Chapter 46 - Tessa
I don't remember leaving the crash site, or the drive to the hospital... but I am here now. I don’t remember walking in or the EMTs speaking to me, handing me the ultrasound picture.... but it's clutched in my hand.
I remember noise, a roaring, tidal hush that filled my skull until words became nothing but vibrations.
Someone put a blanket around my shoulders.
Someone guided me into a chair.
The chair creaks every time I breathe, loud, plastic, hollow. It echoes like I’m sitting in the middle of an empty gymnasium.
But I’m not, I’m surrounded… and I’ve never felt so crushingly alone.
It's like I slowly come back online, and things come back into focus.
Chase sits across from me, hands scrubbed but still faintly stained, knuckles raw and split.
His clothes are gone, someone must’ve taken them when ER staff realized they were soaked in blood, but his eyes…
His eyes haven’t changed. They look like someone scooped the light out of them.
I see him staring at his hands, and I know there’s nothing I can say that will fix the way he’s blaming himself.
Eli sits beside me, knee bouncing, jaw clenched so tight it trembles. He keeps looking at me like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he blinks.
We are still waiting on John and Maggie to arrive, and I don't think I am ready for that.
It's like I can only focus for so long; I feel like I keep getting pulled in and out of focus.
Kenzie arrives at some point, breathless and tear streaked. She drops into a chair near Chase, grabs his hand, and whispers something that makes him crumble forward.
Teammates filter in, Marcus, Erik, Dante, Liam... faces drawn, pale, stunned. They form a quiet wall around us, protectors who don’t know what to protect first.
Everyone moves, everyone breathes, everyone shifts and whispers and sobs.
Everyone but me.
I sit perfectly still, the ultrasound photo clenched so hard.
.. There’s a smear of Nate’s blood on the edge.
It's brown now. Already becoming a stain. I stare at it because it feels like it’s the only thing keeping me together.
If I look away, if I lift my head, I’ll have to face the doors at the end of the hall, the ones no doctor has come through yet.
My heart feels like it’s beating somewhere outside my body.
Voices happen around me, but muffled, distant, underwater, like hearing life from the wrong side of glass.
“…get her some water…”
“…they’re still working…”
“…family room is too small, let them stay here…”
Every sound is both too loud and too far away. I’m in my body, but not. I’m here but floating just behind myself.
Until the doors open and a blast of cold air hits my back.
Then Maggie is in front of me with John, she is saying something, but it feels far away.
She drops into the chair next to me, and I think she is talking to me, but I cannot focus; I keep staring at the ultrasound picture like it will fix everything.
Then her voice breaks through just for a moment, "Tessa, what.
.. what is that in your hand?" It feels like I am pulled back under, and then I hear her again, "Oh my God, Eli, is that what I think it is? "
I don't hear his answer because another set of doors pulls my focus: a hydraulic hiss, the soft squeak of footsteps. Everything inside me freezes, because this is what I have been dreading.
The doctor appears, still in his trauma scrubs. He walks in a straight line and stops right in front of the Carsons and me. They all stand, but I can't. I cannot because I know what is coming. I can feel it. But I am still not ready to face it.
"Mr. and Mrs. Carson?"
Everything narrows to his voice, so I miss what else is said. But I can only focus on him.
"Ms. Lane..." He says it so gently that I want to scream and cry, I want to throw something. Beg for it not to be true, but I can't. I cannot even meet his eyes. My fingers crush the ultrasound even tighter. Eli wraps his arm around my shoulder.
The doctor crouches a little, lowering himself to my line of sight, voice warming like he isn't preparing to detonate a bomb.
“I’m very sorry,” he says.
The words aren't loud, or sharp... but they are final. A weight to them so brutal it feels like I cannot breathe, like a door has been slammed shut on my rib cage.
“We did everything we could,” he continues, voice warping as the ringing in my ear’s spikes. “His injuries were too severe. The impact caused massive internal trauma...”
The room tilts around me as my vision flickers. The doctor keeps talking, but I’m not hearing much anymore, just pieces, underwater and warbled.
“…collapsed lung…”
“…cardiac compromise…”
“…we attempted resuscitation…”
“…time of death…”
Time of death... The world exhales, and everything inside me collapses like a house with the foundation ripped out. Something between a gasp and a moan tears from my throat without permission.
I look up, and I can feel the tears streaming down my face; everything blurs, but I see Kenzie cover her mouth, trying to hide her sobs.
Maggie crumples beside me, and John catches her, burying his face in her shoulder.
