Chapter 14 #2
I listen to it again and the picture becomes a little more clear. She was trying to call me when she was hit. I should’ve never let her leave that night. It’s my fault she left. I should’ve told her about the tracker and explained to her why I put it there.
Wait a minute… the tracker, how could I forget about that? I was so wrapped up in finding her again I completely forgot the entire reason I put the tracker on her phone to begin with.
I didn’t want to tell her at the time because I didn’t want to worry her, but I had a good suspicion she was being watched.
She received a few cryptic letters to the house that I destroyed before she found out.
At the time, I was hoping it was someone pranking her, but I put the tracker on her phone just in case.
I wanted to have that implemented so if the need ever arose, I would have access to her location.
I didn’t think she’d find it and I also didn’t think she would’ve thrown her phone on the side of the road when she left me.
Hell, I honestly didn’t think she would’ve left in the first place.
Would it have played out differently if I told her why I put the tracker there?
If I could change the past, I probably wouldn’t have put the tracker on her phone at all.
It’s not like it was any help to me finding her when I needed to anyways.
Did she change her name to run from whoever it was that was watching her?
I can’t believe that someone in my profession missed all the signs.
I was so infatuated with her I let her close to me without doing any digging into her past. I should have.
Maybe if I did, we wouldn’t be where we were now.
The beep of an incoming text pulls me out of my own head long enough to see the notification from Gavin.
I have to give credit where credit is due, the man works fast. It’s an honor to call him my best friend.
Gavin
Are you sure you want to know?
Atlas
I need answers, Gavin.
Gavin
How do you think she’ll react to you digging into her personal information?
Atlas
I’m hoping that whatever I find out will bring her back to
me and it won’t matter that I went digging in the first place.
Gavin
I hope you know what you’re doing man.
Atlas
Do you have the information or not?
Gavin
Yeah, I got it. I’m emailing it over now. Just don’t overreact, Atlas.
That made my stomach sink to my feet. If he was telling me this before I even saw the files, then it must be bad.
Gavin has never warned me like this before.
I download the zip file and start undoing the encryption right away.
Each second feels like an hour as I watch the loading bar go from zero percent to one hundred.
The images on my screen are like a punch to the gut.
She looks so broken and tiny in that hospital bed.
Her eye is swollen with several deep purple bruises on her face, her leg is in a cast, and her arm is in a splint.
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat knowing I could’ve stopped all of this from happening.
I dig deeper into the medical files. They mention her blood alcohol level could’ve been the only reason she survived the crash.
Each file I click through only makes it worse.
Several x-rays, each showing a different broken bone.
Fractured ribs and arm, a hair line fracture in her orbital bone.
It seems like her leg got the worse of it.
Her ankle had to be reconstructed with surgery, as well as a broken fibula.
The next image I see is a copy of her CT scan.
It shows slight swelling and a brain bleed.
My poor girl, she didn’t deserve to go through all this trauma.
I keep flipping through more medical files.
There are pages mentioning the doctors deciding to put her in a medically induced coma until they got the bleeding and swelling under control.
The more I read, the more my guilt built.
I pushed her away and caused this. She doesn’t remember me because I wasn’t man enough to love her like she needed me to.
I read every single page Gavin sent over.
I stop when I come to a page mentioning possible amnesia.
From what I read, she woke up from the coma not remembering the wreck or anything related to arriving at the hospital.
The doctor notes that they thought it was best not to tell her all the details in case the memory loss was her body’s way of protecting her from reliving it.
The doctor also stated based on his evaluation compared to the MRI and CAT scans, it doesn’t seem like there’s any physical reason for her not to remember and that the patient mentioned missing six months to a year’s worth of memories.
That the memories could come back on their own or not at all.
It also stated that telling her what happened could trigger a panic attack or psychotic break.
FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!
What the hell am I supposed to do? I don’t want to make this worse for her. That doesn’t leave me much choice. I can’t live without her so I’ll earn her back the hard way.