Chapter 20
ANTHONY
My phone rattled against the table while I was reviewing December’s books. The sound felt wrong—too loud, too insistent—like it had already decided it was going to ruin me.
I didn’t recognize the number, but my stomach dropped anyway.
“Hello?” My voice came out hoarse, already tight, like my body knew before my mind caught up.
“Is this Anthony Ruiz?”
The calm professionalism on the other end didn’t reassure me. It made my pulse spike. Every instinct in me screamed danger.
“Yes.”
“I’m calling from the sheriff’s department. I’m sorry to inform you—”
Something inside me went cold and hollow at the same time. My hands went numb. My coffee mug slid across the table, spilling without my noticing. The room tilted.
“I didn’t hear the rest,” I said later. At the time, all I managed was, “Where… where is he?”
There was a pause. A breath. “He’s been involved in a single-vehicle incident. He’s stable, but he’s being taken into surgery.”
Surgery. The word landed like a physical blow. My knees nearly buckled. I grabbed the edge of the desk just to stay upright.
Elliot.
My baby boy.
I didn’t remember locking the door. I didn’t remember the drive, only red lights bleeding into white lines, my own breathing tearing in and out of my chest like it was trying to escape me.
My hands clenched the steering wheel so tightly my fingers cramped.
I wanted to scream—at the road, at the night, at myself.
At every moment I’d pulled away.
By the time I reached the hospital, my body was shaking violently. Sweat slicked my hair to my forehead. My legs felt unreliable, like they might fold without warning. I had to grip the railing at the entrance just to keep moving.
“I’m here for Elliot Harper,” I said to the first nurse who tried to stop me. My voice broke on his name.
Her face softened instantly. That look—the one professionals get when they already know how bad it is—nearly took me out at the knees.
“ICU,” she said gently. “This way. He’s in surgery at the moment but I can take you somewhere to wait.”
The hospital lights were too bright. The air smelled like antiseptic and fear. I signed forms without reading them. Answered questions I barely understood. My chest felt hollowed out, like something vital had been carved away.
“You can wait in here.” The nurse gestured to a row of chairs with her head as she held the door open. “Someone will come and get you when he’s back.”
The lobby was empty, fluorescent lights humming in rhythm with my heart, each flicker a drumbeat in my chest. I sank into a hard chair near the far wall, arms tight around my torso as if I could hold myself together that way.
My palms were slick with sweat; my legs refused to cross, my feet rooted to the tiled floor like they belonged to someone else.
I tried to breathe, but every inhale scraped raw against my ribs. Every exhale felt hollow, spilling out nothing but the echo of my own terror. Minutes—or hours—passed. Time no longer existed. The world had narrowed down to that thin thread of dread connecting me to him while he was in surgery.
I saw the moments—memories—flash by, every time I had walked away, every silence I had left unfilled, every boundary I had enforced in the name of protection.
I had convinced myself that distance would save him, but the memory of his face when I left him in that hospital room.
His collapse, the pain in his chest, the way his hands had trembled in his sheets. Kept replaying in my head.
I pressed my palm to my eyes, trying to block the images, but it was like trying to hold back the tide. My stomach churned, bile rising, my throat constricting. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. I wanted to go back in time and catch every fragment of him before I let him break.
A sharp knock on the door before it opened made me bolt up right.
“Mr. Ruiz?” The voice was calm, measured. It did nothing to calm me.
“Yes,” I croaked, my knees nearly buckling. My chest felt like it had been hollowed out and filled with ice.
“I’m from the sheriff’s department. We need to speak with you about the incident.”
The officer’s presence was solid, yet everything about the world around me felt liquid, sliding under my feet. I nodded without thinking, letting him lead me to a small, private office.
He laid out the contents of the car on the table: license, wallet, phone, sunglasses. Then, a folded piece of paper. My stomach dropped, cold sweat pooling in my palms.
“There was a high level of alcohol in his blood,” the officer said. His tone was factual, neutral. “But no open containers were found in the car. Nothing in the car suggests he was drinking at the time of the incident.”
I blinked. My throat tightened, lungs burning. “But… he—he…what,” I whispered, voice trembling. My fingers twitched like they wanted to grab at him, to shake him back into life.
The officer looked at me carefully. “We also recovered a note.” He handed it over. “We believe it was a suicide attempt.”
