by Bromberg, K.
I know I see it—the chaos right before my eyes—but how is it possible? How am I here and there?
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
I try to move. To fucking run! To get their attention to tell them I’m right here—that I’m okay—but my feet won’t listen to the ricocheting panic in my brain.
No. I’m not there. Just here. I know I’m okay—know I’m alive—because I can feel my breath catch in my chest when I take a step forward to get a closer look. Fingertips of dread tickle over my scalp because what I see … that can’t be ... it’s just not fucking possible.
Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman.
The gentle whir of the saw pulls me from my ready-to-rage state as the medical crew cuts the driver’s helmet down the center. The minute they split it apart, my head feels like it explodes. I drop to my knees, the pain so excruciating all I can do is raise my hands up to hold it. I have to look up. Have to see who was in my car. Whose motherfucking ass is mine, but I can’t. It hurts too goddamn much.
… I wonder if there’s pain when you die …
I jolt at the feel of his hand on my shoulder … but the minute it rests there, the pain ceases to exist.
What the …? I know I have to look. I have to see for myself who is in the car even though I ultimately know the truth. Disjointed memories fracture and flicker through my mind just like pieces of the splintered mirror in that fucking dive bar.
Humpty fucking Dumpty.
Fear snakes up my spine, takes hold, and reverberates through me. I just can’t do it. I can’t look up. Don’t be such a pussy, Donavan. Instead, I look to my right into his eyes, the unexpected calm in this storm. “Is that …? Am I …?” I ask the little boy as my breath clogs my throat, apprehension over the answer holds my voice hostage.
He just looks at me—eyes clear, face serious, lips pursed, freckles dancing—before he squeezes my shoulder. “What do you think?”
I want to shake a fucking answer out of him but know I won’t. Can’t. With him here at my side amidst this whirling chaos, I’ve never felt more at peace and yet at the same time more scared.
I force my eyes from his serene face to look back at the scene in front of me. I feel like I’m in a kaleidoscope of jagged images as I take in the face—my fucking face—on the gurney.
My heart crashes. Sputters. Stops. Dies.
Spiderman.
Grey skin. Eyes swollen, bruised, and closed. Lips lax and pale.
Batman.
Devastation surrenders, desperation consumes, life sputters, and yet my soul clings.
Superman.
“No!” I yell at the top of my lungs until my voice falls hoarse. No one turns. No one hears me. Every fucking person is unresponsive—my body and the medics.
Ironman.
The body on the gurney—my body—jolts as someone climbs on the stretcher and starts compressions on my chest. Someone fastens the neck brace. Lifts my eyelids and checks my pupils.
Thwack.
Wary faces. Defeated eyes. Routine movements.
Thwack.
“No!” I shout again, panic reigning within every ounce of me. “No! I’m right here! Right here! I’m okay.”
Thwack.
Tears fall. Disbelief stutters. Possibilities vanish. Hope implodes.
My life blurs.
My eyes focus on my hand hanging limp and lifeless off of the gurney—a single drip of blood slowly making its way down to the tip of my finger before another compression on my chest joggles it to drip on the ground beneath. I focus on that ribbon of blood, unable to look back at my face. I can’t take it anymore.
Can’t stand watching the life drain from me. Can’t stand the fear that creeps into my heart, the unknown that trickles into my subconscious, and the cold that starts to seep into my soul.
“Help me!” I turn to the little boy so familiar but so unknown. “Please,” I beg, an imploring whisper, with every ounce of life I have in me. “I’m not ready to …” I can’t finish the sentence. If I do then I’m accepting what is happening on the gurney before me—what his place beside me signifies.
“No?” he asks. A single word, but the most important one of my fucking life. I stare at him, consumed by what is in the depths of his eyes—understanding, acceptance, acknowledgment—and as much as I don’t want to leave the feeling I have with him, the question he’s asking me—to choose life or death—is the easiest decision I’ve ever had to make.
