Chapter 31
Logan
Practice kicked my ass today. They tried me at every position from forward, to wing, to the hooker. I finished working as a back, which was my original spot, and where I make the most sense. Our first game was tomorrow, and they were working out a lot of kinks in the lineup to see what worked best.
I was smelly.
I was covered in dirt and sweat.
And I couldn’t wait to shower and eat.
But as I put the key in the front door, I heard something that made my heart stop.
“Ava! What happened? Ava, wake up!”
Macie was screaming Ava’s name repeatedly as I walked through the foyer from the kitchen. As I rounded the corner, the scene was horrific.
Ava was on the ground, her head in Macie’s lap.
There was blood everywhere, all over Ava’s body, all over Macie’s legs.
“What the fuck is going on?” I raced to them both, on the ground next to Ava in seconds. “Macie, what’s going on? Where is she bleeding from?” From a quick inspection, it looked like from her arm.
Then I saw it.
It was her wrist.
“No!” I yelled. “No! No, no, no…” This couldn’t be happening. “Ava!”
The tears were instant and uncontrollable. As I wiped them away, I paced and thought about what to do. Ambulance or my truck? We didn’t have any time to waste, she was losing too much blood.
“Macie, we have to get her in my truck, now!”
I knew where the hospital was, I would get her there faster.
I scooped her up in my arms and started running for the front door.
“Macie, go get some towels and meet me out front. Hurry!”
She ran upstairs, frantic and crying. As I approached my truck, Ava started moaning.
“Ava, wake up honey,” I said as I opened the back door.
Macie came running as I laid her on the bench.
“What’s going on?” Ava asked.
Macie got in next to her, wrapping the towels around her hand and arm. Ava looked down and the realization of the situation hit her.
“Logan, not your truck!”
“Do you really think I give a fuck about my truck, Tink? We need to get you to the ER, now!” My words were harsh through my tears, but I couldn’t worry about that. We needed to move.
Throwing the truck in gear, I tore out of the parking lot and got us on the highway in record time. My eyes were drawn to the rearview mirror, watching her as she laid her head on Macie’s lap. They were talking quietly, and I strained to hear some of what they said.
“I should have stayed and helped you,” Macie said, crying softly as she rubbed Ava’s cheek while holding the towels against her wrist.
“I told you to go, it’s not your fault. All of this is my fault. All of it. I shouldn’t have thrown the glass, then this wouldn’t have happened.”
Glass?
I wasn’t about to ask questions, but maybe I jumped to conclusions.
Ten minutes, and I had her at the ER entrance. Jumping into action, I tore the back door open and carried her through the automatic doors of the hospital.
“We need help!” I screamed. “She’s bleeding badly, most likely from an artery.”
Nurses surrounded us immediately, a gurney pulled alongside for her to be placed on, but then she was whisked away.
Then Macie and I were left alone.
We moved to the waiting area together, sitting quietly amongst the other people. I knew I should ask her what happened, but I think I was scared to hear the truth.
I eventually worked up the nerve.
“How did she get cut, Macie?”
Macie put her face in her hands, distraught.
“We argued a little, and she threw a glass in the sink. It shattered everywhere, she must have cut herself cleaning it up. I wanted to stay and help, but she told me to go upstairs.”
My hands pressed against my eyes, trying to relieve the pressure, or stop the tears, I wasn’t sure which. The stifled cry that came from me had Macie shifting in her seat.
I turned toward her, her eyes wide at my appearance.
“So it was an accident?” I squeaked out.
The reality of my question hit her immediately.
“Yes,” she said, reaching for my arm, a simple gesture of support.
And I broke. The whole week came out. Our whole past couple months. Tears fell, loud cries muffled were against her shoulder as she pulled me to her. She held me, no questions asked, which I was thankful for. Once I calmed down, she remained quiet, the two of us sitting in solitude.
An hour had passed, and that made me nervous. If it had been simple stitches, I felt as though she would have been done. My concern was she needed surgery to fix the damage.
“Friends of Ava Kennedy?” A nurse stood in the doorway of the waiting area, looking around.
We stood, our hands in the air, to get her attention.
“She’s asking for you both,” she said. “She’ll be OK to go home, but probably not for a couple hours. They want to watch her for a bit due to the blood loss.” She started walking away, so we followed her. “Does she have any family nearby, or only friends?”
