Chapter 5 #4
“Please feel free to save all commentary until the end,” James said, trying for a joke but falling flat. Leon raised a pierced eyebrow, and James ducked his head. “So, we can get through the tour and onto other things?”
Leon tipped James’ chin up and searched his face, before rolling his eyes. “You’re not wearing that wild, excited smile, so I’m assuming this is more than you just being eager to take me to bed tonight?”
James pulled his head out of Leon’s grasp. “No. I mean, I’m definitely excited for that, but also to spend the evening together and talk. About what Aspen said, but also about us, and Valentine’s Day, and your gift, and–”
Leon’s phone rang from his pocket, thankfully interrupting what would have become yet another spiral. Leon huffed and pulled it out, doing a double-take when he saw who was calling.
“It’s Hailey,” he said, and James’s eyes widened.
“Does she usually call you?”
“No. I’m pretty sure she’d rather send a letter than make a phone call,” Leon said.
“Oh, I thought that was just a millennial thing.”
Leon shrugged. “I should probably answer–”
It stopped ringing, and they stared at it.
“Huh. Maybe a butt dial?” James asked.
That ball had officially burned through his stomach and seemed to be moving around his insides. He needed to get this conversation over with–or at the very least started, so they could talk things through, and James could stop worrying and guessing and–
Leon’s phone rang again, and this time Leon picked up right away.
“What do you want–” His expression went blank for a second.
“Trina? Trina, I can’t understand you,” he said.
His brows pulled together, and he stepped away from James to walk over towards the window, as if maybe he was getting bad reception.
“Trina, I can’t… You have to take a deep breath, what happen–”
Leon’s free hand balled into a fist, and his breathing picked up. “Trina, please, what–”
James walked over and grabbed Leon’s hand. “Speaker?” he mouthed, and Leon nodded, pulling the phone away from his ear and switching it to speaker.
“–so slippery and…good driver…seriously, she didn’t do…wrong but, but, but…please! Leon!” Trina sobbed.
Leon’s hand was shaking so much that he almost dropped the phone. James gingerly took it from him. “Trina, honey, we can’t understand what you’re saying. It was slippery? Did you fall, or get hurt while–”
“Car accident! Please, I…I called 911 already, but…but she…she won’t open her eyes!” Trina wailed.
Leon made a choking noise, his body going stiff. In contrast, James felt his shoulders set, and his joints flex. Every trip to the ER with his mom had been preparing him for this moment. “Okay, Trina, do you know where you are?”
James pulled Leon by the hand over to the front door and pointed at their shoes. Leon nodded jerkily and shoved his feet into his boots while James slid his on one-handed.
Trina sobbed into the phone. “I can’t see any signs–”
“Can you share your location? I know Hailey has an iPhone; I can walk you through it,” James said as Leon grabbed their coats from the closet. He reached for his car keys, but James caught his wrist and shook his head. Leon grabbed James’ keys instead, and they rushed out the door.
He was able to get Trina to send them the location, and as soon as Leon managed to lock his front door, they ran down the hall to the stairs.
James tried to coax more information out of Trina, but it was a lost cause.
By the time they reached the lobby, she’d hung up to wait for the ambulance.
In the city, it could be anywhere from five minutes to fifty, especially if the weather was bad.
They rushed as carefully as they could across the parking lot to James’ car.
James ended up sliding the last few feet and slammed into the driver's side door with enough force to rattle his teeth. Leon didn’t fare much better, crashing into the passenger door with a grunt.
He struggled with the handle for a moment before giving a desperate-sounding roar and ripping the door open.
James had them out of the parking lot before either was fully buckled in, but he came to a complete stop at the entrance to the main road to test the brakes and make sure they both had their seatbelts on.
His Subaru was pretty good at handling the weather, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
He was about to break several rules of the road, but this wouldn’t be one of them.
“It’s good that Trina is okay and was able to call for help,” James said, glancing only for half a second at Leon to see him nod stiffly. “And it’s not uncommon for people to get knocked out by the force of the airbag. That doesn't mean anything.”
Leon grunted, but even the small noise sounded broken.
“I’m sure the ambulance will beat us there, and we’ll probably get a call from Trina that they’re in the ambulance and everything is fine. Then we can go to the hospital to meet them,” James said as he ran a yellow light and sped around the car in front of him to make the next light.
Leon made another choking noise, and James wished he could reach for him, but he was not taking his hand off the wheel for any reason.
“It’s going to be okay. She’s going to be okay,” he said, because there was absolutely no way she couldn’t be. His mom survived cancer. Hailey was going to get up and walk away from a car accident. She was way too full of life and fight.
“Th-thank you…for…driving,” Leon forced out.
“Of course,” James said, skidding a little around a corner, but getting enough traction to race through the next light. “You just focus on breathing, okay?”
He didn’t want to say it because he didn’t want to put any added pressure on him, but James was going to need Leon when they got there.
James could only maintain calm and collected for so long before he broke down, too.
Trina and Hailey would need them both to have it together—or at least appear to. They were the “old folks,” after all.
Tears tried to form in James’ eyes, but he didn’t have time for them. He sniffed loudly and then again until his sinuses burned, but his eyes cleared.
“We’re almost there,” James said as he took the last turn onto the final stretch of road. Up ahead, he could see red lights flashing, a gross parody of the festive decorations James had spent all afternoon hanging up.
“Fuck,” Leon breathed as they both took in the mangled state of Hailey’s car.
They had crashed headfirst into a light pole, with tire marks in the ice on the street showing exactly where they had skidded out.
The car wasn’t split in half, or any of the other horrifying things James had been envisioning, but the front was crumpled in, and the windshield was shattered.
James did his best to maneuver the car up to the curb, but Leon tore off his seatbelt before they came to a complete stop.
He managed to get the door open, but he tripped while getting out, catching the side of the car with his hands before pushing off.
“Hailey!” he shouted, racing towards the scene.