I nodded and climbed into my truck. Slowly, I backed out of my parking spot and started the long drive home.
Meet me @ 16215 Stars Way. You need to see this.
I almost ignored Finn’s text, but it was so weird that I had to go see what the hell he was talking about. It was also getting old ignoring him and Cora all the time. They both were annoying the shit out of me, but I still wasn’t ready to listen. All they would talk about was Nate and how he didn’t deserve the freeze out I was giving him. I knew that, but I had to get over myself and man up enough to go talk to him.
My curiosity was peaked and it had been a long time since I had actually had a conversation with my brother. I took off for the address and only made two wrong turns getting there, even with the trusty Google map instructions, so I counted it as a win. The colonial house was cute, but I still didn’t understand why Finn wanted me here.
The loud chimes rang throughout the house and it took a few minutes for the door to open. Finn stood there with a grim look on his normally cheerful face.
“Hey, Liv. Come on in.”
I looked in the tall door and looked around in awe. The details of the molding and dark woods were everything that I loved in old houses like this.
“Where are we?”
“Don’t freak out,” he started. I narrowed my eyes at him and he grabbed my arm to pull me down the hall before I could leave. “We’re at Nate’s new house.”
I dug in my heels suddenly causing Finn to jerk to a stop beside me.
My voice was shaky. “Nate bought a house? Why?”
“He thought he was the reason you weren’t coming to see me at the frat house.”
“But he’s—” I cut off abruptly, not wanting to hurt Finn’s feelings, even though he had hurt mine by continuing to push me at Nate when I wasn’t ready.
“He’s not the reason. I tried to tell him that, but he wouldn’t listen,” he said, rubbing his hand over his face. “Come sit down, I need to tell you something important.”
“Where is he?” I asked without moving. Even though we had been able to be together at the beach, I wasn’t ready to see him. I hadn’t healed enough to forgive myself for how I’d treated him.
“He’s not here. I’ll get to that in a second.”
I reluctantly followed him into the amazing living room. The leather sectional we sat on was huge and comfy. I could easily see myself curling up here to read while Nate studied. Shaking my head, I told Finn, “Okay, talk.”
“Did you know that Christian and Lila were together?”
I stared at him blankly.
“Like together, together. Apparently she was really jealous of what you had going on with Nate. She also knew you had some major issues with Christian, so she looked him up and got to know him better. Chris told her how to find Nate’s room the night of the party. He also volunteered to distract you long enough for her to get up there and try to seduce him. You just happened to catch Nate trying to keep her from falling on her ass.”
“Where did you hear all of this Finn?”
He shrugged.
“Some from my brothers, other parts I beat the shit out of Christian to get.”
“Are you kidding me?” I demanded.
“No, Olivia. I’m not kidding you. I had to hold Nate back from killing Christian when we found out. If I hadn’t been there…I don’t know how it would have ended. Nate probably wouldn’t be going to medical school.”
I was speechless. Completely dumbfounded. I stood up and started pacing in the large open living room.
“Nathaniel Ford is in love with you and I’m pretty sure he always will be.”
“I am such a fucking idiot,” I mumbled.
“Yeah, you kinda have been.”
I shot him a dirty look, put my head in my hand and choked back a sob.
“I’ve been scared.” My brother wrapped me up in a hug and I let him. For the first time in months, I wanted to hear everything that had happened that night. I was strong enough to do this. “How do I fix this, Finn?”
Finn took a deep breath. “There’s something else I need to tell you, Olivia. Come sit down again.” He waited until I was settled next to him. “Nate got a call a few hours ago. His mom had a heart attack and they rushed her into emergency surgery. They don’t know if she’s going to make it.”
“What?” I whispered.
“I’m so sorry. I know how much you love her.”
“Where’s Nate?”
“He’s on his way back home. He’s probably there by now,” he said, glancing down at his watch. “As soon as Riley called him he took off. That was about two hours ago.”
“I have to go. I have to be there for him. He shouldn’t be by himself right now,” I said frantically. “I have to make him forgive me so I can be there for him.” Tears filled my eyes. “Finn, he’s never going to forgive me.”
My brother scooped me up in a big hug. “Yes, he will. Nate loves you, Olivia. He’s been just as miserable as you these past few months. Yes, he’s been angry too, but mostly he’s just accepted that you’re through with him.”
“I pushed him away. I wouldn’t even let him tell me his side of the story. I was afraid he was going to tell me the same shit that Christian did. I’m a horrible person, Finn.” I sucked in a breath. “I’m so broken.”
“No, you’re not, you were just scared. Go be with him. I’m sure he needs someone to be there with him.” I pulled back at looked at him. His eyes were sincere. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Nate was going to propose to you at Niagara Falls. He loves you, Olivia and he will listen to you when you tell him why you pushed him away. Just be honest with him.”
____
The front desk at the ER was busy, but they told me where to find Diana and her family. Riley saw me first. He watched as I walked towards them silently. Nate was sitting with his head in his hands. I could tell by the way he held his shoulders he was carrying the weight of the world.