And yet, the decision to live—to go back and prove like fucking hell that I deserve to be given this choice—means that I’ll have to leave his angelic little face and the serenity his presence brings to my otherwise troubled soul.
“Will I ever see you again?” I’m not sure where the question comes from, but it falls out before I can stop it. I hold my breath waiting for his answer, wanting both a yes and a no.
He tilts his head to the side and smirks. “If it’s in the cards.”
Whose fucking cards? I want to yell at him. God’s? The Devil’s? Mine? Whose fucking cards? But all I can say is, “The cards?”
“Yup,” he responds with a little shake of his head as he looks down at his helicopter and back up to me.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
The sound becomes louder now, drowning out all noise around me, and yet I can still hear the draw of his breath. Still hear the pounding of my heart in my eardrums. Can still feel the soft sigh of peace that wraps around my body like a whisper as he places his hand on my shoulder.
All of a sudden I see the helicopter—Life Flight—on the infield, the incessant sound of the rotors—thwack, thwack, thwack—as it waits for me. The gurney shunts forward as they start to move quickly toward it.
“Aren’t you going?” he asks me.
I work a swallow in my throat as I look back at him and give him a subtle, resigned nod of my head. “Yeah …” It’s almost a whisper, fear of the unknown heavy in my tone.
Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman.
“Hey,” he says, and my eyes come back into focus on his perfect fucking face. He points back to the activity behind me. “It looks like your superheroes came this time after all.”
I whirl around, heart lodged in my throat and confusion meddling with my logic. I don’t see it at first, the pilot’s back is to me, helping load my stretcher in the medevac, but when he turns around to jump in the pilot’s seat and take the joystick, it’s clear as day.
My heart stops.
And starts.
A hesitant exhale of relief flickers through my soul.
The pilot’s helmet is painted.
Red.
With black lines.
The call sign of Spiderman emblazoned on the front of it.
The little boy in me cheers. The grown man in me sags with relief.
I turn back to say goodbye to the little boy, but he’s nowhere to be found. How in the hell did he know about the superheroes? I look all around for him—needing the answer—but he’s gone.
I’m all alone.
All alone except for the comfort of those I’ve waited a lifetime to arrive.
My decision’s been made.
The superheroes finally came.
NUMBNESS SLOWLY SEEPS THROUGH MY body. I can’t move, can’t think, can’t bear to pull my eyes from the mangled car on the track. If I look anywhere else, then this will all be real. The helicopter flying overhead will really be carrying the broken body of the man I love.
The man I need.
The man I can’t lose.
I close my eyes and just listen, but I can’t hear anything. The only thing in my ears is the thumping of my pulse. The only thing besides the blackness that my eyes see—that my heart feels—is the splintered images in my mind. Max melting into Colton and then Colton fading back to Max. Memories that cause the hope I’m grasping like a lifeline to flicker and flame before dying out, like the darkness smothering the light in my soul.
I race you, Ryles. His voice so strong and unwaverin
g fills my head and then dissipates, glittering through my mind like ticker tape.
I double over, willing the strangling tears to come or a spark to fire within me, but nothing happens, just lead dropping through my soul and weighing me down.
I force myself to breathe while I try to fool my mind into believing the past twenty-two minutes never happened. That the car never cartwheeled and pirouetted through the smoke-filled air. That the metal of the car wasn’t cut apart by somber-faced medics to extricate Colton’s lifeless body.
We never made love. The single thought flits through my head. We never had the chance to race after he finally told me the words I’d needed to hear—and that he’d finally accepted, admitted to, and felt for himself.
I just want to rewind time and go back to the suite when we were wrapped in each other’s arms. When we were connected—overdressed and underdressed—but the horrific sights of the mangled car won’t allow it. They have scarred my memory so horribly for a second time that it’s not possible for my hope to escape unscathed.
“Ry, I’m not doing too good here.” They’re Max’s words seeping into my mind, but it’s Colton’s voice. It’s Colton warning me of what’s to come. What I’ve already lived through once in my life.
