Chapter 10
ten
. . .
Four Years Ago
I strode toward the conference room, precariously juggling nine coffees. Damn, I was three minutes late.
“Black coffee, black coffee, black coffee, flat white, black coffee, grande caramel oatmilk latte with a caramel drizzle, black coffee, coffee with one cream,” I recited as I set the cups around the oblong table in front of each lawyer in an office of all male lawyers, a cardboard click resounding with each one.
Only coffee-one-cream said thank you. He was the only one, besides flat-white, I guess, with a non-serial-killer-like daily order. He was also the only one who ever said thank you, even throwing in a smile as a tip. He had a nice smile, though I had a preference for his eyes. They were kind.
Instead of thank you, Mr. Blanc, my boss, said, “Where’s the Peterson file?”
“At my desk. I’ll go grab—”
He cut me off with, “Go get that,” waving dismissively.
I gritted my teeth to keep from snipping, “That’s literally what I said I was going to do,” because it wasn’t worth it.
I’d been working as a paralegal at Blanc I wasn’t sure I even understood what she said. Somehow a logical question managed to leave my lips. “Where is she?”
“The hospital. Come…come when you can, but sooner is better than later.”
“Shit,” I said again. “Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Lacy, just—just be careful on the drive over.”
I hung up the phone and stood still, staring at myself in the bathroom mirror.
My hair was more wild than normal, and I tried so hard to contain it that morning, pulling it into a bun that most of the hair seemed to have sprung loose from.
I needed to go, but my feet wouldn’t move.
“I need to go,” I said aloud as a way to force myself to move.
To make one step. One step toward the door and the rest should come easily. My feet didn’t move. I was frozen.
“I need to go,” I verbalized again, and this time, the prompt worked. My feet started to move. They took me out of the bathroom and straight to Blanc’s office. “I need to go,” I repeated to him.
He scrunched his face, asking blandly, “Meaning?”
“My friend. She was in an accident. August. She’s in the hospital. I need to go.”
He shook his head. “No. She’s not family. You don’t need to go.”
“She is family,” I insisted, my voice surprisingly steady. “I need to go.”
He continued to shake his head. “If you go, you won’t have a job anymore.”
“Fine,” I said without a moment’s hesitation. I stripped off my lanyard and dropped it in his doorway, pivoting on my heel to retrieve my personal effects (a singular mug and a pen I planned to steal) from my cart.
As I dug my keys out of my bag, I dropped them on the floor with a curse. I reached for them, but someone else was there to pick them up before I had the chance. Coffee-one-cream was standing in front of me, my keys in his hand, eyes soft with concern. “I’ll drive you,” he said.
My hand paused halfway on my reach for the keys. “What?”
“I overheard what you said to Blanc. You’re in no state to drive. We’ll take your car to the hospital, and I’ll find a ride back.”
I didn’t have time to debate this with him—and I didn’t want to. We were out the door and in my car seconds later.
He switched on the ignition and, thankfully, heeded August’s mother’s warning to drive carefully. Hudson was overly cautious on our drive to the hospital. He dropped me off out front and said, “I’ll find a spot in the garage, let’s say third floor, north side, okay?”
“Okay. Thank you. Really.”
He nodded and drove away as soon as the passenger door was closed. I sped into the main building, sprinting through the pristine white hallways, my heels clicking loudly beneath me.
The receptionist directed me, and I soon found myself in an elevator surrounded by people in scrubs and white coats. I’d driven past this hospital a thousand times, but I had never been inside. There was never a reason. Not until then.
Once the elevator let me out onto a quiet floor with light-blue walls and white linoleum flooring, I rushed down the hallway until I found her room. August’s mother was sitting at her side, head bent downward in prayer.
I nearly dropped to my knees at the sight.
August was hooked up to machines with wires and IVs and tubes.
Her eyes were closed, unconscious, her dark hair fanned across the light-blue pillow.
Her face was bruised, purple and swollen.
Her right arm was broken and in a white cast. She didn’t look peaceful.
She looked like she was in pain. Tears that I hadn’t even considered letting fall until now welled in my eyes.
August’s mom got up to hug me when she saw me. She ushered me into her seat and pulled up another chair to sit on August’s other side. I took August’s hand, carefully so as to not upset anything she was hooked up to.
“Hi,” I whispered.
She didn’t respond. She couldn’t.
Please be okay, I thought as I used a shaky hand to brush the hair from her forehead.
I sat with her for the rest of the afternoon, until my bladder forced me to take a break. As I was walking back, I heard screaming.
I rushed back to find August’s mother forced out of the room, shuddering sobs overtaking her body. I stationed myself at her side and took her hand. From the doorway, we watched as the doctors tried to revive her.
And we watched as they called her time of death.
5:17 p.m.