“I’m going to go get some coffee,” Riley said, quietly.
He patted my shoulder as he walked by. He attempted a smile, but it was more a grimace than anything. There were so many things I wanted to say, but I couldn’t. I stood in front of the vacant chair next to Nate and waited for him to look up. His eyes widened when he saw me there next to him.
“Olivia, what are you doing here?”
“Nathaniel, I’m so sorry.”
I meant so much by those words. He stood up and gathered me in his arms. A loud sob filled the hallway, but I couldn’t tell if it was his or my own. His fingers gripped me and I clung to him as we stood there.
“I’m so sorry I shut down. If I had just listened to you, none of this would have happened. The past two months wouldn’t have been so awful. I love you and I hope you can forgive me for being such an idiot.”
“Olivia, stop. I should have tried harder to get through to you, but I was so damn stubborn. We both fucked up.”
I took a deep breath. “I want to be here for you if you want me to. We can talk about everything else later.”
“Cupcake, there’s nothing to talk about later. You are here with me now and I’m never going to let you leave me again without a fight. I love you so much.” His voice was thick with emotion and I had to reel in the emotions that were trying to make me fall apart in his arms. He needed me to be strong and that was exactly what I was going to do.
Our foreheads touched as we spoke. His hands cupped my face and when our lips met, it was like being home again. After all the pain and anguish I had put us through, we were finally where we needed to be.
“How is your mom doing?” I whispered.
“She’s out of surgery, but still in recovery. We won’t know anything until the surgeon comes out to talk to us. The nurses told us that much. They want to run a bunch of tests to see how bad it is.”
“What can I do, Nate? I’ll do whatever you need me to.”
“Just stay with me.”
I wrapped
my arms around his waist. “I’m not going anywhere.”
That was the truth. After nearly losing him, they would have to pry me away from Nate kicking and screaming.
I was so sick of nasty hospital coffee. Olivia had offered to go get us something better, but I didn’t want her to leave. I was terrified to let her leave my side, not that I was going to tell her that was the reason I said no. She was here and listening to me and I wanted to make sure nothing would ever tear us apart again. It was hard to believe she was actually sitting next to me. With everything going on all I could do was cling to the fact that she found me when she knew I needed her. Who knows what Finn told her about how things happened with Christian. Eventually we would need to talk about it, but there were more pressing things going on at the moment.
My lips brushed against the side of her head and she sighed. We had been there for almost ten hours. Mom was in and out of consciousness and the next few hours would be critical. She was getting agitated so the doctors wanted to sedate her. Olivia had brought her laptop and was getting some school work done, but I couldn’t focus enough to accomplish anything.
Riley shoved back from his chair and was on his feet instantly. I followed his lead as I watched the scrawny kid walking up to us.
“Jon, why are you here?” Riley snarled.
“She’s my mom too, asshole.”
“Then why weren’t you here twelve hours ago when Riley first called?” I demanded. “Too high to drive yourself here?”
“I don’t owe you two any explanation.”
Olivia grabbed my arm as I took a step towards my little brother. She shook her head once. I knew she was right, no matter how much I wanted to kick Jonathan’s ass, it wasn’t what our family needed right now. It would only make things harder in the long run.
“If you’re staying, sit your ass down and don’t say a fucking word.”
“Are you serious, Nate?” Riley asked in disbelief. “He’s only here for the drama.”
I sighed. “He’s still our little brother, Ri. I know you’re pissed, and I am too, but for Mom’s sake we need to try to get along.”
Riley glared at Jon. “Fuck this. I’m going to go get coffee.”
“Do you want me to stay or go with him?” Olivia asked me quietly.
I took another deep breath. “Go. You need to get out of here for a little while.” She leaned down to kiss me and I whispered in her ear. “Try to calm him down, please,”
She nodded and I knew she would do everything possible to try to get him more relaxed before they came back. My girl was that fucking awesome. I squeezed her hand and she tried to smile at me.
“Hurry back, cupcake.”
I watched her take Riley’s arm and lead him away. Turning back to Jon, the smirk on his face made my blood boil again. My hands fisted at my sides, but I tried to keep my anger in check.
“Why are you really here, Jon?”
He didn’t answer, not that I expected him to.
“It’s bad isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s bad,” I trailed off. “It’s…bad.”
He stared at the wall with his jaw clenched.
“Jonathan, you’re my brother and I’ll always love you, but right now it’s really hard to even like you. You left Riley to deal with Mom by himself whenever everything went down. He needed you. They both did.”
“What about you?” he demanded. “You think they didn’t need you?”
I rubbed my hand down my face and tried not to let my exasperation show on my face.
“Maybe if you had bothered answering a phone we could have explained why I didn’t come home. Mom’s suicide attempt was her trying to manipulate me into coming back home.”
“What?”
“We left you out of the drama when you were younger, and maybe that was a mistake. Mom had some major issues with me leaving for college. Most of it stemmed from feeling abandoned after Dad died.”
“You seriously expect me to believe that bullshit?”
I took a step closer.
