Chapter 43
lukas
Zara was stuck to my side.
Nothing I said or did assured her enough to feel comfortable leaving. She was tucked against my side in my bed, and as much as the weight of her caused my beat up and bruised body to ache, I couldn’t bring myself to wake her up.
“How are you feeling?”
I winced as I turned my head to face Petyr.
For as much as he rode my ass, he cared about me.
He’d also barely left my side. He had ridden to the hospital with me, kept Zara informed while the Bryant’s looked out for her, and he’d been in my room pretty much the last two days, only really leaving for sleep.
It might’ve been a bit overkill, but I didn’t say anything.
“I’ve been better,” I croaked.
It had been brutal—the wipeout. I felt my ski hit the ice wrong, and it was out from under me before I could try and correct it. I’ve botched runs before, but this was the worst. Even in the midst of it happening, I’ve been terrified. I knew it was bad, that it could mean the end of it all.
When I’d finally come to, I’d braced myself for the career ending speech.
Yet somehow, apart from the scrapes and bruises, the worst I did was sprain my wrist and tweak my knee.
Both are pretty easy to recover from with rest and some light physical therapy.
I wasn’t qualifying for the Olympic Team this time, but I would get another chance.
“But it could have been worse.”
Petyr nodded, his expression was worried—like he wanted to believe me, but also worried that the doctors had been wrong.
I definitely looked terrible.
My helmet had done its job in protecting my head, but my goggles had jammed so hard into my face, I had a faint bruise outline around my eyes.
Scrapes also lined my chin and cheek, my lip was a little bit swollen but not busted.
My wrist was the most painful thing, but it was wrapped tight and the pain meds were helping.
Every part of me ached and was splotched with black and blue, but I was lucky that wipeout hadn’t been career ending.
I’ve seen others go out for good, for less.
“I’m glad you’re okay, all things considered,” he said.
I shifted slightly in the bed, my legs brushing against the soft sheets.
My movements jostled Zara and she woke with a start, panic in her eyes. “Are you okay?” she asked, her hands flapping about, not sure where her touch would hurt less.
It was ironic since she’d just been passed out, plastered to my side. I gave her a tight, painfilled smile and grabbed her hand with my still usable one.
“I’m okay. Sore, but okay.”
She visibly relaxed—all the tension fled her body and she sagged back to the bed.
She’d spent over an hour on the phone with mom and dad—they’d been watching the live airing of the race, and had freaked out.
She’d convinced them that they didn’t need to come home early, that she and Petyr had me well in hand.
That they should finish up their work and then come home when they were scheduled to.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Petyr asked.
I sucked in a breath and held it for a moment, trying to gauge his energy.
One of my first thoughts had been dread of him reaming me out for fucking up.
I wasn’t sure if he was about to blame me for being distracted, or if he felt responsible for riding my ass harder than normal.
I was probably also to blame since I’d definitely gone overboard last week.
I’d been trying to distract myself from Aimee.
Oh, fuck.
“Aimee, how is she?”
Panic rose in my chest, and I tried to force myself up and out of the bed. But both Zara and Petyr held me down.
“No, I need to go see her. You don’t understand.”
“I know all about Aimee Bryant and the accident,” Petyr said.
“Then, you know why I need to go see her,” I said, trying again to get up, only to be pushed back down.
My wrist and knee were bothering me again—moving hadn’t helped.
“If I can’t go to her, then please bring her here.”
“We can’t.”
I whipped my head around to my sister. She wasn’t looking at me, but looking at her hands clasped in her lap. She looked sad, and that did nothing for the panic and anxiety roiling within me.
“What do you mean ‘you can’t’?” I asked.
“The Bryants left this morning.”
It was like my sister’s words were the equivalent of ice water being thrown over me. My body stilled and dread pooled in every limb and crack in my body. I felt heavy, like I was drowning and dying and free falling like a rock off a bridge. She couldn’t be gone.