Oh God. Please no. Please no.
My heart wrings.
My resolve falters.
Images filter in slow motion.
“Rylee, I need you to concentrate. Look at me!” Max’s words again. I start to sag, my body giving out like my hope, but arms close around me and give me a shake.
“Look at me!” No, not Max. Not Colton. It’s Becks. I find it within myself to focus and meet his eyes—pools of blue fringed with the sudden appearance of lines at their corners. I see fear in them. “We need to go to the hospital now, okay?” His voice is gentle yet stern. He seems to think that if he talks to me like a child I won’t shatter into the million pieces my soul is already broken into.
I can’t swallow the sand in my throat to speak, so he gives me another shake. I’ve been robbed of every emotion but fear. I nod my head but don’t make any other movement. It’s utterly silent. There are tens of thousands of people in the grandstands around us, and yet no one is talking. Their eyes are focused on the clean-up crew and what’s left of the numerous cars on the track.
I strain to hear a sound. To sense a sign of life. Nothing but absolute silence.
I feel Becks’ arm go around me, supporting me as he directs us out of the tower on pit row, down the steps and toward the open door of a waiting van. He pushes gently on my backside to urge me in like I’m a child.
Beckett scoots in next to me on the seat and pushes my purse and my cell phone into my hands as he fastens his own belt and then says, “Go.”
The van revs forward, jostling me as it clears the infield. I look out as we start to descend down the tunnel, and all I see are Indy cars scattered over the track completely motionless. Colorful headstones in a quiet graveyard of asphalt.
“Crash, crash, burn …” The lyrics of the song float from the speakers and into the lethal silence of the van. My blank mind slowly processes them.
“Turn it off!” I shout with panicked composure as my hands fist and teeth grit, as the words embed themselves into the reality I’m unsuccessfully trying to block out.
Hysteria surfaces.
“Zander,” I whisper. “Zander has a dentist appointment on Tuesday. Ricky needs new cleats. Aiden has tutoring starting on Thursday and Jax didn’t put it on the calendar.” I look up to find Beckett’s eyes trained on mine. In my periphery I notice some of the other crew seated behind us but don’t know how they got there.
It bubbles up.
“Beckett, I need my phone. Dane is going to forget and Zander really needs to go to the dentist, and Scooter ne—”
“Rylee,” he says in an even tone, but I just shake my head.
“No!” I yell. “No! I need my phone.” I start to undo my seat belt, so flustered I don’t even realize it’s in my hand. I try to scamper over him to reach the sliding door of the moving van. Beckett struggles to wrap his arms around me to prevent me from opening it.
It boils over.
“Let go of me!” I fight against him. I writhe and buck but he successfully manages to restrain me.
“Rylee,” he says again, and the broken tone in his voice matches the feeling in my heart taking the fight out of me.
I collapse into the seat but Beckett keeps me pulled against him, our breathing labored. He grabs my hand and squeezes tightly, the only show of desperation in his stoic countenance, but I don’t even have the wherewithal to squeeze it back.
The world outside blurs, but mine has stopped. It’s lying on a gurney somewhere.
“I love him, Beckett,” I finally whisper.
I’m driven by fear…
“I know,” he says, exhaling a shaky breath and kisses the crown of my head. “I do too.”
… Fueled with desperation …
“I can’t lose him.” The words are barely audible, as if saying them will make it happen.
… Crashing into the unknown.
“Neither can I.”
The whoosh of the electric doors to the emergency room is paralyzing. I freeze at the noise.
Haunting memories flicker from the sound, and the angelic white of the hallways bring me anything but calming peace. It’s odd to me that the slideshow of fluorescent lights on the ceiling are what flash through my mind—my only possible focus as my gurney was rushed down the hallway—medical jargon sparred between doctors rapidly, incoherent thoughts jumbling, and the whole time my heart pleading for Max, for my baby, for hope.
