“I was going to…I was waiting for the right time, Eden! I was going to…make it a conversation, not a fight!” I was yelling now.
“Because that would have worked so well!” she yelled back at me, eyes full of unshed tears. “Sometimes there just is no easy way, Ever. Maybe you wouldn’t know that, though, since everything’s always come so easily to you.”
My jaw dropped open. “Easy? Easy? What the fuck are you talking about? What’s come easily to me? Losing Mom? Getting my heart ripped open by Will—Billy—whatever the fuck his stupid name is? You think that was easy? You think basically losing Mom and Dad at the same time came easily to me?”
“You were never anything but an easy fuck for Billy Harper,” Eden shot at me, “and everyone knew it but you. You brought that on yourself. And you know what? You wanna know what’s even more fucked up? Even though I knew that Billy never gave a shit about you, I was still jealous of you, because you got him when no one else could, and it just happened! He just—just wanted you. No effort on your part. He wanted you. Not me, you. We’re supposed to be twins, but you get everything. All the friends, the guys chasing after you, the looks. You’ve had him”—she jabbed her finger at Caden—“almost your whole life, and you even took that for granted until it was almost too late. So yeah, I think everything comes easy for you.”
“I don’t think that’s quite fair, Eden,” Caden said, standing up now.
“I wasn’t talking to you!” Eden shouted. “This is none of your business, so shut the fuck up!”
“Hey!” I pushed Caden back and stood between him and my sister. “Don’t talk to him that way! This is his business. My business is his business. What the hell is wrong with you?”
She seemed to go weak, suddenly, leaning on the table with her head hanging between her arms. “I don’t—I don’t know. I just—I wanted this to be a…a nice Christmas. For once. Not just you and me, but…a family. Some kind of family again. It’s been just you and me the last few years, you know? We’d come over here, but Dad would…he would be spaced out, and he’d go to bed early, or he’d have a phone call to make or emails, or something. Anything to avoid being with us. And I thought—I thought now that you have Cade, you’d…we could…” She trailed off, picking up her empty wine glass and tipping more from the bottle into it. “I guess I just thought we could be a family again. I guess I was wrong.” She turned away from the table, taking her wine glass with her, and left the dining room.
I stood in silence, tears threatening, heart breaking, confused, hurt, lost. Only, I had Caden’s arm around me, so I wasn’t completely lost. “Let’s go home,” I said.
Cade just nodded and went to gather our things and start the car while I cleaned up a little. I cleared the table and wrapped the leftovers, leaving the dishes for Eden. It was our way, the way we’d split the duties since we were little girls. I hated doing dishes, and she hated clearing the table, so it worked out, and now we didn’t even have to discuss it. I found Caden waiting in the car for me, “Pitter Pat” by Erin McCarley playing on the radio via his iPhone plugged into the auxiliary USB port.
We’d put our money together and bought a car as our Christmas present to each other. It was a two-year-old Ford F-150 with low miles. It had been time to get a different car; the Jeep simply had…too many memories attached to it. We wanted something that was only ours, his and mine.
I sat beside him, listening to the music, watching the thick flakes of snow fall slowly in an impenetrable white blanket.
“You didn’t need to yell at her for my sake,” he said finally, as the song ended. “She was just upset. She didn’t mean anything by it.” He put the truck in reverse and backed out of Dad’s driveway.
I frowned at him. “You’re my husband, Cade. Of course I’d defend you. No matter who it’s against. No one gets to yell at you.”
“Except you?” he asked, giving me a small, teasing smile.
“Except me.”
We folded our fingers together and drove through the snow, listening to music together. I felt myself dozing, felt my eyes getting heavier and heavier, closing.
“We’ll be home soon,” Cade said. “Just rest, love.”
I let myself drift, eyes flicking open every once in a while to glance at Caden, focusing on the road, peering through the snow.
Then, I heard him curse suddenly, felt the truck shift sideway, turning, sliding. Tipping.