“Just friends, she goes to school here,” I said.
“Her family is about four hours away,” Macie responded.
“I’m sure one of the other nurses contacted her parents, I was just checking,” the nurse said as we continued following her through a maze of hallways and curtained off rooms. We got to a small cornered off area.
“She’s in here. She needed a blood transfusion, and she’s on an IV.
She’s stitched up, but requested a sedative for the stitches, so she’s a little groggy still. ”
The nurse pulled back the curtain, and Ava was curled up in the bed. She looked so tiny as she lay on the gurney, the blue and white gown tied at her neck. Her eyes popped open at the sound of the curtain sliding on the metal rings, but she didn’t move.
Macie rushed to her side, and I let them have their time, moving out to the main area. It was busy, doctors and nurses rushing about from patient to patient. It made me want to find the nurse or doctor who worked on Ava and personally thank them.
“Logan.” Macie startled me. “Can I use your truck to head back to the house? She wants some clothes to go home in, the others are kinda trashed.”
“Sure.”
She grabbed the keys, waved to Ava, and walked out.
That left me with Ava.
I turned toward the bed, her eyes on me, and my first instinct was to go tell Macie I would take the ride for the clothes. But as I moved closer into the tiny room, my desire to be near her won over. Seeing the bandage reminded me how fleeting it all is, and…
“Logan,” Ava said, sitting up in her bed.
Her simply saying my name had me almost jumping. I moved to the chair at her bedside, helping with the IV tube as she got comfortable.
“Can I get you anything?”
She shook her head as she drew her knees to her chest, her chin resting on top.
“I’m sorry for this.” Her voice was so quiet I almost didn’t hear her over the noises of the ER. “For today, this week, all of it. I hated seeing you crying on the way here.”
The wetness returned to my eyes. I didn’t want to do this here, of all places.
But there was no holding back what was coming.
I dropped my head to the mattress, gripping her good hand in mine as I brought it to my mouth.
The strained sob I let go against her skin had her reaching for me, her fingers raking through my hair.
“Ava,” I croaked out. “When I saw you, on the floor, covered in blood, I thought…my mind thought…that you…and it was your wrist…fuck Ava, I thought I lost you.”
I howled at the thought, my heart racing, but so thankful she was here next to me.
Touching me.
“Logan,” she said, crawling closer to me on the small bed. “I’m so sorry I scared you like that. My god, to have thought that, to have seen me and thought that, I’m so sorry.”
She didn’t understand the magnitude of what it really meant.
“Ava,” I started, looking up at her. “I haven’t talked about my real father too much.
You know that we didn’t have a great relationship, and that he was a bastard to me and my mom.
” I stalled, reconsidering if this was a good idea.
But looking at her, and the fact that we were talking again, I went with it.
“Matt is like my dad for so many reasons, but one of them is because my real father is dead.”
She could tell I wasn’t finished by looking at me. Sitting back, she granted me the time I needed to continue.
Eventually, I found it in me to say the words.
“He committed suicide when I was a junior in high school.”
Her slow blink and swallow made my tears more abundant for some reason.
“I blamed myself for a long time. I thought I caused him to do it because I refused to see him for a couple years before.” As I tried to hold in my sob, it made it worse, the sound echoing in our small space. “Ava, if I’d lost you, I don’t know what I would have done.”
She slid over on the small bed, patting the space beside her.
I squeezed next to her as she enveloped me into her arm.
If it weren’t for the metal bar holding her in on the other side, we would have fallen off.
I gently held her around the middle as we both quietly cried for what we had, thought we lost, did lose… all of it.
The tears slowed, and I knew I should move before Macie returned, but I didn’t want to, she felt so good in my arms.
“This week was hard,” she said against the top of my head. “Harder than I expected.”
I nodded against her, not wanting to talk. Not wanting this moment to end.
“I’m sorry about what your father did, and that you felt in any way responsible.” She stroked my cheek as she spoke. “I’m sure you’ve since learned through therapy that you had nothing to do with it, that he wasn’t well.”
Again, all I did was nod.
“So, I couldn’t find the leggings you wanted, but I found those really comfy sweats you love…” Macie stopped talking midsentence when she walked in on us.
I started to get up from the bed, out of her hold, but Ava held me in place. Macie looked at us, curious, then smiled.
“I’ll leave the bag here.”