Chapter 28
Chapter twenty-eight
“We’ll get you set up in a private room. The doctor should be along shortly to fit your cast. How’s your pain?” the nurse asks, walking beside my hospital bed as we travel down the corridor.
As soon as the ambulance pulled in, I came to.
They took me straight to the trauma ward for a full check-up.
My ribs weren’t broken, like they suspected, just banged up, but I have a tibia fracture in my leg.
My calf bone is busted, but it didn’t break the skin.
I’m gonna be stuck in a cast and on crutches for a few weeks.
It could have been worse. A fair few cuts and bruises, but I know first-hand just how bad a car accident can turn out.
“It’s fine,” I say, clenching my jaw.
I don’t want to take my frustration out on the nurse, but I’ve asked three times if a woman came in with me, and no one could give me an answer.
I don’t know where my phone ended up, and I don’t even know if my family has been called.
For as shit as my body feels, my head and my heart make me feel like I’m dying.
The three nurses assisting me line the bed up in the room, then double-check my vitals. I’m only waiting a few minutes before my parents burst into the room, my mother’s eyes red-rimmed and puffy, making my gut plummet.
The second Mum’s head lands on my chest, she bursts into tears.
“I was so worried.” She sniffles.
I rest a hand on her back, whispering over and over again that I’m sorry, and that I’m okay.
I look up at Dad, standing behind Mum, and guilt takes root in my chest as I see the tortured look in his eyes. This is the second time my parents have received a phone call like this. I’m sure, based on the last time this happened, my parents’ minds went to the worst-case scenario.
“Gave us quite a fright, son.”
Mum stands up, wiping under her eyes, as Dad moves in behind her, wrapping his arms around her middle.
“I don’t know what happened.” I shake my head, not knowing what else I can do to offer them comfort. I feel selfish that, through their pain, all I’m thinking about is what happened to Isabelle.
“Do you guys know if my phone got brought in? Or is anyone else in the waiting room?”
As soon as I ask the question, Mason and Beth walk through, followed by Grams and Grandpa.
Beth rounds the bed, hopping straight onto the mattress to lie against my side.
“Beth, be careful of your brother’s ribs, sweetie,” Dad says softly.
“Doctor said they weren’t broken.” Beth’s words are muffled against my shoulder. She locks my arm in both of hers, refusing to let go. I kiss the top of her head, making her look up at me. Her makeup is smudged, and her normally pin-straight hair is a frizzy mess.
“I’m okay,” I say.
Beth’s chin wobbles, and her eyes well up. I have to shut my own eyes, hating to see her hurt.
More footsteps come into the room, and when I open my eyes, Caleb stands at the end of my bed, his arm slung over Lex’s shoulder.
I sit up, ignoring the pain. “Where is she?”
“Gage, sit down.” Mum puts a hand on my shoulder, trying to push me back against the pillows.
“Where’s who?” Caleb asks. “The other driver?”
I try to ease back, closing my eyes as I breathe through the pain slicing through my middle. “No,” I say, gritting my teeth. “Where’s Isabelle?”
“Why would Iz be here?” Caleb asks, full of concern.
I sigh, holding a hand to my ribs. “She was in the car with me.” I close my eyes.
I can’t look at my brother. I know he’s friends with Isabelle.
He warned me off her at the start, but I think even he noticed over the last few months that there was a growing attraction there.
One I couldn’t help but poke at and provoke.
“Are you still in pain, son? Shall I get the doctor?” Dad asks.
I shake my head, bracing myself for Caleb’s reaction before I open my eyes again.
Lex puts a hand on his chest. “I’ll go see what I can find out,” she says.
He kisses her palm and lets her go. With a shake of his head, he starts patting himself down. “Fuck. I think I left my phone in Lex’s car.”
“I’ll call her,” Beth says, and pulls her phone out of her back pocket.
She rests her hand over my stomach as she scrolls through her phone.
“Bethy, careful of your brother,” Mum stresses, her worry soaking the words.
