Chapter 26
twenty-six
Stevie
Three Years Later
It’s too bright.
Not from sunlight. Not from warmth.
This light hurts. Fluorescent. Buzzing.
Artificial.
My body’s here. Somewhere. A vague shape which doesn’t belong to me. I can’t feel anything.
Not really.
My mind and body are dull. Muted. Numb.
Something buzzes steadily near my head, layered over an occasional mechanical sigh. A breath. Not mine.
Or is it?
I try to turn toward the sound with no luck. I’m paralyzed. Or dreaming.
Maybe both.
Time is strange. Heavy. Thick. Wet.
A prickle runs across the base of my scalp. Something beeps. Once. Twice.
Then a voice. Low. Indistinct. Sliding through the static.
“…responsive…”
Not familiar.
Another beep. A longer tone. Sharp. Urgent. The light above me flickers, or maybe my vision is stuttering in and out. I try to open my mouth, except it’s too dry. Like sandpaper. My lips won’t part. My tongue is stuck to my teeth.
Shadows float above me. Is someone here? Hovering. Watching.
Icy chills race down the side of my body. My nose itches but I can’t scratch it. More shadows. Voices getting louder. The sensations are overwhelming. I blink. I think.
Slowly, the world rearranges itself in blurs. White walls. A ceiling grid. Tubes everywhere. Shapes. I chase them with my mind, try to name things. Words slide out of reach.
Is this real?
I don’t know where I am.
I don’t know who I am.
No—I do. I know…my name.
Stevie.
Stevie Hayes.
The recollection echoes strangely. Like I’m saying it underwater. Like the name belongs to someone else.
It’s not enough. A name is a label on a box with nothing inside. I dig deeper, trying to follow the thread. The second I find a grip, pain comes roaring in behind it.
Sharp. Searing. A scream against bone.
My ribs clench. My thigh burns. My chest feels like it’s caved in. The pain doesn’t localize—it swells. Expands. Spreads to places I didn’t know could hurt.
I gasp helplessly.
At least I think I do. My throat convulses, dry and raw, like it’s been scraped clean. Nothing comes out but a rasp that doesn’t sound human.
Suddenly, I’m aware every inch of my body has been ripped into jagged little pieces.
A weight against my left leg.
A tightness around my chest.
Something attached to my face.
Panic creeps in before the thoughts can keep up.
I try to move.
I can’t.
I want to scream.
I can’t.
My heart kicks, and the beeping beside me accelerates like it knows what I’m feeling. Another sound—closer now. Someone rushing in.
No lots of people surrounding me.
“Her pulse is up—she’s agitated.”
Agitated?
An understatement. I’m fucking trapped. Something is wrong and my brain is moving faster than my body can follow.
Another voice overlaps. Calmer. Familiar? Maybe not.
“Stevie. Can you hear me?”
I try to turn my head toward the voice. Nothing.
“Stevie, you’re in the hospital.”
Hospital.
What?
Hospital.
Why? Why am I here?
My mind reaches again, blindly, mentally, for something solid. A memory. A moment. Anything.
It hits me all at once. The sound. Metal on metal. Tires screeching. The crunch of impact. A scream—no, terrorized screams. Children. Crying. Then silence.
Then nothing.
I freeze. My body goes cold beneath whatever blankets are tucked around me.
Children.
There were children.
My children.
I don’t know how I know, I just know. Like a string yanked from my soul. Recognition buried under pain and fog.
“Your vitals are stabilizing,” the voice says. “We’re going to keep monitoring you.”
A hand touches my arm. Not comforting. Clinical. Measuring. I don’t know who this is. I don’t care.
I try to speak. Force something out of my throat. “My…” I rasp. “My…kids.”
“You’ve been through a severe trauma, Ms. Hayes,” the voice says slowly, carefully. “You’re safe. We’ll talk soon.”
Safe.
The word breaks me open. Because I know something isn’t right.
I blink again, harder now, like my life depends on it.
The ceiling finally sharpens into focus.
Too white. Too clean. A long, narrow light above me casts sharp shadows on the corners of the room.
A hospital monitor sits at my left, numbers glowing.
Another machine I don’t recognize stands guard beside it, tubes leading into my arm and chest.