It was strange how the snow muffled the sound of screeching brakes. I opened my eyes to see the white air through the window, and then the blacktop of the road, somehow beneath me, and my hair was hanging down around my face. Cade’s arm was on my chest, pressing me into the seat. There was silence, strange and distorted and twisting.
I didn’t feel the impact. There was a crash, and then silence again, thicker, deeper silence. I tried to open my eyes, but all I could see was darkness. I felt the blackness of night somehow within me, somehow all around me, becoming me.
I wasn’t cold, or hot, or in pain. I was only me, darkness.
Silence.
Caden
* * *
A car, a little gray Hyundai, half in the thick snow on the shoulder, half in the road. Stuck, tires spinning vainly. It came out of nowhere, suddenly there in the snow-haze, just there, too late. I hit the brakes and spun the wheel, panicking, feeling the ice beneath my tires, the same ice that had probably put the Hyundai in the ditch.
Ever was asleep beside me, so beautiful, at peace as she slept. Holding my hand, her fingernails painted deep crimson. Her fingernails, painted deep red. Dark red.
Blood red.
Blacktop hit my tires, replacing ice, and then it was too late, the truck was sideways and moving forward, spinning, tail dragging out around and forward, traction control fighting to catch the tires on the ice, but four-wheel drive didn’t help you stop, didn’t stop you from spinning.
My stomach dropped, and we were airborne. I slammed my arm across Ever’s chest, an automatic reaction in attempt to keep her from leaving the car through the windshield, even though she was wearing her seatbelt. Sky and ground traded places, once, twice, and then we hit. The passenger side crashed into the ground, the window shattering. Something wet splattered against my face.
Snow?
No. It wasn’t white. It was hot and sticky.
The airbags deployed, sudden explosions of white.
The truck rolled again, across the ground, ice and snow sluicing over me through the broken window, through the smashed windshield, and now my window was shattering and I felt a million razorblades slice my skin, my arms, my face, my chest, felt the weightlessness of going airborne, and I had a sudden flash of memory, seeing the drop on the left hand side of the road, a stand of trees, a fence line and the industrial buildings farther beyond.
The next impact hit my side, slamming me into the ground and into the car. The shattering window had ripped open the airbags, and glass shredded me once more. Heat, pain, not just pain but agony. Rolling, rolling. Tumbling, twisting.
Another slam, this one stopping us abruptly. The passenger side was facing the ground, leaving me in the air, hanging by my seatbelt.
The passenger side.
Ever.
Silence. No screams. Why wasn’t she crying? Moaning? Something.
“Ever!” I writhed, wriggled, felt something spiked through my left forearm, digging into my side and my thigh. Piercing me, pinning me in place.
“EVER!” I thrashed, felt myself tear open. Inside, outside; shredded.
Pit. Pit. Pitpit. Red, droplets falling.
I twisted in place, trying to see her. I managed a glimpse. Wished I hadn’t. Couldn’t help looking again. An ocean of red beneath me, Ever’s black hair. White skin. Porcelain stained crimson.
“NO! NO!” I flailed my body, felt whatever was through my forearm rip free, raw torment pulsing through me.
I grabbed whatever it was, felt slick metal, pushed at it, straining every muscle I had to bend it away
from me, feeling faintness steal over me, through me, agony blinding me. I saw bone through the gash in my arm. I managed to reach for Ever, nearly able to touch her.
She was limp, so still, so silent. I heard screaming, wordless and hoarse, coming from me.
“EVER!…EVER!” I fumbled for the seatbelt latch. “Please, baby, wake up! Wake up!”
There was so much blood around her. Mine? Hers? So much blood. Her face was painted crimson, her hand, flung out through the shattered window, was sliced into meat, dripping red. Her jeans, torn and ripped and red.
Oh god…oh god, her head. So much red, and white flecks, bits.
My throat went raw, but still I screamed, screamed, flailed and thrashed, trying to reach her, but still pinned and unable to free myself, each motion costing me blood and agony and consciousness.
I heard sirens. Voices.