Chase stands abruptly, fists clenched so tight his arms shake.
Tears carve down his face, dropping onto the sterile tile.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes. “I tried... I swear... I tried...”
He drops to his knees in front of me, but I cannot meet his eyes. I know if I do, there will be no coming back. I stare instead at the blood smear. His blood. On our baby.
The doctor reaches out, maybe to offer some comfort, but I flinch away. I don't want his comfort. I fold inward, forehead touching Chase's shoulder, and a low, keening sound vibrates out of me.
Everyone is reeling from the news, trying to process the loss, but then... a new voice breaks through the fog. I know that voice, it is fake, too smooth and too calm. It is so far out of place in this world-ending moment.
“Miss Lane?”
I pull back from Chase, chest heaving, trying to blink through the tears.
My eyes narrow on three men in suits who stand a few feet away. My whole body reacts. Because he is here, they are here. I recognize a few... the GM, the PR director, the Coach, with a few other people behind them with... cameras? I can feel my body start to shake.
They look out of place among the grief-stricken, as if someone had invited greed to a funeral.
The GM, Ray, clears his throat, expression pressed into something resembling sympathy.
“We’re truly devastated,” he says. “The organization is heartbroken by this loss.”
The organization... not him... not a person... but an entity. Something that means nothing and everything wrong. The PR director steps in, lowering his voice like we’re discussing business.
“We’ll be holding a press conference shortly,” he says. “It would be incredibly meaningful if you could speak. The public views you as someone important to him, important to the organization.”
Important to him... Important to the organization...
“Plus,” the PR director adds, “it would help reinforce the narrative that...”
Something in me snaps at that fucking word. Narrative.
A clean, perfect break.
I stand so fast the chair screeches backward, skidding across the tile hard enough to make the entire waiting room jolt. Chase stumbles back but catches himself.
All conversation stops.
Every teammate.
Every nurse.
Every family member.
Every bystander.
All eyes whip to me.
My voice comes out rough, cracked, scraped raw by grief and fury.
“A press conference?” I repeat. “You want me to help your narrative?”
Ray lifts his palms, wary. “We understand emotions are high...”
“You don’t understand anything,” I bite out. “You don’t get to stand here like you were part of his life.”
“Miss Lane..."
“No,” I snap. “No more... No more statements. No more branding me like I’m another asset in your fucking portfolio.”
A ripple of shock spreads through the room. Marcus takes a step forward, protective. Kenzie grips Chase’s sleeve. Eli whispers my name like he’s afraid I’ll shatter.
But what they don't understand is that I already have, and now I’m sharp.
“You didn’t care about him,” I continue, voice shaking with violent clarity. “You cared about what he could do for you, what he could sell for you. What image he upheld.”
“Tessa...” Nate's coach says with a soft voice, but I do not care.
“You worked him to the bone,” I snarl. “You controlled his every move. You pushed him until he didn’t even recognize himself.”
Ray steps in closer to me, "Tessa, I know you are upset. We want to take care of you. The Kodiaks see you and Nate's baby as family."
Gasps ripple through the room, and I see red. My hands start shaking so violently that the ultrasound picture slips free and lands on the floor between us.
“Tess,” Eli murmurs, stepping closer.
But I’m not finished, I look at the man who treated Nate as a paycheck, dead in the eyes.
My voice drops to something lethal. “You squeezed him dry. You turned us into a storyline before we ever stood a chance. You took the time we should’ve had and fed it to the media machine for profit.”
Ray pales, as flashes go off around us. I hear a murmur, a sound growing around us, but my pain and hurt have shifted to rage, and it is focused on the men before me.
The PR director shifts back. “We meant no disrespect...”
“Disrespect?” I laugh, sharp and broken. “What is wrong with you people?”
The entire room is silent, like everyone is holding a collective breath.
But then Ray steps closer, he goes to bend to pick up the ultrasound, but the moment his fingers touch it, something primal and guttural rips out of me.
“Don’t you fucking touch that!”
My scream echoes so loudly down the hall that nurses peer out of rooms. A security guard steps forward. People in the waiting room jump.
Eli wraps both arms around me, as John steps in, picks up the ultrasound picture and moves between Ray and me.
The fog closes back in, thick and dense, the only merciful thing.
I let Eli guide me away. My feet drift over tile, as lights blur around me and voices dissolve into static. And the last thing my mind clings to before everything goes silent is the ultrasound photo with Nate’s blood forever pressed across the first picture of our baby.
And the truth that will hollow me out for a long, long time is that he will never get to know our child.