“Ry?” Beckett’s voice pulls me from the panic strangling my throat, from the memories suffocating my progress. “Can you walk in?”
The gentleness in his tone washes over me, a balm to my open wound. All I want to do is cry at the comfort in his voice. The tears clog my throat and burn my eyes and yet they never well. Never fall.
I take a fortifying breath and will my feet to move. Beckett places an arm around my waist and helps me with the first step.
The doctor’s face flashes through my mind. Stoic. Unemotional. Head shaking back and forth. Apology in his eyes. Defeat in his posture. Remembering how I wanted to close my eyes and slip away forever too. The words “I’m sorry” falling from his lips.
No. No. No. I can’t hear those words again. I can’t listen to someone telling me I’ve lost Colton, especially when we’ve just found each other.
I keep my head down. I count the laminate tiles on the floor as Becks leads me toward the waiting room. I think he’s talking to me. Or to a nurse? I’m not sure because I can’t focus on anything but pushing the memories out. Pushing out the despair so maybe just a sliver of hope can weasel its way into its vacated spot.
I sit in a chair beside Beckett and numbly look down at the constantly vibrating phone in my hand. There are endless texts and calls from Haddie, ones I can’t even think to answer even though I know she’s worried sick. It’s just too much effort right now, too much everything.
I hear the squeak of shoes on linoleum as others file in behind us, but I focus on the children’s book on the table in front of me. The Amazing Spiderman. My mind wanders, obsesses, focuses. Was Colton scared? Did he know what was happening? Did he call out the chant he told Zander about?
The thought alone breaks me and yet the tears don’t come.
I see surgical booties in my periphery. Hear Beckett being addressed.
“The specialist needs to know exactly how impact was made so we best know the circumstances. We’ve tried to catch a replay but ABC stopped airing it.” No, no, no. Words scream and echo through my head and yet silence smothers me. “I was told you’d be the person who’d most likely know.”
Beckett shifts beside me. His voice is so thick with emotion when he begins to speak that I dig my fingers into my thighs. He clears his throat. “He hit the catch fence inverted … I think.
I’m trying to picture it. Hold on.” He drops his head into his hands, rubs his fingers over his temple, and sighs as he tries to gather his thoughts. “Yes. The car was upside down. The spoiler hit the top of the catch fence with the nose closest to the ground. Midsection against the concrete barrier. The car disintegrated around his capsule.”
The collective gasp of the thousands of people in response still rings in my ears.
“Is there anything you can tell us?” Beckett asks the nurse.
The unmistakable noise of metal giving under force.
“Not right now. It’s still the early stages and we’re trying to assess everything—”
“Is he going to be …”
“We’ll give you an update as soon as we can.”
The smell of burned rubber on oiled asphalt.
Shoes squeak again. Voices murmur. Beckett sighs and scrubs his hands over his face before trembling fingers reach over and pull the hand gripping my leg free and clasps it in his.
The lone tire rolling across the grass and bouncing against the infield barrier.
Please just give me a sign, I beg silently. Something. Anything. A tiny little thing to tell me to hang on to the hope that’s slipping through my fingers.
Ringing cell phones echo off of the waiting room’s sterile walls. Over and over. Like the beeps on the life supporting machines that filter out into the waiting room. Each time one silences, a little part of me does too.
I hear the hitch of Becks’ breath a moment before he emits a strangled sob that hits me like a hurricane, shredding the paper bag I have preserving my resolve and faith. As hard as he tries to push away the onslaught of tears that threaten him, he’s unsuccessful. The grief escapes and runs down his cheeks in silence, and it kills me that the man who has been the strength for me is now crumbling. I squeeze my eyes shut and will myself to stay strong for Beckett, but all I keep hearing are his words to me last night.
I shake my head back and forth in a panicked disbelief. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so, so sorry. This is all my fault.”
Beckett hangs his head momentarily before wiping his eyes with the palms of his hands. And the gesture—pushing away tears like a little kid does when ashamed—wrings my heart even more.