10. Sawyer
Sawyer
The first thing I notice is the beeping.
It’s rhythmic and steady and it pulls me through layers of fog.
I was having these horrible dreams. I can’t remember details but I know I kept reaching for Owen, and my hands couldn’t grasp him.
My eyelids are heavy and stuck together with something crusty and when I finally force them open, the fluorescent lights stab into my skull.
There’s white ceiling tiles…an antiseptic smell. Voices coming from a PA system.
It’s a hospital.
I try to sit up but pain explodes across my ribs, shoulders, and neck. Everything hurts. A groan escapes before I can stop it.
“Easy, honey. Don’t move too fast.” A nurse appears beside me, and the first thing I notice is her thin brows raised high. “You’re okay. You’re safe. You’re at Mercer Memorial Hospital.”
Safe?
The word echoes in my head, while I try to absorb it. Safe. Am I safe? Why wouldn’t I be—
Owen.
A sob tears from my throat as the memory slams into me with the force of the derailment itself. The screaming. The metal wailing. Knox’s hand holding on, squeezing. The death. Oh God…
“Owen,” I gasp, trying to sit up again. The machines around me start beeping faster. “Where’s Owen? And Knox? Where—”
“Shh, it’s okay.” The nurse’s hands are gentle but firm on my shoulders, easing me back against the pillows. “You need to stay calm. Let me get the doctor, okay?”
I don’t want the doctor. I only want him…Them.
“No, please. Just—” I can’t get my words straight. I’m too groggy, and the pain has me wincing.
“The doctor will be right in.” Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
And then I remember. Owen fell. Owen is probably dead.
But some part of me won’t accept it. I refuse to. Because if I accept it, then I have to remember the sound he made when he realized he was about to fall. I have to remember watching the whole car go crashing into the earth below. And I can’t…That’s not real. It didn’t happen.
Because if it’s real, I’ll have to remember that the last thing I did before my boyfriend died was hold his brother’s hand.
The doctor arrives—a tired-looking woman in her forties with a smiley face pin on her lanyard and coffee on her breath. She asks me questions I can barely process. What’s my name? What day is it? Do I know where I am?
“Sawyer Thorne,” I whisper. “I don’t…I don’t know what day it is.
We were at Wonder World. The ride. There was—” My throat closes up but I have to ask.
Maybe there’s a chance. Maybe in this fucked up world and this nightmare situation, Owen somehow survived.
“Owen. Please. Owen Aldrich, did he survive?”
She whispers something to the nurse before turning back to me. “Let’s focus on you right now, okay? Your body went into shock. You have several contusions, some bruised ribs, a mild concussion. You were very lucky—”
“Don’t.” The word comes out harsher than I mean it to. “Don’t tell me I was lucky.”
She has the grace to look away. “You had some lacerations that required stitches. We did a CT scan—everything looks good. No internal bleeding, no fractures. You’ll be sore for a while, but you’re going to be fine.”
Fine.
If only that were true. I’ll never be fine again.
“There’s a detective who wants to speak with you when you’re up for it,” she continues, checking something on the computer in the corner. “But there’s no rush. Would you like us to notify someone? Your parents, maybe?”
My parents. Well, one of them is behind bars, and the other will likely make me feel worse.
“Knox,” I say, latching onto the one name, the one person, who might understand how I’m feeling. The one person who was there. “Knox Aldrich. Is he here? Is he alright?”
“He’s being treated as well.” The doctor says. “I can’t give you information about another patient, but he survived the accident.”
He survived. I know he did, but hearing her say it makes my eyes water in relief.
Knox is alive. We both made it.
But Owen didn’t. It’s the unspoken words. The way the doctor avoided the question.
The thought circles back, relentless. Owen is dead and Knox and I are alive and that doesn’t make any sense because Owen was good, Owen was perfect, Owen was the one who deserved to survive and instead he got…
I’m crying before I realize it, tears streaming down my face and into my hair. The doctor says something soothing and presses another button. Suddenly, there’s warmth spreading through my IV, pulling me back down toward the fog.
“Rest,” she says from very far away. “Just rest.”
When I wake again, the lights are dim, and the shades on the window are pulled down tight. Has it been a few hours? A whole day? Time is unreliable here.
Mom is sitting in the chair beside my bed, staring at her phone.
She looks smaller than the last time I saw her, worn out.
