Us Again

by Jennah Thornhill

In the background I can hear a phone ringing, before I hear Dean say, “Please tell me you have something for us, I don’t know how much longer we can all hold it together here.”

  His end of the conversation goes deathly quiet, while the person he’s talking to talks to him. Then like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders, I hear Dean let out a loud exhale and a sob breaks free from him.

  “Thank god for that, when can I see him?”

  Him? As in Nate? Or is there someone else he’s this upset about and not telling us? His words aren’t really telling us what we want to know. The rest of the conversation is followed by some okay’s and Mmmm’s before he says goodbye to the caller.

  Neither me or Sammi dare move and ask if that was the news we’re hoping for. Dean hasn’t come rushing over to tell us either. The man who’s always been a bit of a manwhore, yet the strong one of our group is silently breaking behind us. With the only thing to tell us that he’s crying is the odd sniffle and deep intakes of breath. We let him be, but at the same time we want to know what that person on the end of his phone just said to him. Seeing the turmoil in my eyes, Sammi finally rises from her crouched position on the floor next to me. At the same time giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. She’s going to be brave for the both of us and ask the inevitable question.

  “Is he alive?”

  God please let him be alive.

  Dean doesn’t say anything to Sammi’s question, well not that I can hear anyway, but I do hear Sammi start to cry. Just like that, I break once again.

  He’s dead.

  When the reporter who has been telling the world about how Nate Michaels flight crashed, comes back onto the TV. Along with breaking news flashing on the screen, my tears turn from heart wrenching ones from the thought of him no longer breathing to ecstatic happy tears. Scrolling across the screen are the words Nate Michaels and his team have been found and are alive.

  I’m being silly acting the way I have for the last god knows how many hours. I left him, I’m the one who walked away from not once, but twice. With all that being said, it doesn’t mean I ever stopped loving him, no matter how much I try to tell myself that I don’t.

  Even after all these years, Nate has and will always have my heart in the palm of his hand.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nate

  The last thing I remember is boarding the plane and the hostess handing me a beer. After that... nothing. Complete and utter nothing. Just the blackness that overtook me and Eliza’s voice in my head telling me that I had to fight and stay alive.

  Finally coming around from my comatose state, I slowly take in my surroundings. All I can see are bodies lying in the woods we had crashed into. Screams from my teammates pierce the cold air. When I manage to move my neck further enough, the plane we were all travelling on is to my left and split into two. With flames coming from it so big, I was certain that if we didn’t die from the cold, then we were all going to get blown up. I try to move from the cold, damp and dirty floor to help my guys, but when I try to move my legs they wouldn't work. Pain like nothing I had experienced before, tore through my entire body. Panic overtook me to the point I couldn't breathe, when I move my hands over the rest of my body, I’m met with a seat belt buckle sticking in my stomach.

  How had I not felt that before?

  Oh god, I’m going to die.

  I had no idea how long we had all been out here, but it was pitch black and the moon was shining brightly through the trees.

  “Nate? Nate Michaels? Is that you?” I hear the voice saying my name, but I can’t see them. Instead I try to lift my arm that’s heavy and in a lot of pain, to try and wave them over. That’s when a flashlight is shone in my face and I’m getting poked by a member of the search and rescue team, that had been sent out to find us.

  “It’s me.” I croak. My voice cracks from the dryness of my throat.

  “You’re gonna be okay, we’re gonna get you out of here. Now don’t try to move, we need to be careful of any neck or spinal injuries.”

  Fuck my life right now.

  “Michaels, don’t you dare be a stubborn fuck right now. Just do as your told.” A voice from somewhere behind me in the distance orders.

  Instantly I know its Coach, he’s the only one who could be in a plane crash and still give me shit.

  “Coach? Coach are you alright back there?”

  “Yeah… yeah, I’m okay. You just get yourself fixed up, don’t worry about an old man like me.”

  Turning back to the guy with the flash light I say, “Take Coach first, I’ll be okay.”

  To which he looks back at Coach then back to me. Something flashes in his eyes, but I can’t read it properly with all the pain I’m in.

  “No, Mr. Michaels. We’re going to get you out of here first, your Coach is just a little banged up it’s nothing serious.”

  “Michaels, I won’t tell you again. Now is not the time to be pig headed, now let them do their job and save your fucking ass.”

  That was the last I heard off Coach.

  Now I’m disorientated, slipping in and out of sleep as the constant beeps and whooshes of machines surround me, telling me I’m in the hospital. Hearing those noises tells me I’m alive, and that they did in fact get me out of there. Then like a wrecking ball, my eyes open so wide, I think they might pop out from their sockets. I start to grapple at my throat as I start to struggle to breathe. My skin becomes sweaty and I don’t register any pain until it’s too late. Panic like no other takes over my entire body, as I remember my Coach and teammates out there in the woods.

  Are they still alive?

  Did they get out like I did?

  Oh my god our plane crashed.

