Chapter 26 GO HOME
GO HOME
HUNTER
“Sweetheart, you need to go home. Go home, shower, eat something. Come back tomorrow fresh. You can’t be in here stinking the place up.”
Claire’s voice echoes through my head. I hear her, but it doesn’t reach me, not really.
I lift my head, finding her across the bed, on Madison’s other side.
She’s still in her pink scrubs. Her normally neat and perfect hair is frizzy and dishevelled.
Her eyes are red, ringed with dark shadows from the hours of worry I put there.
She looks how I feel—drained, cracking at the seams.
My hand curls around Madison’s. It’s warm but slack, her fingers lifeless. A faint IV bruise blooms across her wrist, and her pulse flutters against my thumb—there, but too faint, too far away. A sharp pain hits me in the chest.
Claire rests her hand over Madison’s other one.
It’s wrapped in layers of white bandage, protecting every scrape, every bruise from the creek’s rocks she never should have hit.
Her eyes shift past my shoulder, then toward the door.
Footsteps shuffle behind me, and a hand drops onto my shoulder, squeezing once, but I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything.
“Hunter,” she says, sharper this time. “Go home. Shower. Come back tomorrow.”
“Maybe you should go home first, and I’ll stay,” I choke out.
“I will do no such thing. I am her mother, and this is my hospital. I won’t tell you again. Go home. Come back tomorrow with a clear head, and I’ll explain everything again.”
“What if she wakes when I’m gone?”
My throat burns. Fuck. I can’t be gone when she wakes up.
I have to be here. I need to tell her I’m sorry.
That I should have been quicker. That I shouldn’t have asked her to jump with me.
We shouldn’t have gone up the trail at all.
If I hadn’t pulled her off the main path, if I hadn’t been so desperate to be alone with her, none of this would have happened.
Yeah, but then when would she have told you how she really feels?
“She won’t. Not tonight.” Claire’s voice softens. “I need the night with my daughter. Please go home.”
“Claire…”
My head drops. The love of my goddamn life is fighting for hers, and I’m being told to walk away.
“I know.”
She comes around the bed, takes my shoulders, steadying me like she’s done it a thousand times. Her hands slide to my cheeks, her gaze locking onto mine.
“Listen to me. This was a freak accident. Don’t you dare blame yourself. You guys have walked that trail a million times. You’ve jumped from that lookout more summers than I can count. I know how much you love her. I know.”
The fight drains out of me, my body sagging.
“Hunter, I need you to look after yourself because when—”
“If.” The word slips out of me.
“No. When she wakes up, I’m going to need your help. She’s going to need you.”
The door clicks open. I look up to see Asher slipping inside, moving quietly. His eyes land on Madison, and they glass over. He bends to press a kiss to Claire’s forehead, then moves to my side.
“I’ve got him, Momma Claire,” he murmurs.
“Make sure he gets some sleep. She’s going to need him, and he’s no good to anyone half dead on his feet like this.”
Asher’s hand hooks around my shoulder, and I let him guide me toward the door. I look back—one last time—into the whirr of machines, Madison’s stillness, and Claire’s quiet defeat.
“I’ll be back,” I whisper.
“He hasn’t said anything, has he?”
“He hasn’t eaten either.”
“Has someone made him drink any water?”
“He won’t take it.”
“At least you got him to shower, man.”
“He’ll come around.”
“I don’t know…”
“He has to. For her.”
Their voices are muffled, distant, like I’m underwater. I see them through the blur in my vision, all crowded around the table, heads bent together, whispering about me, worrying about me when they shouldn’t be. Their worry is misplaced.
Why isn’t anyone talking about her?
Why isn’t anyone scared like I am?
A pounding starts up inside my skull—slow, then sharp, then fast, then a heavy thumping. I stare at nothing, blinking only when my body forces me to. The world tilts a little with every thud of my heartbeat. It feels like I’m swaying, but I’m not moving at all.
A chair scrapes. I think.
Someone sighs. Someone calls my name. All of it happens around me, but I don’t care. I only see her, the fear in her wide eyes, her hands reaching for me.
“Uncle Hunt.”
The tiny voice breaks through the fog. I blink slowly, dragging my gaze down. Remi stands by my feet, his little brows pulled together, confusion and concern twisting his face.
“Remi, baby, come here. Uncle Hunter isn’t feeling too well.” Sarah’s voice drifts over.
The pounding in my head stutters. I blink, and the room sharpens.
