand?” A second passes, and the woman tilts her head back and forth. “Maybe.”
“Pupils are still equal but sluggish,” the other paramedic says.
“Equal pupils are good,” Wyatt says in my ear. “The sluggish part is concerning.”
My hand falls to his over my stomach, and I squeeze it, grateful for his honesty as I blow out a breath.
“Still altered,” the first paramedic says. “Let’s get her loaded.”
“Altered?” I whisper.
“Not with it,” he responds. “It sounded like maybe she came around a bit, but it might not have stuck. Clear sign of a head injury, which given the state of… everything…”
Wyatt trails off. He doesn’t need to say more. I can see it with my own eyes. This can’t be real. It can’t be happening. A million different things run through my mind, trying to determine what might have happened, how she ended up here.
How could I let this happen?
The question invades my mind before I can stop it. My heart squeezes tight, my entire chest set on fire. If I’d been here today, if I’d seen her tonight, if we’d done what we do every Fourth of July and watched the fireworks together on the front lawn, she wouldn’t be in this position right now.
I wouldn’t be having déjà vu of coming home to find my grandpa dead. Wouldn’t have my worst nightmare lying on the floor before my eyes. I’ve lived this once. I can’t live it again. I can’t pick up those pieces again. Not with her. Especially not with her.
Wyatt pulls me backwards from our spot, but not out of view of Gran. They’re getting ready to move her and get her on the stretcher. With the new angle, with everyone moving, I see her cell phone lying next to her at the edge of the pool of blood near her shoulder.
I suck in a breath. Was she okay enough to dial 911?
Had she been feeling ill before she fell and had called them?
Was she having a heart attack? Or a stroke?
Maybe she cut herself and needed help and tried calling and then fell.
Was she calling out? Did she call for me? How long had she been lying there?
God. How long had she been there? Lying in a pool of her own blood.
My eyes close on the thought, and I turn my head, fresh tears leaking down my cheeks. I don’t know if they’ve stopped since they started. It doesn’t feel like they have. They feel like a continuous stream, burning tracks along my skin with their saltiness.
They don’t stop as Gran gets loaded in the ambulance, or as Wyatt holds me when they close the doors.
They keep going when he gets us shoes and as he helps me into his truck and drives me to the hospital, and when we show up at the registration desk in the emergency room.
They come quicker when I don’t receive any answers, but I’m told to sit and wait.
They stop briefly when I call and wake my parents, telling my dad what happened.
I force myself to control them when he demands answers and I don’t have any, but they come on full strength when I hang up and realize I’ll need to face my parents.
To face how badly I screwed up.
Because I know that’s the way they’ll see it. And I don’t know that they’re wrong.
She’s supposed to be my priority. She’s supposed to be my number one thing. What kind of granddaughter am I if I can’t be there for her? What if she doesn’t survive this? It’ll be my fault.
The intrusive thought has reared its ugly head multiple times since I first entered the kitchen, but I’ve tried my damnedest to push it away every time.
The longer I have to sit in this stupid waiting room with its dumb light grey walls and posters plastered all over about hand washing hygiene and using hand sanitizer before entering and how to cough properly, the more the thought creeps in.
The more I wonder if she died on the way to the hospital and they’re trying to save her. Trying to revive her so they don’t need to come and break the bad news to me. News that no family member ever wants to receive and no doctor ever wants to give.
My cheeks sting from the tears now, but I don’t bother wiping them away anymore. I haven’t for a while, even though Wyatt quietly keeps passing me tissues. I use those on my running nose, leaning into his quiet comfort, his arm wrapped around my shoulders.
This man, who hasn’t known me for more than a month, a steady presence at my side.
We haven’t said much, but he hasn’t seemed to mind.
He’s just taken care of me. Tissues, water, even checking in at the triage desk for an update—there wasn’t one.
It’s been a couple of hours, and besides a nurse asking questions about Gran’s history when we first got here, no one has talked to us. No one has told us how she’s doing.
I curl tighter into myself, then snuggle closer into Wyatt’s side, inhaling his scent.
It wraps around me like a tight hug, and not just from the man himself.
I don’t remember if it was when we got into his truck or when we got to the hospital, but he gave me one of his hoodies.
It made me realize how cold I was, and I still haven’t warmed up despite it.
My hands and feet feel like ice. Hell, my whole body feels like I’m stuck in a snowbank.
When his arm tightens around me, rubbing up and down my own arm, I tilt my head up to him. “Thank you for… being here.”
He gives me a soft smile. “Of course. You’re sure I can’t call Savanna or Jordan for you, though?”
It’s not the first time he’s offered, but I shake my head. “I don’t want to bother them.”
“I don’t know them well, but I know they wouldn’t feel bothered.”
Probably not, but it’s not a burden they should be dealing with.
It’s not a burden Wyatt should be either, but I haven’t had the courage to tell him he can leave.
Not that he would. Even in my current state, feeling disconnected from the world, I’m almost certain he wouldn’t. Unless I forced the subject.
“Honestly?” I say, and damn it, renewed tears are springing in my eyes. “I’m partial to the company I have.”
For the first time since before we went to sleep, his smile touches his eyes, and it has the tiniest one appearing on my own lips.
I don’t want him to leave, and I don’t want anyone else here.
Even if I’m questioning myself and my priorities and how I’ve screwed them up since he came into my life, he might be the only thing keeping me together right now because I’m hanging on by a thread.
My eyes close briefly when he presses a kiss to the top of my head, and I release a sigh, along with the smallest amount of tension from my shoulders. Warmth seems to seep a little further than the core of my body, but that brings on the feeling of needing a restroom.
Sitting up a bit, I look around the room that I’ve been staring vacantly at for the past couple of hours.
Four rows of green chairs fill the area to the right of the nurse’s triage station and a security desk.
The entry to the entire ER is ahead of that, and on the other side of the room near the door is a restroom.
I glance at the door leading to the emergency room, knowing Gran is somewhere back there, before looking at the restroom again.
“Go,” Wyatt says beside me, reading my mind before I have a chance to say anything. “I’ll hold the doctor down if he comes to talk to you while you’re gone.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, kissing him on the cheek before getting up.
By the time I finish in the bathroom, my hands are back to being ice. The anxiety of missing the doctor had me rushing through my business, but as I leave the room, Wyatt is still sitting there, no one else in sight. Disappointment floods me. It’s killing me not to know anything.
There are no patients at the triage desk, though, and I head towards it, intent on trying to get some answers when my name stops me dead in my tracks.
“Brynleigh!”
It’s my mother’s voice, and my shoulders lift to my ears, stiffening at the sound. Wyatt meets my eyes, hearing the same thing, and goes to rise from his chair, but I shake my head, willing him to stay put.
Fuck. I should have warned him. I should have thought this through. My dad told me they were coming, and I understood that, but I didn’t grasp what that would mean with Wyatt still sitting here with me. Having them meeting like this would not go well, but I have no way of communicating that to him.
He seems to get it by the look on my face. Sitting back, he settles into his seat, his eyes sliding away from mine after a subtle nod of his head. I’ll need to explain further, but I thank my past self for telling him about my parents earlier tonight.
“Correct your posture,” my mother hisses from behind me.