The Driven Series

by Bromberg, K.

  My head’s fuzzy as I stand, and I’m super groggy from the pain medication. Talk about feeling like I’m walking through water. I laugh because the floor even feels kind of wet and I know it’s just my drug laden brain. I run my hand along the wall to help steady myself and guide me through the dark room so I don’t accidentally bump something and wake up Colton.

  My God, I’m going to be sick! I feel the huge rugs covering the bathroom floor beneath my feet and almost moan out in pain mixed with relief knowing the toilet is so close. I slip some as I hit the tile and curse Baxter and the damn water bowl he always drips from. I shut the bathroom door and flick on the light, the sudden brightness hurting my eyes so I squeeze them shut as the dizziness hits me at full force. I bend over, hand on the toilet rim, stomach tensing and ready to puke, but all I feel is the room spinning. My stomach revolts, the dry heave hitting me over and over. My stomach is tensing so forcefully I feel wetness run down my legs.

  And I start laughing, feeling so pathetic that I’m puking so hard I’ve just peed myself, but my mind is so sluggish, so slow to piece my thoughts together that instead of figuring out what to do next, I sink down on my knees. I slide on the slick marbled floor coated with urine, but my stomach hurts so badly and my head’s so dizzy I don’t really care. All I can think of is how pathetic I must look right now. How there is no way in hell I’m going to call Colton for help.

  And I’m so tired—so sleepy—and afraid I’m going to throw up again, I decide to lay my head atop my hands on the rim of the toilet and just rest my eyes for a minute.

  My head starts to slide off of the toilet, and I don’t know how much time has passed but the falling motion jerks me awake. I’m immediately assaulted with such a wave of heat through my body followed up by an absolute chill that I force myself to stop a minute and take a deep breath.

  Something’s not right.

  I feel it immediately, even though my mind is trying to snap my thoughts together, line them up so that they’re coherent. And I just can’t. Nothing’s making sense to me. My head is heavy and my arms feel like a million pounds. I try to call out to Colton for help, not caring anymore if I’ll be embarrassed about sitting in a pool of piss. Something’s just not right. I put my hand on the wainscot to help support myself so I can stand up and open the door so he’ll hear me call his name, but my hand slips. And when I can open my eyes, when I can focus, my handprint is smeared in blood down the wall.

  Hmm.

  I kind of laugh as delirium takes over. As I look down to see that I’m not sitting in urine.

  No.

  But why is the floor covered in blood?

  “Colton!” I call, but I’m so weak I know my voice isn’t loud enough.

  I’m floating and it’s so warm and I’m so tired. I close my eyes and smile because I see Colton’s face.

  So handsome.

  All mine.

  I feel sleep start to pull on me—my mind, my body, my soul—and I let its lethargic fingers begin to win the tug-of-war.

  And right before it takes me, I understand the why, but not the how.

  Oh, Colton.

  I’m sorry, Colton.

  Darkness threatens to pull me under its clutches.

  Please don’t hate me.

  I have nothing left to resist its smothering blackness.

  I love you.

  Spiderman. Batm—

  THE SOUND OF THE GUNSHOT startles me awake. I spring up in bed and have to catch my breath as I tell myself it’s all over. Just a goddamn nightmare. The fucking bastard is dead and got what he deserved. Zander is fine. Rylee is fine.

  But something’s off. Still not right.

  “Say something I’m giving up on you …” I jolt from the panic I feel from hearing the lyrics as they pass through the overhead speakers. Shit. I forgot to turn them off last night. Is that what scared the hell out of me? I scrub my hands over my face trying to snap me from my sleep-induced haze.

  That had to have been it.

  “… I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you …”

  I reach for the control on the nightstand to shut the music off. And then I hear it again, the sound that I’m sure was what woke me up. “Bax?” I call out into the room as I realize Ry’s side of the bed is empty. He whimpers again. “Fuckin’ A, Bax! You really have to take a piss now?” I say to him as I place my feet on the floor and stand, waiting for a second to steady myself and thank God this is getting easier because I’m sick of feeling like an eighty-year-old man every time I stand.