My pulse quickened and the dread spooled back into panic and I didn’t know what to do. Tears burned in my eyes and I swallowed them back again and again.
“From my understanding,” Petyr started, “She had quite the panic attack when you wiped out, and then went practically catatonic.”
“I was so scared and worried,” Zara said in a small voice.
I tightened my grip on her hand. I wasn’t sure which one of us was trembling.
“I talked to her parents before they left, made sure they knew you were okay—what the diagnosis was so that they could inform Aimee when she woke up.”
“Woke up?”
“When she became unresponsive, they took her to the hospital. Once she came to, they prescribed some sedatives and the Bryants thought it was best to go home.”
I stared at Petyr.
My heart hurt along with the rest of my body. We’d left things on such an incredibly shitty note, and now I couldn’t go to see her.
“Lukas?” Zara asked, her voice small, concerned.
“Can…” I cleared my throat. “Can I be alone for a bit?”
Petyr nodded. “We can go over everything later”
He stood up and offered a hand to my sister, and they left.
It was only after I heard the door click shut did I let the tears fall.
Maybe it was cliché and dumb and shortsighted that it was only post terrifying accident I realized how fucked up that last day with Aimee had been.
I’d handled it so wrong, had gotten so much wrong and had made her feel like shit.
I gritted my teeth through the discomfort and pain and reached for my phone.
I wanted to call her and tell her I was sorry, but that felt like a conversation we needed to have in person, face to face.
And a phone call wasn’t going to do anything to quell the emotions roiling in my chest. Ignoring the chaos happening in the group chat, I pulled up Chase’s number and hit the call button.
“Thank fuck. Are you okay? That was a fucking terrible wipe out.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I croaked, “Sprained wrist, tweaked knee and my body bruised.”
I sent him a picture of the goggle imprint around my eyes.
“Fuck. You’re still pretty though,” he joked.
I rolled my eyes. And then without thinking too hard about it, I asked a question.
“How did you know Rowan was the one?”
“Honestly, it kind of just happened. She used to hate me.”
“I know. I’ve heard the stories.”
“But that summer on the beach…everything just changed.”
“The first one, right?” I asked.
“Yeah. When she nearly drowned, we had to resuscitate her. I think at that moment I knew that I didn’t want to waste time anymore, that I didn’t want her pining over Ryan anymore.
But I think I fell in love with her the summer we actually spent together.
Before…before it was just this slap in the face realization that I had just nearly lost her, and that the feelings I kept trying to deny as false or fake or whatever…
the way my heart stopped when I saw her go under and not resurface… ”
I heard him draw in a shaky breath. We’d both still been in school together.
He’d come back from vacation looking haunted and like his whole world had flipped.
I’d heard about Rowan, his childhood archnemesis—her words, not his.
Chase had a whole new point of view on the whole thing and had declared that Rowan would be his.
His friendship with Ryan—the third member of our group had already started dissolving in light of how he treated Rowan.
I still had yet to meet her in person, but I felt like I knew her. Chase honestly never shut up about her.
“Anyways, if this is about Aimee, then you need to tell her how you feel. You both need to sit down and really talk.”
“She and her family left this morning.”
I told him everything that had been told to me.
“Wait, Orion Bryant is her brother?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Dude, I know that guy. He was in a few of my classes my freshman and sophomore years. He’s pretty cool. I do remember his girlfriend being really hot. Kind of weird how we all went to the same college.”
“Not helpful,” I said.
“Do I really need to tell you to go after her?” Chase asked, incredulous, “Once you’re up and moving around, the only thing you need to do is to drive your ass to wherever she is and talk. Make up, have hot sex.”
“Can I really just show up?”
Then I told him about the last day we had together, her panic attack, my fears, everything we said. I glossed over the sex part, but Chase wasn’t stupid.
“Apparently, I do have to tell you.” He sighed, took a breath. “Fucking go to her and never let her go.”