I try to sit up. My muscles won’t respond.
Tears burn, pooling without falling. My throat swells with the effort to ask again.
“Kids…” I croak.
“We’re going to have your family come in,” the nurse—maybe a nurse—speaks. “You’re not alone.”
Not alone?
The word stings too. I need my children. Three beings I carried and fed and rocked to sleep. The three I buckled into car seats. The three people in the world I’d die for.
My heart. My soul.
The door opens. I see two shapes enter though I can’t move my head. My vision adjusts slowly, like my brain doesn’t want to believe what it’s seeing.
My mom steps into frame first. She’s pale.
Hollow-eyed. Dressed in the same zip-up jacket I’ve seen a hundred times.
She reaches for my hand like I’m five years old and I’ve skinned my knee.
Her fingers are cold. Damp. She squeezes so tightly I think she might be holding herself together by my touch.
My father lingers behind her, a half step out of reach. His lips part, close again. He looks down, wipes his face. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him cry.
I blink up at them. Words sit on my tongue, tangled and foreign.
My mother says my name softly, over and over, as though I might drift off again if she stops.
I swallow and manage to eek out, “Where are they?”
The room shifts. A crack runs down the center of my mother’s expression.
She closes her eyes, then opens them. “They’re okay,” she says too quickly. “They’re going to be okay.”
A sob claws at my throat. “Tell me.”
“Lila has a broken arm,” she says. “The bone fractured clean, they did a pin surgery already. She was brave. She asked for you when she woke up.”
My lungs fight for air.
“Jude’s got a concussion. No bleeding, but they’ll monitor him. He was…thrown.” My mom looks back at my dad who nods.
Thrown? I can’t bear to contemplate. My hands clutch weakly against the sheets. “Isla?”
Her face softens, then breaks all over again. “She…ah took the brunt of the glass. Has some deep cuts on both arms and hands. She’s been stitched up. They think there may be some ligament damage in her right hand, but she’ll recover. It’ll be a while. Therapy.”
Something deep inside me trembles. My kids are alive.
My kids are alive.
I whisper it to myself like a spell. Like maybe I can hold it in place, make it permanent.
Then I say his name.
“Cooper.”
By the way they both flinch and go rigid—I know.
My mother’s grip loosens. Dad sinks into the chair behind her, covering his face with both hands.
“No,” I whisper.
Silence.
The machines beside me keep going. Steady, unbothered. Like this is just another shift.
“Mom.” I’m panicked now. “Where is he?”
My mother can’t look at me when she says it. “He uh. He didn’t make it.”
The words don’t make sense. Didn’t make what?
A flight?
A phone call?
“Stevie, Cooper died at the scene.” My father looks me in the eye to deliver the news.
Something splinters behind my ribs.
“No,” I say like somehow my words have time-reversing power. “No, no. He was driving. He always drives.”
My voice gets louder. The monitor beside me spikes again. My leg tries to move and pain tears through it.
“He—he would’ve gotten them safe. He always checks the seats. He’s—he’s—” My eyes flick back and forth between them.
“He tried.” My mom’s now crying, a sound I haven’t heard in years. “The paramedics said he shielded the kids. He turned into the slide. He saved them.”
A howl tears through my throat, raw and animal.
Everything else stops.
My body, my breath—gone.
The only thing left is the image, painted across my mind in grotesque, cinematic horror. Cooper’s hands on the wheel. The sudden lurch. The kids screaming. His instinct to protect. To save.
To take the impact.
Tears burn down the sides of my face and disappear into the bandages wrapping my face.
My mom leans over me, pressing her forehead to my shoulder like she can absorb the pain. I want to scream at her. I want to crawl out of my skin. I want to take it back. Rewind five minutes, five hours, five years.
He was my safe bet. The one who wouldn’t leave me. We were supposed to grow old together. Fight about dumb shit and laugh about dumber shit and make it to gray hair and college graduations and grandbabies.
Instead, I’m lying in a hospital bed and he’s—he’s in a fucking morgue?
How is this possible?
I don’t ask what hit us or how or who. It doesn’t matter.
The father of my children is gone.
He didn’t deserve this.
It should have been me.