  I immediately look out toward the top of the stairs to see if any lights are on downstairs and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when it’s dark as fuck. Baxter whimpers again. “Relax, dude. I’m coming!” I take a few steps toward the bathroom and feel a bit of relief when I see the sliver of light around the closed door to the toilet room. Jesus, Donavan, chill the fuck out, she’s fine. No need to go smothering her and shit just because I’m still freaked out.

  Baxter whimpers again and I realize he’s in the bathroom too. What the hell? The dog’s licked his balls one too many times and is going crazy. “Leave her alone, Bax! She doesn’t feel good. I’ll take you out.” I walk into the bathroom, knowing he’s not going to come with me unless I grab his collar. I yell a hushed curse trying to get him to obey but he doesn’t move. I’m beat and not in the mood to deal with his stubborn ass. I slip on the water on the floor and my temper ignites. “Quit drinking the goddamn water and you won’t have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the fucking night!” I take another step and slip and I’m pissed. I’ve had it right now and am having trouble keeping my cool.

  Baxter whimpers again at the bathroom door and when I reach it, I rap my knuckle against it. “You okay, Ry?” Silence. What the fuck? “Ry? You okay?”

  It’s a split second of time between my last word and the door flinging open but I swear to God it feels like a lifetime. So many thoughts—a fucking million of them fly through my mind, like at the start of a race—but the one I always block out, the one that I never let control me, owns every goddamn part of me now.

  Fear.

  My mind tries to process what I see, but I can’t comprehend it because the only thing I can focus on is the blood. So much blood, and sitting in the middle of it, shoulders slumped against the wall, eyes closed and face so pale it almost matches the light marble behind it, is Rylee. My mind stutters trying to grasp the sight but not processing it all at once.

  And then time snaps forward and starts moving way too fucking fast.

  “No!” I don’t even realize it’s my voice screaming, don’t even feel the blood coat my knees as I drop to them and grab her. “Rylee! Rylee!” I’m shouting her name, trying to jostle her the fuck awake, but her head just hangs to the side.

  “Oh God! Oh God!” I repeat it over and over as I pull her into my arms, cradle her as I jolt her shoulders back and forth to try to wake her up. And then I freeze—I fucking freeze the one time in my life I need to move the most. I’m paralyzed as I reach my hand up and stop before it presses to the little curve beneath her chin, so afraid that when I press my two fingers down there isn’t going to be a beat to meet them.

  God, she’s so beautiful. The thought flickers and fades like my courage.

  Baxter’s wet nose in my back snaps me to, and I suck in a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. I get a little better grip on my reality—my fucking sanity—and it’s not very strong but at least it’s there. I press down and let out a shout in relief when I feel the weak pulse of her heart.

  All I want to do is bury my face in her neck and hold her, tell her it’s going to be okay, but I know the thirty seconds I’ve wasted sitting here have been more than too much.

  I tell myself that I need to think, that I need to concentrate, but my thoughts are so fucking scattered I can’t focus on just one.

  Call 9-1-1.

  Carry her downstairs.

  So much goddamn blood.

  I can’t los
e her.

  “Stay with me, baby. Please, stay with me.” I plead and beg but I don’t know what else I can do. I’m lost, scared, fucking beside myself.

  My mind whirls out of control with what I need to do and what’s most important … but the one thing I know more than anything else is I can’t leave her. But I have to. I pull her out of the small room housing the toilet, my feet slipping on the blood all over the floor, and the sight of it smearing—dark marring the light floor—as I drag her to the rug causes new panic to arise.

  I lay her gently down. “Phone. I’ll be right back.” I tell her before I run, slipping again to the nightstand where my phone is. It’s ringing in my ear as I reach her and immediately bring my fingers to her neck as it rings again.

  “9-1-1—”

  “5462 Broadbeach Road. Hurry! Please—”

  “Sir, I need to—”

  “There’s fucking blood everywhere and I’m not sure—”

  “Sir, calm down, we—”

  “Calm down?” I scream at the lady. “I need help! Please hurry!” I drop the phone. I need to get her downstairs. Need to get her closer to where the ambulance can get to her faster.