  I start to tug at the IV I find in my left arm, only to find my legs won’t move when I get my brain to instruct them to. Looking down the bed I’m lying in, I notice my right leg in a white plaster cast up to my thigh. Hyperventilation sets in even worse at the sight, I have to get out of here. I have to see that everyone else is okay. The machines around me start making alarm sounds and in a flash my room is full of nurses. They are all trying to calm me down, but I don’t want them anywhere near me. I lash out with my arms, ignoring the stabbing pain in my stomach.

  “Nate? Nate. You have to calm down okay? You’re going to pull your stitches and cause yourself even more damage, you’re okay. You are currently in Saint Joseph’s hospital in Denver. When you’re calm enough, you have people wanting to see you. So take some deep breaths for me and I will get the doctor to administer you some more painkillers.”

  Looking at the redheaded, middle-aged nurse through wide eyes, I just nod my head and do what she tells me. Breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. The kind nurse did it right along with me until I was calm enough for her to let me go. I hadn’t registered that she and two other nurses were trying to hold me down.

  “That’s good Nate, now I’m going to get the doctor to give you some more painkillers and check you over before I allow your visitors in to see you.”

  Within minutes of the nurses leaving my room, the doctor strolls in with a clipboard in his hands. He flicks through the papers that are attached to it. After reading through what I’m guessing are my medical notes, he proceeds to tell me I’ve broke my right leg in two places. That they had to remove my spleen. In his opinion I got off lightly.

  Lightly? Yeah okay, doc. If you say so.

  I don’t voice my sarcasm, it’s not his fault that I’m in this predicament. He’s just here to save my sorry ass.

  Once he’s injected my painkillers into my IV, he leaves my room. I’m left alone to think, but all that comes to mind is Eliza.

  Does she know that I’ve been in a plane crash?

  Is she worried about me?

  Does she even give a shit if I’m alive?

  My overactive mind gets halted when in walks Dean, followed by his sister Sammi. My heart stops dead in my chest. If Sammi’
s here, does that mean she’s here too? I don’t let myself hope that she’s going to come barreling through the door. It’s a good fucking job as well, because when Sam closes the door behind her, with no sign of Eliza following, I know she’s not coming.

  “Well who’s the fucking dumbass that went and got himself laid up in the hospital?” Dean says, trying to be funny.

  I don’t take offence; Dean doesn’t show emotion very well and him making a joke is his way of dealing with major shit.

  “Who said you could keep criminals out of jail and then pay you for it?” I jab back with a small smile on my face. My best friend looks at me from the bottom of my bed with a smirk on his face, at the same time he flips me off.

  “You two will never change, will you?” Sammi interjects with a giggle at our antics.

  “Nope,” we both answer at the same time.

  “Maybe one day you two will grow up?”

  “Nah, we’re happy to stay as we are thank you very much, my darling sister.”

  We all laugh, only I have to stop short when the pain in my stomach shoots straight through my body again.

  “Oh shit, I’m sorry Nate. I didn’t mean to cause you any pain.” Sammi sounds genuinely distressed when she comes rushing over to me.

  “I’m all good, Shaky. Don’t worry about it.” I reassure her.

  She knows I’m messing with her when she registers that I called her the old nickname me and Dean gave her years ago.

  “You’re an ass, Michaels. Did I ever tell you that? If you weren’t already pretty banged up, I’d punch you in your perfect fucking nose.” She threatens me, but with a smile on her face.

  Then like a there’s a massive elephant in the room, we all go silent. All the smiles they’ve both just had, drop and they start looking at each other with dread on their faces.

  There’s something they aren’t telling me, it’s clear as day. They’re just stalling. Well I want to know, because if it has anything to do with Eliza and they’re keeping it from me, I’m going to pitch a fit.

  “Spill. What is it that you pair aren’t telling me?”

  My mind starts to go into overdrive at what it could be. It’s then the familiar feeling of a panic attack starts to takeover. My hand goes to my throat as my breathing becomes restricted. Lightheadedness makes my eyes roll up into my head and the sweat starts to pour from my skin.

  “Nate… Nate. Calm down buddy, we’re here for you. You need to breathe.”

  I can hear Dean telling me what to do, but the flatness of his voice now worries me.

  “Michaels. Calm the fuck down and breath… now.”

  The sternness that comes from Sammi shocks me. Just like that, I start to come down from the attack that’s just overtook my body. On a wheeze I manage to get out.

  “One of you had better tell me what’s going on.”

  “You tell him, you’re his best friend.” Sammi tells her brother, who is now on the other side of my bed.

  “How much of the accident can you remember? What did they say to you when they found you?”

  His voice is low and I know Dean well enough to be able tell when he’s nervous or scared, and right now he’s both. He can’t keep eye contact with me and is constantly glancing at Sammi across my bed. His hands are clutching the bed rail so tight that his knuckles have turned white. If I’m not mistaken, he has a mist of sweat gathering on his brow. I quickly tell him what I remember. How I heard the guys shouting out in pain, but they were all alive. About how I spoke to Coach who kicked my ass even after being in a plane crash. It’s then for the first time in our entire friendship, I see a lone tear run down his face. Wiping it away quickly with the back of his, I can tell he’s hoping I didn’t see it, but I did and I want some answers.

  Now.

  “Dean if you don’t tell me what the fuck is going on, I swear to all things fucking holy, that when I get out of here. I’m gonna kick your ass from here to fucking China. Now tell me what you know.”