“It’s his punishment for scaring me.” She’s mad. My sister is as tough as they come, but you don’t mess with family. I bring my hand up to hold onto her wrist, where it rests on me, squeezing her in reassurance.
I can hear her sniffle again, then she puts the phone down on my stomach, bringing her hand to her face and bursts into tears. I can feel them soak my chest through the fabric, so I bring my arm around her, ignoring the screaming in every limb.
“Hey, can you do me a favour?” I whisper.
She nods.
“Can you look after Tiny tonight? You can stay at my place if you want.”
“You’re coming back to our house tonight, angel,” Grams says with a rasp. “Doctor’s orders that you need to be with someone for the first few weeks while you get used to your crutches. We can help you look after Tiny, as well.”
Great. I stressed my family out, and now I need to impose on my grandparents.
There’s a knock on the door, and Doctor Miller pops his head in. “Time to get your cast fitted, Gage. We’ll probably need about half an hour, and then he’ll be ready to leave. You can have one person stay, but everyone else will need to head into the waiting room.”
“I’ll go make sure all your paperwork is sorted,” Dad says, coming over to kiss my head. Lingering longer than he normally would. “Love you.”
“Love you, Dad.”
“I’m going to see if Lex found anything about Izzy,” says Caleb.
“Oh shit, I forgot to call her!” Beth springs off the bed, walking over to Cale and threading her arm through his.
“Let me know!” I shout before they get out of earshot. Caleb looks back at me, still with an unreadable expression. I don’t know if he’s mad at me, worried about Isabelle, or just confused about the whole situation. He gives me a single nod before disappearing out the door.
“Glad you’re okay, brother,” Mason says, standing at the foot of the bed, hands in his pockets.
“Me too.”
“I’ll stay with Beth tonight at your place. I can bring Tiny to work with me tomorrow, and then I’ll drop him to you in the arvo.”
“Thanks, man.”
Mason nods, hesitating for a moment. “I love you.” He shrugs. “Just in case I don’t tell you enough.”
“I love you too, Mase.”
Grams and Grandpa follow behind him, their arms linked, and smiling with sympathy. “We’ll be back when the doctor’s done, angel.”
“Thanks, Grams.”
When it’s just Mum and me left, she comes around the other side of the bed so she can take a chair beside my good leg, and drags it closer to me.
She picks my hand up, cradling it between her small, warm ones, and chuckles. “I don’t know how one person can have such bad luck with car accidents.”
Her words take me back to the night I lost August, sparking the memory from the ambulance earlier, when I could have sworn I saw him.
“I think I imagined August before.”
“What do you mean?”
“In the ambulance, I could hear his voice, telling me I’m needed here, then I thought I saw him standing over me.”
Mum eyes well, and she purses her lips, fighting the emotions.
“Not a day goes by that I’m not thankful you weren’t taken from us, too. But, my darling, I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you say his name since the funeral.”
My brows pinch together. That can’t be true. Can it? I think about August every damn day. I miss him like crazy, desperately wishing I could go back in time and change something. Anything.
“That can’t be right,” I whisper.
“I’ve never heard you say it.”
Now I feel even more like shit. I know I’ve been haunted by my grief, but I did my best to keep living my life, living with the pain, but hearing Mum say she’s never heard me even speak August’s name feels like I’ve forgotten him. Stopped caring about him. And that’s not the case at all.
“You’ve been different,” Mum says. “Something about you feels less mad at the world. A little more open. Welcoming. Is that perhaps related to why you were with your brother and sister’s friend?”
“Muuumm,” I groan, throwing my head back against the pillows.
Thankfully, we’re interrupted by the doctor and nurse coming in with a cart of supplies to fit my leg cast. Fuck, this is gonna suck.
“Fine, we can talk about it later,” Mum says out of the side of her mouth as she stands to get out of the doctor’s way. “But don’t think I’ll just forget about it.”