Somehow, impossibly, the radio was still playing. “Cosmic Love”, Florence + The Machines: “No dawn, no day, I’m…twilight…shadow of your heart…”
“Ever! Get Ever!” My voice felt faint, sounded distant. “Get her…save—save her…”
“We’ll get you both out, son, I promise. Just try to stay still, okay?” His voice was calm and steady, but I heard the tension underneath.
Son. I hated that. Don’t call me son. Couldn’t get the words out.
“Save…save her. Please…Save her.”
Something moved, shifted, and pain lanced through me, pulling another hoarse scream from me. The torture was too much. Agony overwhelmed me, darkness sucking me under, flesh ripping and bones grinding, metal screeching, a saw screaming and whining, metal on metal.
So dark, so cold.
Everything hurt, everything hurt.
Ever. Ever. Ever.
Ever.
fiat concordia discordiam
White. Silence fading into ambient noise.
“He’s awake, Dr. Miller.”
How did they know I was awake? I wasn’t sure I was. But yes, the whiteness was a ceiling. The whiteness was also snow falling through the window to my left.
Pain, dizziness.
I coughed, glanced around the room. A short woman with a blond bob and blue scrubs came in, a stethoscope around her neck and a tablet computer in her hand. She was accompanied by a tall, slender black woman in a white lab coat, hands in her coat pockets, withdrawing one as she approached my bed. Her eyes were brown and kind and hid an intimate knowledge of pain and suffering.
“Mr. Monroe. Glad to see you awake.” Her voice was melodious, lilting with some faint accent I couldn’t place.
I worked my mouth, but couldn’t speak. Coughed, coughed, but couldn’t catch my breath. Tubes in my nose, my arm, a catheter. I was so weak, unable to lift my hand, even my fingers. Someone came with a tiny bottle of water and straw. I drank slowly, greedy for the water but unable to do anything quickly.
Throat wet, I tried to speak. “How…?”
“How long?” Dr. Miller said. Her name was embroidered on her lab coat, along with a string of letters, PhDs and other such things. “You’ve been unconscious for a little over a week. You lost a lot of blood, Mr. Monroe. Too much. You needed an infusion. You underwent several surgeries. We’ll go over all that later though. How are you feeling?”
How was I feeling? I didn’t know. “Hurt. Weak.” But I hadn’t meant to ask how long I’d been out. “Ever? How is…how is Ever?”
Dr. Miller’s features went suddenly placid, a mask falling into place. “Just try to rest, hmm? You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”
I twitched, struggled. “No…Ever. How is Ever? Tell—tell me!” I coughed, hacked, my throat raw. “Just—tell me!”
“Please, stay calm.” Dr. Miller laid a hand on my arm, and her face went even more still, even more featureless and expressionless. “Your wife is in a coma, Mr. Monroe. She sustained very grievous injuries to her head, I’m afraid. She has undergone many surgeries as well, but…she has not woken up as yet.”
I couldn’t find a reaction within me. It wasn’t real. It was a lie. But I saw the truth in her eyes and hated her for it. “Will—will she?”
Dr. Miller shrugged, a tiny lift of one thin shoulder. “I…I do not know.” Her brown eyes searched me. “Truthfully, I don’t think so. Her brain was badly damaged in the crash, and I am not very confident that she will wake up soon, if ever.” She seemed to sense the inevitable gaffe in speaking that word, ever, that name. “I am so sorry. You never know what will happen, but the chances…? Very slim. If she does, her memory could be damaged. She could be…vegetative. There is simply no way to tell this early.”
I closed my eyes, felt a tear slide down my cheek and into my ear, tickling and wet. “Ever…god, no, Ever. Please, god. Not Ever. Not her too.”
It was too much. Too much.
But she wasn’t done, brave Dr. Miller. “I’m…there is more, I’m afraid.”
“More? What more?” I peered at her, dread gnarling my stomach into knots.
What else could there be? My wife, the love of my life, was in a coma.
Dr. Miller opened her mouth, closed it, and then tried again. She couldn’t meet my eyes. “She…your wife—she lost the baby.”