  I try to harden my voice, but it doesn’t quite work right. I’m guessing it’s from the tube they shoved down my throat for surgery. Dean stays silent shaking his head, he looks torn and I can feel whatever pain he’s in radiating off him in waves.

  Whatever it is he’s got to tell me, isn’t going to be very good at all.

  What I wouldn’t do to have Eliza with me right now.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Eliza

  Three Weeks Later.

  I’m pacing up and down my large stylish office like a caged fucking animal. I’m almost certain that I’ve got a hole in my wooden floor from where my heels have stamped on it too hard.

  What the fuck did I just do?

  It’s a mistake, I have to call them back and tell them I can’t do it. That I’m not the right person for the job, but they’d know I was lying because my credentials say otherwise. They’ve already done background checks, otherwise they wouldn’t called me and asked me to do it. They know I’m amazing at my job and amazing is what they deserve. If not more after everything they’ve been through, but can I put my personal attachment aside and give them the best treatment? My answer would be yes with some of them. It’s just one certain person I know I won’t be able to detach myself from.

  Nate.

  The only way I can do this is if I become the cold-hearted bitch, I did years ago when I walked away from him. I suppose in a way this can be my way of saying sorry, without actually saying it. I can help him heal and get him back on the road to being on the field again. Doing what he was born to do will help him. Hopefully make him realize that he’s there because of his talent. Not because the Coach I know he really loved and looked up too, took pity on him and made him part of the team. The team he’s now captain of and who at the moment is without a Coach. The same Coach who saw something in Nate and signed him on the spot. Even though he was fresh out of college with a know-it-all attitude. The same person I know who saved his life, before his own was taken from him. I may not have seen him for eight years, but being best friends with his best friend’s sister, gives me an advantage that he has no clue about.

  When Dean got the call and we all knew Nate was alive, Sammi and him rushed to the hospital to be with him. I so desperately wanted to go and be by his side, but I knew it would have been wrong of me to just to turn up, because he had been in accident. I mean the man doesn’t even know we’ve been living in the same city all these years. It would have gone down like a lead balloon if I had just turned up and been all, ‘Hi Nate, sorry about your accident and your Coach dying and all, but is it okay if I visit you after all these years, because I was scared you were dead.’

  Yeah that wouldn’t have been my brightest idea. Also, if I had gone, then he would know I was in LA. His city, his home and eventually he would want answers from me. Answers I can’t give him and lying to him wasn’t option. It broke me the last time I lied to him. To the point I thought I would never recover from all what had happened.

  The state I was in the night of his plane crash; I know I would have just spilled my guts and told him everything, but he couldn’t find out that way. He deserved to be told by me when he was in the right frame of mind to deal with my biggest secret. Telling him then would have just killed him even more. It would have broken him even more than he already was and there's no telling if he would have come back from it. I know we’ll never be us again but I’d like to think that one day, he would forgive me. See it from my point of view for the choices I made. I thought I would have more time. Even after eight years I’m still not ready. I always thought I’d never see him again. Only now that’s all changed with one simple phone call.

  Biting the skin around my thumbnail, I continue to pace, trying to come up with a damn good reason to call back the chairman of the LA Dodgers. Tell him that I was wrong, that I can’t take on the job as his teams’ psychiatrist. One reason that isn’t going to make me sound like I’m the one that belongs in the looney bin
.

  Twenty minutes later, when I haven’t come up with anything, I grab my purse and storm from my office. I need air and Tequila. On my way out I tell Tracy to cancel the rest of my day. It wouldn’t be fair on my patients if I can’t give them all of me in their sessions and right now, I can’t do that.

  “Y... you know what, Sam?” I slur as I take another shot of tequila that barman hands me. “I think I need some cock. Some big, fat juicy cock that has me screaming for days.” I declare as I slam my empty shot glass on to the bar and enjoy the burn as it slides down my throat.

  “I think that’s enough tequila for you, time to go home Missy.”

  “Noooooo… we have to find me some cock. You know that thingy a man has between his legs and makes you feel all kinds of amazing. Ohhh, he has to have good tongue skills as well or he ain’t touching my vagina.”

  Turning on my stool that I’ve occupied since I walked into this bar god knows how many hours ago, I steady myself by holding onto Sam. She’s been my drinking partner and listened to me whine about the fuck-up I’ve made.

  “Right… who looks like they’ve got a big dick?” I start to scan the bar but come up empty. This place isn’t really the type of establishment that you can pick up a decent cock. Unless you want a middle-aged man, who’s starting to go bald. I have no idea why I came in here to think of it, but it was the closest place to my office building that I knew would serve tequila.

  Basically it’s a dive, the wooden floor is sticky. The pool table over in the corner has seen better days. Most of the stools have been glued back together and could give way at any minute. This isn’t going to work for me at all. There certainly isn’t anyone in here I want making me scream for God, that’s for certain.

  “Come on, El. Let’s get you home. Everything will look better in the morning. It always does.”

  Sliding down from her wobbly stool, Sammi stands in front of me with my purse slung over one shoulder, along with hers on the other.