Chapter 2 Savannah
Savannah
The arena erupted into chaos after Weston hit the ground, but all I could focus on was the fact that he wasn’t getting up. He never didn’t get up.
This was all my fault.
If he hadn’t looked at me, none of this would be happening. He’d probably be adding yet another belt to his collection instead of lying on the ground.
“Wes!” I screamed, slamming my hands on the fence, my throat raw. “Weston!” As soon as the bull was put away, medical professionals rushed around him. I raised a leg over the fence to hop over, needing to get to him. He’d get up if I went over there. I knew he would.
Tattooed arms wrapped around my body, too strong for me to break free from, and they yanked me away.
“Let go of me!” I flung around, kicking my feet as they dragged me away from the fence. Away from Weston.
“Easy, Savvy. It’s just me,” Emmett said.
I went limp in my brother’s arms, my hair hanging over my face as he pulled me out of the arena. “I need to get to him,” I cried. “He needs me.” Eleven years of distance didn’t matter anymore. Not with him lying in the dirt, broken and alone. A sight I feared for years.
“We gotta go to the other side,” he said. He set me down once we were out of the crowd, and I turned and booked it to the other side of the arena the second he let go. I shoved people out of my way, my lungs burning from the exertion as I ran.
Beau and Claire were somehow already there, talking to a medic. Beau had his hands on his hips, his face tense. Claire’s eyes were shining with unshed tears.
My heart plummeted at the sight of them looking so worried.
Then Weston rolled past on a gurney, and they didn’t matter anymore. He was unconscious with a neck brace on, his skin pale and clammy. I rushed towards him, but got snatched back by another rough arm.
“No!” I fought against their grip, trying to go to the ambulance before they left.
“Hey, hey,” Beau rasped, turning me to face him. His eyes were blue like Weston’s. But they were the wrong blue. Beau’s were light like the sky, while Weston’s were dark, deep like the ocean. And they didn’t see me, they didn’t settle me like Weston’s always had.
“I need to go with him. Let me go with him. Please, Beau,” I wept. So much for them never knowing about us. My heart was on full display, and the only thing that could settle it was getting put in an ambulance.
Beau set his hands on my shoulders, giving them a squeeze. “Savannah, you need to take a deep breath.” He said it just like he had when Mom died and Claire was losing it. I must’ve been losing it, too, then.
He was right. I needed to get a grip. This wasn’t me. I wasn’t the girl who got hysterical. I was calm, collected, controlled. I kept my hysteria on the inside, buried under structure, routines, and a Xanax prescription.
I inhaled shakily and let it out, nodding at him despite the quiver in my chin.
“He’s gonna be okay. They’re pretty sure he broke his left shoulder, and he has a severe concussion. That’s why he’s unconscious. They’ll know more when they do scans at the hospital, but he’ll probably need surgery and could have a brain bleed.”
I bent over and threw up on his boots.
So much for control. But then again, I’d never had it. Not when it came to Weston.
I wasn’t much better at the hospital. “You’re gonna wear out the floor, Savvy,” Emmett said after the tenth time I passed him.
“I’ll stop pacing when they give us answers,” I replied as if that would actually work.
But I couldn’t sit still in silent worry like Colt. Or stare at the ground like Beau and Emmett. Or stress snack like Delilah and Claire. Or talk just to fill the silence like Anna and Brittany. Or read to escape like Tess.
If it were anyone else, I’d stay calm. I’d try to comfort everyone and get answers from the staff, but it was Weston, so I paced.
We were all here, waiting for more news and occupying half the waiting room.
It had been three hours already. First, they needed to do scans on his head to make sure his brain wasn’t bleeding.
It wasn’t, thank fucking God. But they said he had a grade three concussion, the worst one before it became truly dangerous and life-threatening.
He could wake up with amnesia, be sensitive to light and sound, have nausea, and headaches for weeks.
And now he was getting surgery on his shoulder.
They said it was some kind of tear in a joint that connected his collarbone and shoulder.
“I wish they’d just hurry the hell up already,” Delilah said with a sigh, slouching in her chair and stress-eating Cheetos. “It’s bullshit they won’t even come out here and tell us anything.”
Claire looked over at the information desk with a determined glare. She set her sleeve of powdered donuts down in Beau’s lap and strode over to the poor girl at the desk we hadn’t left alone all night.
My sister plastered a smile on her face that did nothing to hide how desperate we all were for even a scrap of something. “Hi, can you give us an update on Weston Tate, please?”
“There aren’t any updates since you asked last time,” the information girl said apologetically, but with a slight hint of annoyance. “Someone from the surgical team will come out as soon as there’s news.”
It was the fifth time I heard that scripted response, and I was pretty certain if I heard it again, I’d lose my shit on her.
I forced myself to sit down, wedged between Tess and Delilah.
My knee bounced as I stared a hole into the doors leading to the operating rooms. Tess had Luke in her arms while she read on her Kindle.
She seemed to be the calmest out of all of us, but then again, she had been gone and isolated from us for the last eight years, so she probably didn’t really care all that much.
Luke was asleep, his mouth hanging open and ringed with red dust from the Doritos he shared with Claire earlier.
“You don’t have to stay,” I told Tess quietly. “You can go put him to bed if you need to.” It was late, close to midnight, and I knew she must’ve been tired. I definitely was, but I wasn’t leaving this room unless it was to go see Weston.