Her hair needs touching up at the roots where salt and pepper strands stop abruptly at a line of blonde—she usually never lets it get that bad.
She’s wearing jeans and an old sweater I recognize from when I was in high school.
I haven’t seen it since I lived at home.
“Mom?”
Her head snaps up, and she presses her hand to her chest. “Oh, thank God. Sawyer. Baby.” She rushes beside me and grips my hand so hard it aches. “You’re awake. How do you feel? Does anything hurt? Should I get the nurse?”
“I’m okay,” I say. “But you’re crushing my hand.”
She releases it and smoothes the hair off my forehead instead. “Sorry. Are you sure you’re not hurting? I don’t mind running for the nurse.”
“I’m fine, Mom,” I lie.
She looks at the floor for a moment, then back at me.
She’s struggling to find the right words.
“Don’t say that. Don’t you dare say that you’re fine after what happened.
I saw it on the news. Oh God, the footage…
” She presses her free hand to her mouth, trying to compose herself. “I thought I’d lost you.”
Guilt swallows me whole. I don’t want to be the cause of her suffering. She’s already lost so much. Her marriage, her status, her home. The last thing she needed was to lose me too.
“I’m here,” I tell her. “I’m okay, Mom. Really.”
She nods, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “The doctors said you’ll be able to go home tomorrow if everything looks good. And I already talked to the hospital about the bills—we have options, there’s payment plans. Don’t worry about any of that.”
I shake my head and wince from the pain it causes. “I can take care of all that, Mom.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” she says, bowing her head. “You’re so strong, Baby Girl. So much stronger than me.”
We’re both silent for a while, but it’s an uncomfortable type of silence. Like I can hear all the things she’s thinking, seeping from her pores, permeating the air. There’s so much unsaid, so much I don’t have the strength to talk about.
I wait for her to ask about the Aldrich’s—about Owen, but she doesn’t. I’m sure she doesn’t have to ask. She must already know.
“Does Dad know?” I ask to break the silence.
She looks away at the mention of him. “I’m not sure.”
I don’t know what I was expecting to hear, but I had a smidgen of hope that maybe she could set aside her feelings toward him and at least let him know what happened. That’ll have to fall on me. But not now. I don’t have the strength.
“I want to see Knox,” I say quietly.
She scrunches her brows. “Sawyer, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Please.” I hear the pleading in my voice and don’t even know where it’s coming from.
She’s not the one who can help me, but winning her to my side is a start.
I just need to see him with my own eyes.
I need to confirm he’s real, that those moments on the ride weren’t some trauma-induced hallucination.
“I need to see him. We were together when it happened. We survived together. Please.”
She studies me for a long moment, and I can see the wheels in her mind turning. What to say, how to say it, whether to say it at all. Finally, she sighs. “I’ll ask the nurse. But honey...the Aldrich’s just lost their son. They might not want—”
“I know.” My throat constricts and the words struggle to escape. “I know what they lost. I lost him too, Mom. But I was there. Knox and I were both there, and I just…” I stop, not sure how to explain this pull I feel. “I need to see him.”
She doesn’t look convinced, but she nods. “Okay. Let me see what I can do.”
It takes forever, and the whole time I click through every channel on the TV, not really watching anything, until I’ve gone through them all at least ten times.
Nurses and doctors come in and out, and some kind of hospital administrator talks to my mother, using words like “trauma protocol” and “patient privacy” and “family wishes.” But eventually, someone wheels in a wheelchair, which I insist I don’t need but apparently hospital policy demands, and my mother helps me into it.
Every movement sends pain shooting through my ribs, my shoulders, my neck. I guess I’m more battered than I realized, and the effort of just sitting up leaves me dizzy and nauseated.
“You okay?” Mom asks, bracing one hand on my shoulder.
“Yeah.” I grip the armrests, willing the room to stop spinning. “I’m fine.”
We move slowly down the corridor, Mom’s footsteps quiet behind me.
The fluorescent lights are too bright and the smell of antiseptic stings my nostrils.
Everything feels too loud, too sharp. I think my body used up all its ability to brace and filter and now there’s nothing left between me and the full weight of the world.
“Are they going to let me see him?”
“The nurse is asking.” She takes a breath, gripping the handles. “But, Baby Girl, you need to prepare yourself. The Aldrich’s...they might not want to see you right now.”
But Knox will. I know it.