  I pick her up, cradle her, and I can’t help the sob that overtakes me as I run as fast as I can through my bedroom to the stairs and down them. Panic laced with confusion and mind-numbing fear runs through me. “Sammy!” I’m screaming. I’m a madman, and I don’t fucking care because all I can see is her blood coating the bathroom. All I can think of is being a little kid and that damn doll Quin used to have—Raggedy Ann or some shit like that—how her head and arms and legs lolled to the side regardless of how she held her. How she’d cry when I’d tease her over and over that her doll was dead.

  And all I keep thinking of is that fucking doll because that’s what Rylee looks like right now. Her head hangs back over my bicep completely lifeless, and her arms and legs dangle.

  “Oh God!” I sob as I hit the bottom of the stairs, the image of that doll stuck in my head. “Sammy!” I scream again, worried that I told him to go home last night like usual, rather than sleep in the guest room because the press were so out of control.

  “Colton, what’s wrong?” He runs around the corner and I see his eyes widen as he sees me carrying her. He freezes and for the odd moment I think how mad Rylee would be at me right now for letting him see her like this—in just a tank top and panties—and I hear her voice chastising me. And the sound of her voice in my head is my undoing. I drop to my knees with her.

  “I need help, Sammy. Call 9-1-1 back. Call my dad. Help me! Help her?” I plead with him as I sink my face into her neck, rocking her, telling her to hold on, that it’s going to be okay, that she’s going to be okay.

  I know Sammy’s on the phone, can hear him talking, but my shocked brain can’t process anything other than the fact that I need to fix her. That she can’t leave me. That she’s broken.

  “Colton! Colton!” Sammy’s voice pulls me from my hypnotic panic. I look up at him, the phone held up to one ear as I’m sure he’s getting instructions from the 9-1-1 operator, and am not even sure if I speak or not. “Where’s she bleeding from?”

  “What?”

  “Look at me!” he shouts, snapping me somewhat out of my fog. “Where is she bleeding from? We need to try and stop the bleeding.”

  Holy shit! What is wrong with me? I open my mouth to speak, to tell him, and I realize that I’m so panicked I have no fucking clue.

  Sammy’s eyes lock on mine as if to tell me I can do this, that she needs me, and he’s able to break through my slow motion mental state. I immediately lay her down—as much as it kills me to because I feel like she’s so cold that I need to keep her warm. I start running my hands over her body, and I start shaking I’m so mad at myself for not thinking of this, so scared at what I’m going to find.

  I cry out in fear as I realize blood is still running down her legs, and I can’t even begin to process why. “Her accident. Something from her accident,” I tell Sammy as I lift her shirt up her abdomen to show him the scars that mar her skin as if that will explain it. And then I grab her and pull her onto me again—her cold body against my warm skin—as Sammy starts talking again to whomever’s on the other end of the phone.

  “Hang tight, sweetheart. Help’s coming,” I tell her as I rock her, knowing that there is no way I can stop the bleeding—hers or my heart’s.

  I hold her tight and I swear I feel her move. I scream out her name to try and help her come back to me. “Rylee! Rylee! Please, baby, please.” But there’s nothing. Fucking nothing. And when I sob in despair her body shudders again, and I realize it’s me moving her. It’s my body shaking and begging and pleading that’s moving her.

  “Oh God!” I cry out. “Not her. Please not her. You’ve taken everything good from me,” I scream into an empty house to a God I don’t really believe exists any more right now. “You can’t have her,” I yell at him, holding onto the only thing I can because everything else I hold true is slipping through my fingers. I bury my face in her neck, the sobs ruining me as my warm breath heats up her skin cooling beneath my lips. “You … can’t … have … her.”

  “Colton!” A hand jolts my shoulder and I snap out of my trance, unsure of how much time has passed, but I see them now. The medics and the flashing lights swirling on my walls through the open front door. And I know they need to take her from me to help her, but I’m so fucking scared right now I don’t want to let her go.

  She needs me right now but I damn well know I need her more.