She looked at me, her eyes full of concern. “Are you sure? I want to be here for you.” She took my hand in hers. “I hate seeing you so worried.”
I hated being this worried. And the fact that I was this shaken up over Weston only worried me more. I thought he was in my past, a brief blip in the timeline of my life. That first love that people looked back on fondly on their deathbeds, nothing more.
Tonight proved that he was apparently far more than just a blip, and I didn’t know what to do with that.
I thought I had left him and my feelings for him behind that horrible night eleven years ago, just like I had left Wild Creek.
I thought I had moved on with Stewart, even if he was still hounding me for an answer to his proposal. But still, I had moved on.
“It’s fine. I’ll be fine,” I replied, forcing a smile I knew she saw through. “You should go.”
“Okay. I guess we’ll go then.” She gave my hand another squeeze. “He’ll be okay, Savvy.”
I nodded, unable to get words out past the knot in my throat.
He might’ve been okay in terms of being alive, but he wasn’t going to be okay in terms of happiness.
I knew Weston. He lived for bull riding—it was who he was, it was all he ever wanted to be.
And with injuries like his, he wouldn’t be doing that for months or possibly ever again.
He was going to be crushed when he woke up.
Tess left, taking Delilah and Claire with her.
Anna, Joseph, and Brittany left, too, so now it was just the guys and me.
The room was even quieter now, the air thick with unspoken worry.
Colt gave me a look full of questions that he didn’t ask.
Thank God. I wasn’t ready to give them the answers they wanted, the answers they all probably figured out on their own.
The minutes dragged unlike anything I’d experienced before. Emmett and Beau napped. Colt stared at the floor more. And I spiraled, lost in my mind for the millionth time today.
I kept replaying everything. The moment our eyes locked, and the inexplicable rush that came when he looked at me. The fear in his eyes as he was pulled out into the arena. The way he flew into the air and how hard he hit the ground.
It was all my fault. If I hadn’t gone tonight, none of this would be happening. I always told him I’d never watch him live, so I knew he was stunned to see me and too distracted to notice that the chute had opened.
I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep when the double doors to the operating room hall slammed open, jolting me awake on Emmett’s shoulder. A man dressed in surgical scrubs came out, looking tired, given the late hour. “Are you Weston Tate’s family?”
I sprang to my feet along with the guys. “Yes, we’re his family,” Beau said. I wrung my hands together, my heart pounding while waiting to hear what the doctor had to say.
“Weston’s surgery went well. He’s being taken to recovery right now to be monitored while he wakes up from the anesthesia, but we expect him to make a full recovery.”
Relief hit me so hard my legs buckled.
“Whoa there.” Colt caught me before I could hit the ground. “You okay?” he asked as I straightened, his eyes searching mine with concern.
“Yeah. Sorry. I’m fine.” I brushed my hair behind my ears, feeling a little embarrassed. “Just tired and I haven’t eaten.” He gave me a subtle nod and let me go, but stayed close.
“Someone from recovery will come get you once he’s awake, alright?” the surgeon said, and we nodded. “It shouldn’t be too long. He was already coming to when I left to come out here.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Beau said, extending his hand out. They shook hands, and he left. And then, we waited some more. It felt like all I’d done today was wait.
Thankfully, the surgeon hadn’t lied, and it was only another thirty minutes before a nurse came out smiling.
“He’s awake,” she said, and we all perked up.
I took my first full breath in what felt like years.
“Very groggy and confused, but that’s normal with a head injury like his.
And he’s been saying angel all night. Does that mean anything to y’all? ”
My heart nearly stopped. I glanced at the guys, all three of them looking lost. “Uh, no,” Colt said, scratching the back of his head. “We don’t know anything about that.”
I swallowed roughly. “I do,” I said quietly. One by one, all three of the guys looked at me in varying stages of bewilderment. “I’m…” I looked back at the nurse. “He’s asking for me.”
“What?” Emmet said, his voice tight with accusation and confusion, like he was trying to piece something together he couldn’t fathom.
“Oh great!” she beamed, ignoring Emmett. “He’s been asking for you all night. I can take you back to see him now.”
I looked back at the guys as I went with the nurse. “It’s complicated,” I told them, and then disappeared behind the double doors away from their prying questions.
But now that I was alone, walking with the nurse to recovery, every step felt harder to make than the last. All night I’d been trying to get to him, to make sure he was alright. And now that it was time to do that, I was absolutely terrified.
What if he hated me for leaving the way I did? What if he blamed me for this, the way I blamed myself? What if he told me he never wanted to see me again?
“The incision thankfully didn’t interfere with his tattoo,” the nurse said, pulling me out of my spiral.
My brows furrowed. “What tattoo?”
“The angel on his arm,” she said as if it were obvious. My breath caught in the back of my throat. “You didn’t know? It’s gorgeous. It’s covered up by bandages right now, but those can come off in a few days.”
My legs were wobbly again, and I shook my head. “No, I didn’t know,” I whispered, unable to make my voice any stronger.
I couldn’t believe it. An angel on his arm. A tattoo on his body for me. After all this time.
We walked through another door, and there were beeping monitors and hushed voices. And when I looked up, there he was, smiling at me like I hung the moon.
“Sav.”