The noise becomes clearer. Remi’s hands land on my knee, and I suck in a sharp breath.
The touch snaps something loose, and reality crashes over me in a harsh wave, my chest heaving under the weight of it.
My shoulders slump. One second, Remi’s there, and the next, it’s my sister kneeling in his place.
Her eyes are glassy, with dark circles beneath them, and her hands shake as she reaches for me.
I cling to her without thinking, arms locking around her.
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. Everything hits me at once.
“She’s going to wake up,” Halle says, steady and sure.
“You don’t know that,” I rasp.
“Yes, I do.”
“We all do, man,” Asher adds, kneeling beside us, his hand gripping my shoulder.
“You don’t understand.” My shoulders shake with a silent sob, breath catching sharp in my throat. “It’s my fault.”
“No, it’s not. It was a freak accident, man. It could’ve happened to any one of us going up there to jump,” Asher says.
I pull back, staring at them both. Their concern rolls off them, too understanding, and it only makes the guilt dig deeper.
“She was putting me in my place,” I whisper. “She kept stepping back. I didn’t see the trail shifting until it was too late.”
“It still isn’t your fault,” Halle fires back, her hands gripping my forearms. “So, here’s what’s going to happen: she is going to wake up, and when she does, you are going to tell her you love her—because we all know you do, you know you do.
Then you’re going to bring her home here and help her through every second of recovery.
Asher and Connor are going to handle things at the bar.
The rest of us will step in when we’re needed.
But Hunter… you need to get your head out of your ass.
Stop drowning in this guilt and start thinking about how you’re going to show up for her. ”
“When did you become so bossy?”
Asher chokes back a laugh, shaking his head. “Dude, if only you knew.”
I glance between them, my chest tightening. “What if Claire doesn’t want me stepping in?”
“She does.” Tessa walks over to us, her eyes soft but firm. “I was with her just after you left. I dropped a bag off for her. She wants you to know she didn’t send you away because she blames you. She sent you away so you can come back stronger for Madi.”
Connor barrels down the hallway, arms overflowing with pillows and blankets. He clips his shoulder on the wall, not seeing it, and curses. He keeps going, a man on a mission, and when he stops in front of me, he drops everything to the floor.
“What are you doing?” I ask, one brow lifting.
“We’re having a sleepover, duh,” he answers.
“I wuv sleepovers,” Remi squeals, bouncing over, Ace hot on his heels.
The whole room suddenly shifts into motion.
Pillows go flying, blankets unfurling across the floor.
Someone shoves the coffee table out of the way.
The other couch gets dragged backward with a grunt.
It’s messy, loud, and a little ridiculous, and yet somehow, for the first time today, the weight on my chest eases the tiniest bit.
Ace jumps at my feet, big round eyes locking onto mine, waiting—demanding—for me to lift him.
I haul him into my lap, and he settles immediately, nudging my chin with his blocky head, snorting warm breath on my neck.
My mouth twitches at his insistent need for attention, and it softens something inside me.
I scratch behind his ears and hug him closer, burying my fingers into his soft fur, letting the steady warmth of him soothe the ache that won’t leave my chest.
“You guys don’t have to do this,” I manage, voice catching halfway out of my throat.
“Yes, we do.” Jace presses a cold bottle of water into my hand, and I’m instantly aware of how dry my throat feels. “We’re here for you, man. For Madi, too.”
“We also don’t want to be alone tonight,” Tessa adds, spreading out a blanket. “So let us stay. We can all lean on each other.”
Sarah ushers Remi through a round of sleepy goodnights since it’s well past his bedtime.
The little guy has been patient all day.
Too patient. Her shoulders sag when she lifts him, exhaustion radiating off her.
She presses a quick hug to my side, then carries him down the hall to bed.
My eyes follow them, something uneasy seeping into my chest. A tightness I don’t know what to do with.
I hope she managed to shield him from it all.
Everything in me feels ripped open; hope so far out of reach, it barely feels real.
But as I look around my house—at the people who chose me, who stayed—I let their presence seep in anyway.
Their quiet strength. Their worry. The way they’re hurting too, and still showing up to hold me together when I can’t.
I stand, setting Ace on the floor and giving him a chance to choose who he’s going to curl up with for the night.
Words fail me. I don’t know what to say, how to act, how to thank them for this. So I settle for a nod, a forced smile, and turn toward my room.
“We’ll be here if you need us,” Halle calls after me.