Chapter 25 Este
ESTE
Islam the brakes as I pull up outside Wintermore Community Hospital, my heart sinking at how small it is. But I don’t have any time to second-guess my decision to turn toward Wintermore when we made it down the mountain, instead of toward the highway. Nico is barely conscious.
Someone must have seen me pull up, because the second I open my door and jump down from the Jeep, several people rush out of the small building.
“Ma’am, are you—”
“In the back seat. Please help.”
I step back as they jump into action, like they do this every day.
Even though, I assume, in a town this small, they don’t.
Someone takes the Jeep keys from me, and they get Nico on a stretcher in what feels like seconds.
The lack of color in his face makes me want to throw up.
At least the belt and scarf I used as a makeshift tourniquet and stabilizer survived the treacherous drive down the mountain.
How I got him to the car, let alone up into the Jeep, I have no idea. It’s all a blur.
I follow behind the stretcher as they rush him into the hospital. The reception area is smaller than Nico’s living room, with no other patients waiting.
“Quinn, can you get a history?” one of the doctors pushing the stretcher calls to a man standing by the reception desk, and then they disappear behind a set of double doors.
I clap my hand to my mouth, stifling a sob. I know he’s better off in their hands than mine, but fuck, I don’t want him out of my sight.
The man from the reception desk crosses the room and stops in front of me. He’s not dressed like a doctor, but he does have a lanyard with the name of the hospital around his neck.
“Are you hurt?”
I shake my head, blinking back tears. “Just him.”
“They’ll take good care of him,” he promises me.
“My name’s Quinn. I’m the town fire chief and an EMT, and I help out here sometimes.
I need to get some basic details from you to pass on to the medical team, and then I’ll come back and talk you through what happens next, okay?
” I appreciate how slowly he speaks, because I can feel the adrenaline crash coming.
“Okay. What do you need to know?”
“Can you tell me exactly what happened?”
It feels like I’m remembering the day through a fog as I recount the accident. Quinn scribbles notes on a notepad, nodding along.
“That’s great. Now I just need his name, date of birth, any allergies, any medical conditions, or anything else you think would be helpful for the team to know.”
I have to do the math to work out his year of birth. “He’s forty-seven,” I add, because I wouldn’t be surprised if I got the year wrong, considering how fucked my head is. “No allergies or medical conditions, or anything else I can think of.”
“And his name?”
“Shit, sorry. Nico—Nicholas—Harland.”
Quinn looks up from his notepad, his eyes wide. “Thank you. You take a seat, and I’ll be back with you in a few minutes, okay?”
I don’t sit. I pace. If I sit, I’m not entirely convinced I’m going to be able to get back up again.
True to his word, Quinn returns only a few minutes later—not that I was staring at the clock above the reception area.
“How is he?” I ask the second he appears in the doorway.
“They’re working to stabilize him. This is a small hospital, but we have a good system for incoming trauma.
The team here will stabilize him, and they’ll go with him in the ambulance to Jackson.
The ER in Jackson will be kept up to date the whole way, so they’re ready to receive him and make sure he gets the treatment he needs right away.
In this case, it’s looking like surgery to remove the axe and repair any damage to the muscle and artery. ”
It’s a lot of words, and I absorb none of them. “That’s—Is that—Will he—”
“You’ve done everything right. But it’s really too soon to tell.”
I draw in a shaky breath, trying not to completely fall apart.
Quinn’s eyes are full of sympathy, which only makes it worse. “It’s Este, right?”
“How do you know that?”
“Shay. Noelle’s brother is my best friend, so she’s basically family.”
Fuck. Shay. “I need to tell her. But I don’t have her number or anything, and I didn’t bring Nico’s phone.”
“Once Nico’s en route to the hospital, I’ll take you to her, and we’ll make sure you all get to the hospital in Jackson so you’re there when he’s out of surgery.
Noelle’s mom is good with animals, so I’m sure she’ll be happy to keep the dogs for now,” he adds, nodding toward the Jeep that’s parked off to the side out front.
Someone must have moved it; I didn’t even notice.
Running back for the dogs was a last-minute decision.
With how slushy the road is, I didn’t know if anyone would be able to get up yet, and I’d rather they were in the trunk of the Jeep than stuck up there on their own.
I know Nico will feel better when—not if—he gets through surgery, knowing they’re safe.
Shit, I should’ve grabbed his sourdough starter from the counter.
The doors open again, and a nurse pokes her head out. “The ambulance is a few minutes out if you want to come and see him before they head out.”
I’m halfway across the room before she’s finished speaking, Quinn trailing behind me.
“Is he conscious?” I ask.
“He’s medicated, but awake.”
I follow her through the doors and into the first room.
There’s a curtain drawn, which feels unnecessary considering there doesn’t seem to be anyone else around.
The nurse pulls it back, and my breath catches in my chest at the sight of Nico attached to a bunch of wires and monitors, an oxygen mask on his face.
I can’t let him see me panicked.
Schooling my face into as neutral an expression as possible, I step closer to him.