* * *
THE END
SNEAK PEEK
A preview from the next book: AFTER FOFREVER
Caden
* * *
Shock hit me so hard that I blacked out momentarily. “What?” I couldn’t get my eyes to focus on Dr. Miller. “She what?”
“Your wife was pregnant, Mr. Monroe. Eight weeks, perhaps? Maybe less. She…she hemorrhaged. Lost—had a miscarriage. Before the EMS even arrived, she’d lost it. There was nothing to be done. I’m—I’m so sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry.” I finally was able to see straight, and the torture I saw on Dr. Miller’s face was…nothing short of profound.
How many times had she delivered such news? How did she stand it?
“She was pregnant?” The words were nearly inaudible particles of sound falling from my cracked lips. “She—she had an IUD. Just—she just got a new one put in. She didn’t…she never told me.”
Dr. Miller closed her eyes briefly, which I sensed was, coming from this woman, the same as a sob from anyone else less stoic. “Nothing is perfect, Mr. Monroe. Even IUDs can fail, and indeed, most pregnancies that occur in a patient with an IUD occur in the first few months after implantation.” She sighed deeply and stood up. “As for not having told you? I think perhaps she did not know. It was very early, and she may not have noticed any symptoms to get tested.”
A cry escaped me. “God…Ever.”
“I…if she wakes up, due to the nature of her injuries, not just to her head, which are the most severe, but to her abdomen, it is unlikely she will ever conceive again. I’m…I’m so sorry again, Mr. Monroe.”
I heard her shoes scuff on the tile, and then stop abruptly. I opened my eyes to find Eden standing behind Dr. Miller. She’d clearly heard the conversation. She was shaking her head, tears falling in a torrent from her chin, onto her hand, her mouth.
And suddenly, looking at Eden was impossible. I tried to look away, but all I could see were Ever’s eyes, jade green, and her nose, her mouth, her lips. Eden approached me.
“Caden… how did this happen?” Her voice broke.
Mine was worse. “I don’t know. It was so sudden. It happened so fast.”
Then Mr. Eliot was there too, behind Eden. I couldn’t meet his eyes. Had he heard, too? About the—the baby?
Dr. Miller came back in with a clipboard and a pen. “I need you to sign this.” She extended the clipboard to me. “We need your permission to do some further testing.”
Mr. Eliot took the clipboard, assuming she meant it for him. “What tests?”
Dr. Miller reached for the clipboard. “I’m sorry, Mr. Eliot, but…I was speaking to Mr. Monroe.”
Mr. Eliot let her take it, shocked. “Him? Why? I’m her father, her legal guardian.”
The do
ctor looked at me, seeming to understand.
I swallowed hard. “Because she’s my wife,” I said. “We got married three months ago.”
Fury made his face go red, a vein throbbed in his forehead. “You—you got married? How—she—how did I not know this? Why didn’t she tell me?”
“We eloped,” I explained. “It was…how she wanted it.”
“But—but—” Mr. Eliot stammered, stumbling backward, anger warring with shock and confusion.
Eden took him by the arm. “Come on, Daddy. Let’s go get some coffee, okay?”
He let her take him, but then turned to look back at me, as if I’d stolen something from him.
When he’d left, Dr. Miller said, gently, “No one but you, and your sister-in-law as well, it seems, knows that she was pregnant. Maybe that’s important to you.”
“Thank you,” I said, and the doctor left.
Ever had been pregnant?
I would have been a father.
Never conceive again.
Probably won’t wake up.
I’d lost her.
And if I thought that I’d been broken inside before, I wasn’t. It was Ever who had healed me, and now the accident had ripped off the bandage and shattered what was left of my soul, irreparably.
* * *
AFTER FOREVER
Now available at all ebook retailers
PLAYLIST
Montgomery Gentry
“Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin
“Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix
Surfing With the Alien (album) by Joe Satriani
“Springsteen” by Eric Church
“Paint It Black” by The Rolling Stones
“The Sinner Is You” by Volbeat
The Nice Boxset Page 57