  “Please, please don’t take her from me,” I croak as they lift her from my arms and I’m not sure who I’m talking to, the paramedics or God.

  “How long, Sammy?” I shove up from the chair, nerves gnawing at me and my legs not able to eat up enough ground to make them go the fuck away.

  “Only thirty minutes. You gotta give them time.”

  I know everyone in this waiting room is staring at me, watching the man with blood all over his clothes pace back and forth like a caged animal. I’m antsy. Restless. Fucking terrified. I need to know where she is, what’s wrong with her. I sit back down, my knee jostling like a goddamn junkie needing a fix and realize that I am. I need my fix. I need my Ryles.

  I thought I lost her today only to know I didn’t, and then when I think she’s safe— protected in my arms as we fall asleep—she’s ripped the fuck away from me. I’m so goddamn confused. So fucking angry. So … I don’t even know what I am anymore because I just want someone to come out from behind those automatic doors and tell me she’s going to be okay. That all the blood looked a hundred times worse than it really was.

  But no one is coming. No one is giving me answers.

  I want to scream, want to punch something, want to sprint ten fucking miles—anything to get rid of this fucking ache in my chest and churning in my stomach. I feel like I’m going crazy. I want time to speed the fuck up or slow the fuck down, whichever is best for her, as long as I can see her soon, hold her soon.

  I get out my phone, needing to feel a connection to her. Something. Anything. I start to type her a text, express to her in the way she understands best how I feel.

  I finish, hit send, and hold on to the thought that she’ll get this when she wakes up—because she has to wake up—and know exactly how I feel in this moment.

  “Colton!”

  It’s the voice that’s always been able to fix things for me and this time he can’t. And because of that … when I hear his voice call out to me, I fucking lose it. I don’t stand to greet him, don’t even lift my head to look at him because I’m so overtaken by everything that I can’t function. I drop my head in my hands and start sobbing like a damn baby.

  I don’t care that there are people here. I don’t care that I’m a grown-ass man and that men don’t cry. I don’t care about anything but the fact that I can’t fix her right now. That my endgame superhero can’t fix her right now. My shoulders shake and my chest hurts and my ey
es burn as I feel his arm slide around me and pull me into his chest as best he can and try and comfort me when I know it’s not going to do a goddamn fucking thing for her. It’s not going to erase the images of her lifeless Raggedy Ann body and pale lips that are staining my mind.

  Humpty fuckin’ Dumpty.

  I’m so upset I can’t even speak. And if I could, I don’t even know if I could put words to my thoughts. And he knows me so damn well he doesn’t even say a word. He just holds me against him as I expel everything I can’t express otherwise.

  We sit in silence for some time. Even when my tears are gone, he keeps his arms wrapped around my shoulders as I lean forward with my head hanging in my hands.

  His only words are, “I’ve got you, son. I’ve got you.” He repeats them over and over, the only thing he can say.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to rid my mind of everything but it’s not working. All I can think of is that my demons have finally won. They’ve taken the purest thing I’ve ever had in my life and are stealing her fucking light.

  Her spark.

  What have I done?

  I hear shoes squeak on the floor and stop in front of me, and I am so scared of what the person has to say that I just keep my head down and my eyes closed. I stay in my dark world, hoping I have the control to keep it from claiming her too.

  “Are you the father?” I hear the soft, southern accent ask the question, and I feel my dad shift and assume he’s nodding to her, ready to listen to the news for me, bear the brunt of the burden for his son.

  “Are you the father?” The voice asks again, and I move my hands off of my face and look over at my dad, needing him to do this for me, needing him to be in charge right now so I can close my eyes and be the helpless little kid I feel like. When I look over, my dad is looking straight at me—meets my eyes and holds them—and for the first time in my life I can’t read what the hell they’re saying to me.

  And they don’t waver. They just look at me like when I was in little league and afraid to go up to the plate because Tommy-I always-hit-the-batter-Williams was on the mound, and I was scared to get beaned with the ball. He looks at me like he did way the fuck back then—gray eyes full of encouragement telling me that I can do this—I can face my fear.