“Listen to me you little asshole, I took care of you every day until I left for college. The only reason I left was because I had to. If I had stayed Mom would never have—“
“Tried to kill herself?” his hissed.
“Fuck you, Jon. I tried to help you, but you think you know everything. Go ahead; continue fucking up your life. I wanted to be there for you, but you just want to be bitter about Dad dying. You weren’t the only one to lose him. Why do you think being a doctor is so important to me?”
I leaned back in my chair and stared ahead, trying to get my anger back in check.
“You left me too, you know.”
I sighed. “I had to. Mom was getting worse and nothing I did was helping. Me being there was just enabling her. She needed to be your parent, not me. At least when I left she quit drinking.”
“So why did she—“
“She wanted to make me come back home. She wanted to make me be Dad. So I had to stay where I was so she didn’t think that it would work. The psychiatrists all agreed. Riley and I talked about it several times.” I sank down into the chairs. “Jon I did the best I could at seventeen. I was just a kid myself.”
He huffed out a breath and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to hold back a sob, or if he was trying not to laugh.
“So who’s the girl?”
“My girlfriend, Olivia. If you had bothered coming home for Thanksgiving or Christmas you could have met her. She’s pretty fucking amazing.”
Alarms from Mom’s room started going off and I flew out of my chair. Several nurses and doctors went running into her small room. I sucked in a breath as their snapped instructions filled the hall as they worked on her. A hand grasped mine and I looked over at Jon, he looked like the scared little twelve year old boy he had been when Dad died.
Riley ran up beside us demanding answers. The only problem was I didn’t have any. Olivia came up next to me and grasped my other hand. She wrapped her other arm around Riley and he held onto her like a life raft. Everything was happening in slow motion and I felt like my world was turning inside out. Minutes passed before a doctor walked out of the room to address us. Olivia stepped forward first. She was the only one that was able to form a coherent sentence.
“She’s stable for now, but if this happens again, I’m not sure what we can do. She’s weak from the heart attack and surgery, so it’s hard for her to fight.”
“Are there any other options,” I heard her ask. God, her voice sounded so far away.
“No, I’m sorry. I wish there was something else we could do. She is responsive to stimuli, which is a good sign, but we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. My suggestion to you guys is to take shifts, you will all get worn down quickly and if you take turns coming to be with her someone will be here at all times for her. You’re mother is in for a very long recovery.”
His unspoken words if she makes it hung in the air around us. My hand grasped Olivia’s and she pulled me in closer. I saw Riley clinging to her other hand. Right now, she was our lifeline. Her strength was the only thing holding all of us together.
“Thank you, doctor,” she said softly.
We all stood there waiting for something to happen. Anything. It seemed like we waited for hours, but it couldn’t have been longer than a few minutes. Thank goodness for Olivia. She took charge and played the mother role that we were so desperately lacking at this second.
“Riley, go sleep. You’ve been here the longest and you look like shit. We will call you if anything changes at all. Nate, you need to go email your professors and get things taken care of back home. It looks like we are going to be here for a while. Jon, you and I can take the first shift.”
“I can do that from here,” I started to argue. She raised an eyebrow at me and I knew it was inevitable to fight her.
“I’m not tired,” Riley argued.
“Dude, it’s not worth the energy to argue with her right now. She’s right, you look like
shit and didn’t you just get off a shift when the call came through?”
Riley mumbled under his breath and I tried not to laugh.
“Why are you staying here with me?” Jon asked.
“I’m getting to know the third Ford brother.”
Jon grimaced and Riley choked back a laugh. He was going to be put through the ringer with my little firecracker. I pulled Olivia into my side and kissed her softly.
“Thank you.”
“I love you.” She pressed her forehead to mine for a second. “Now go home and get some rest.”
“I love you, cupcake. I’ll see you in a little bit. Call if you need anything or if anything happens.”
She nodded and gave me a little push towards the door. I grabbed Riley and we slowly walked to the parking lot. My exhaustion hit me as soon as I sat down in my truck. The ten minute drive from the hospital to the house seemed to take forever. I crashed as soon as my head hit the pillow.
____
“Your girlfriend is fucking amazing, dude.”
I looked over at my little brother and wanted to punch him. The anger I felt when I looked at him was a little concerning. Could I really be so upset that he had bailed? Hadn’t I done the same thing?
“I’m glad I have your approval, Jon.”
“Seriously, how did you get a girl like that? Plus she’s hot, like smoking hot.”
“Quit talking about Olivia that way or I’ll punch the shit out of you. I know she’s hot, but you don’t get to talk about her like that.”
“Nathaniel, leave your brother alone,” I heard from behind me. Olivia was trying not to laugh as a flush rose on Jon’s cheeks. Served the little jerk right. I stood up as she walked up the hallway carrying two cups of coffee.
“Hi, cupcake.”
I kissed her forehead and pulled her into my side.
“Did you get some sleep?”
She wrapped her arms around my waist and I ran my hand up and down her back.
“Yeah, I did. It helped.”
“I thought it might,” she said, smiling.
“What about you, did you get any sleep?”
Waiting to Breathe: Book One of the Waiting Duet Page 18