The words were seared into me as soon as I read them.
I don’t miss the pain. I miss the way you held me through it.
Every muscle in my body locked. My heart stuttered. My stomach pitched forward. The room spun, the edges of reality blurring. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to collapse. I wanted to scream at the universe and at myself for all the ways I had failed him.
“I… I understand,” I rasped. My voice was foreign to me, raw, splitting with panic and disbelief. “What happens now?”
The officer nodded. “We just need to confirm some details. Once we’re done, you can go see him. We will be back later, though, to speak to Mr Harper.”
Go see him. Those words felt like a lifeline I didn’t deserve. Twenty minutes later the officer dismissed me.
I staggered back into the hallway, hands clutching the note, shaking uncontrollably.
My chest felt bruised from the inside. My limbs had turned to lead.
I could feel my throat, dry and raw, tasting the bile that had risen.
I was on the verge of collapsing again when the nurse finally stepped up, gesturing me toward the ICU.
The door to his room opened just as a nurse stepped out, and my breath hitched.
There he was. Tubes, monitors, casts, lines tracing pale skin.
His chest rose and fell, slow and fragile, like he was still tethered to the world by the thinnest of threads—and that thread was me.
I froze, my forehead pressing against the doorway, shaking so violently it felt like the room would crumble around me.
I didn’t know how long I stood there. Minutes or seconds—it didn’t matter. Every sound—the beeping of the monitors, the hiss of oxygen, the faint rattle of the bed—cut into me like knives.
Eventually I whispered, so low it was swallowed by the machines. “I’m here. I’m here, Elliot. I’m here.”
The full weight of it hit me: all the times I’d walked away, all the times I’d tried to protect him by leaving, all the silence I’d imposed—it had built a cage around him. And now, the cage had almost killed him.
I sank into the chair beside the bed, hands curling into my knees, rocking slightly. The note burned in my pocket like fire. My mind spun.
I had failed him. And yet by some miracle he was still alive. I had no right to ask for forgiveness. But I couldn’t look away. Not for a second.
The monitor’s soft beeping was the only sound in the room, but it hit me like a drumline against my ribs.
I hadn’t moved in hours. My palms still shook, pressed against my knees, fingers curling into the fabric like it could somehow anchor me to the world.
I couldn’t stop imagining the crash—the screech of metal, the smell of burned rubber, the flash of headlights against the dark—and every fragment felt like it had landed inside me.
The chair was too small, plastic and unforgiving, pressed hard against the side of the bed.
My hands were folded together between my knees like if I let them separate, I might come apart with them.
I’d been staring at the blanket rising and falling with each shallow breath he took, counting them without realizing I was doing it. Proof. Proof he was still here.
The faintest change caught my eye. His breath hitched. Stalled. Restarted. My heart slammed so hard it felt like it would punch through my chest. My body lurched forward before I even realized I was moving.
“Elliot?” I whispered, voice tight, hoarse, cracking with something I hadn’t let myself feel in months. “Hey… it’s me. It’s okay. I’m here.”
His lashes fluttered, uneven and slow, like it hurt to wake. His brow furrowed faintly, confusion creasing his face as if consciousness itself was too heavy to lift all at once. I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. I was terrified that if I did, he’d disappear again.
Then his eyes opened. They didn’t find me right away.
They drifted—unfocused, glassy—over the ceiling, the lights, the IV pole.
His mouth parted, a quiet sound slipping out that might have been a breath or might have been a question.
Panic flickered there, brief but sharp, like he didn’t recognize where he was.
Minutes passed before his gaze landed on me. It locked. The change was immediate. His throat worked. His eyes filled, fast and bright, like someone had cracked something fragile inside him.
I didn’t have words. All the apologies, all the confessions I had hoarded like weapons, swelled up, catching in my throat. I pressed my forehead to the sheet by his hand, almost collapsing on him, breathing him in—the smell of antiseptic, the faint trace of him—and it was too much.
“A…Anthony?” His voice was hoarse, shredded thin. Saying my name looked like it hurt.
I leaned forward instinctively like I was going to kiss him, then stopped myself halfway. Stayed where I was. “I’m here,” I said softly. Not reaching. Not touching. “I’ve been here for a few hours.”