Forty minutes later, my cast is set, and Mum gets the rest of the family back in to watch me struggle out of the hospital bed and onto my crutches. Dad and Grandpa walk on either side of me as we make our way out to the lobby, where everyone else waits.
“We’ll see you back at Grams’s,” Caleb says. “We’re going to go pick up Isabelle and sort out your car.”
I nearly fall in my rush to grab Caleb. He, Grandpa, and Dad catch me before I go down.
“Is she okay? Where is she?”
Caleb looks down at my hands, probably from where they’re creasing his two-thousand-dollar vest, then raises an eyebrow at me.
“She’s still at the scene. But she’s okay. Paramedics assessed her onsite. No one else got hurt, and she’s got your phone. We’ll bring it later after we get Izzy sorted.”
The weight that’s been settled on my chest finally gives, and my head drops against Caleb’s chest.
“If you need to tell me something, you can,” Caleb says low in my ear.
But what do I tell him? That Isabelle has slowly become the person in my life who makes the hard shit feel easier?
That she gives me a reason to smile, a reason to want new things?
And that the last time I had someone like that in my life, I cost them theirs, in the same way I just risked Isabelle’s?
If anything happened to her, I’d never forgive myself. I can’t do that to her. I can’t do that to myself. I need to protect her and keep her safe, and I can’t do that when my feelings are in the way.
I stand up straight, hardening my features, and shake my head.
Caleb looks at Lex, disappointment coating his face, but this is for the best. He doesn’t know what we’ve shared over the last few months, and he doesn’t need to.
“Okay.” He lifts his shoulders in resignation. “I love you. We’ll see you in a few hours.” He threads his fingers through Lex’s, and I watch them walk out of the hospital.
Mum and Beth each hand a crutch to me. I huff, shoving them under my arms.
“Do you want us to come back with you or go straight to Tiny?” Mason asks, chewing his lip.
“Go check on my boy. Please.” When I look my baby brother in the eye, I hope he can hear in my voice that it’s not personal, I just need to retreat.
There are already too many people fussing over me.
My brother knows I hate attention, my whole family does.
But I’m struggling because I know they need to be around me.
They need that reassurance that I’m here, and I’m okay.
Mason steps in to hug me. I rest my head against his, fists clenching the handles of the crutches.
“Anything you need, I’ve got you.”
“I know you do,” I say, the words breaking as they spill free. Mase slaps my back a few times before pulling back, letting Beth take his place.
“See you tomorrow,” Beth whispers. “I won’t push for now, but I know something is going on between you and Isabelle.
Maybe you won’t tell us because you don’t know how to admit it to yourself, but whatever it is, it’s good.
I know it. My friend wasn’t hurt tonight, and you better hope it stays that way. ”
Beth keeps her eyes on me as she says her goodbyes to our parents and grandparents. Fuck. I’m such a piece of shit.
Dad finishes signing me out, while Mum brings the car to the front so I don’t have to walk too far. The whole drive to my grandparents’ house, my mind is unsettled.
“Are you hungry, sweetie? I can make you something when we get home.”
I shake my head, pulling at the thread in one of the holes in my jeans. “Not hungry.”
“He just needs some rest, sweetheart,” Dad says, reaching over to rest a hand on Mum’s thigh, and I have to look away.
Just the intimacy of their actions makes my gut churn with reminders of Isabelle.
She must have been so scared waiting at the scene by herself.
It’s a scary situation to be in, even when no one gets hurt.
It must have been worse watching me get taken in the ambulance and then not knowing what was going on.
I hate myself for putting her through that.
This is all my fault.
I knew I was never good enough for her. I’m so fucking dumb for convincing myself otherwise.
I told myself from the start she deserved a nice guy.
A guy who makes her smile and is filled with just as much sunshine as she is.
Someone who brings light and joy to her life, just like she does for everyone she meets. I almost got her hurt.
I rub the ache in my chest that starts to bloom. I can’t go through that again. I barely survived losing August. I wouldn’t survive losing Isabelle.