“Hey,” I whisper, and he lets his head fall toward me, his eyes widening.
He flicks his gaze all over me, and I see the panic flare in his eyes when he notices I’m covered in blood.
He lifts his good hand to his oxygen mask, but I gently move it away.
“Shh, it’s okay. I’m okay, I promise. I’m not hurt. ”
I rest my hand on his cheek, and he visibly relaxes. “I’m going to get Shay, and we’ll be there when you wake up, okay? Because you’re going to wake up, Nico. You promised you’d take care of me, and that means waking up.”
I swear he moves his head up and down in the tiniest nod. It might just be the best thing I’ve ever seen.
“It’s time.”
People surround the bed, and I choke back tears as I lean down to kiss his forehead.
They unlock the wheels of the stretcher, and it’s time to let him go.
I have to let him go. “I’ll see you soon, okay?
You’re going to be okay, and we’ll get our date night.
I… I love you,” I whisper as they pull him away, and I hug my arms to my chest, like it might stop my heart from splitting at the sight of him disappearing.
I love him.
I knew it, even if I hadn’t put the words to it yet. If I had, I would’ve talked myself out of saying it—it’s too soon, I’m leaving, and I have no idea if he feels the same. But it just slipped out.
Quinn is standing by the door, giving me space as my tears pour, but I know he heard me. I wipe my face. “That was a really bad time to say that for the first time, wasn’t it?”
He shrugs, pulling a pack of Kleenex from his pocket and handing it to me. “I’m no expert, but it seems like the perfect time to me.”
“Because it might be the only time I get?” I ask, wiping my face.
“Because you gave him something to fight for.”
Quinn pulls into a cul-de-sac and parks outside a house covered in Christmas decor. In May.
“I thought Shay lived above her bakery?”
“She does,” he tells me. “This is Noelle’s parents’ house. It’s family dinner night.”
We leave the dogs in the trunk because, although I haven’t seen it, Nico said they don’t like new people. I checked on them before we left the hospital, gave them lots of kisses and some food, and they seem confused but otherwise okay.
Quinn doesn’t knock, just opens the door and gestures for me to go ahead. The door opens into a kitchen that’s surprisingly empty since it’s supposedly family dinner night, but I can hear raised voices coming from another room. I follow Quinn through the kitchen, starting to pick up the odd word.
“Answer his phone… Go up… Car?” says a frantic voice I assume must be Shay.
A softer voice answers Shay, but a deeper one cuts it off as we approach the doorway. “Absolutely not, sugar. I know you know the road best, but it’s still covered in snow and ice. It wouldn’t be safe even if you weren’t pregnant. I’ll drive.”
I scan the room, recognizing Shay straight away from the single framed picture in Nico’s room.
She’s a couple of decades older, but even if she didn’t still look like she did at twenty-five, the expression of panic would give her away.
A tall woman with purple hair is rubbing her shoulders, and they’re facing a man with gray hair, holding a baby, and a tiny woman with a baby bump.
My brain is foggy, but alert enough to fill in the pieces of information I’ve gleaned from Nico over the past few weeks.
I’m not sure he realizes how often, how wistfully, he talks about the life Shay has built in Wintermore, but almost everyone here is recognizable to me, just from his descriptions: Shay, Noelle, Henry, Rora, and baby Sunny.
The older couple sitting on the couch looking worried must be Noelle’s parents, and the man on the loveseat must be her brother, Felix, but I don’t recognize the woman with the red braid beside him.
Quinn clears his throat, and all eyes turn toward us. Shay immediately zeroes in on me, on my blood-soaked sweater, and gasps.
“He’s on the way to Jackson by ambulance, and he has a whole team with him keeping him stable so he can be taken into surgery when he gets there,” Quinn says quickly, reassuring her before I can even think about opening my mouth.
“What happened?” Shay whispers. I don’t think she’s even breathing.
Quinn takes one look at me and clearly sees I’m in no state to recount everything again.
I’m only half paying attention as he explains everything to Shay.
Her eyes are a softer gray than Nico’s, her hair golden blonde instead of dark brown, and she looks younger than him.
But otherwise, they’re obviously siblings.
She hangs on to every word Quinn says before turning to me. “You drove him down the mountain?” I nod, and she blinks like she can’t compute. “How did you convince him to get in the car?”
I wrap my arms around myself. Now that the adrenaline is gone, my insides are cold. “He didn’t want to. But I begged him until he agreed.” My voice is scratchy, like I’ve been screaming for hours. Which, as far as I know, I haven’t, but everything is a blur.
Shay’s lip quivers. “Thank you. God. Thank you, Este. I… I’m so glad you were with him.”
Me too, I want to say. I wish I could’ve done more. I wish I’d agreed when he asked if I wanted to chop the wood, and it was me instead of him. But I can’t get any of it out, so I just nod. God, my head is so heavy.
“And you? Are you okay?” Shay asks, stepping toward me, her look of worry so like her brother’s that I can’t lie to her.
“I…” My voice wobbles, and Shay doesn’t hesitate to close the distance between us, wrap her arms around me, and just let me sob.