Three Summers
Page 18
I would rather cut my own heart out than let her run from me again.
So, I’ll sit here in this pale blue waiting area outside her hospital room until the second she wakes up and tell her just that.
Twenty-Eight
SADIE
Peeling my eyes open from underneath my eyelids was a terrible idea. The bight, fluorescent lights goaded the throbbing in my left temple to a pain so extreme that I couldn’t even put it into words. I squeeze my eyes shut again, trying to recall where I was and why my head hurt so bad. The lights above took me to different time, and a different place. The hospital, five years ago after I was beaten half to death on the floor of that damn chicken place.
No.
No.
No. I am not at the hospital again. I am not reliving a nightmare. NO. Life can’t simply be that cruel to me, right? The first time I landed in the hospital years ago was a disastrous, fluke, a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I couldn’t possibly have two FREAK incidents happen in my life to land me in the hospital like this again.
Oh my God! My face! I instantaneously reach up and touch all around my face, keeping my eyes shut. My fingers touch the barely-there ridges of my old scar, stopping for a brief second, and then resuming to touch the rest of my face. I slowly rub my shaking fingers over the ridge of my tiny nose, up to my forehead—feeling the minuscule hair of my eyebrows, back down to my jaw. Nothing new. There aren’t any other scarring ridges anywhere. My face is fine. I’m fine. I think.
I slowly creep my eyes open, eyelashes fluttering against each other before allowing my eyes to welcome the light. I try to recall what happened to land me in the hospital, but the only thing I can hear inside my head is Rowen’s name. Then comes the rest. Rowen. Redhead. Kyle. Chasing. Driving… . crash. I got in a crash. The flashes of images come back to me one after another. Pounding in my skull, heartbeat picking up with each recollection.
This is happening again. I’m in the hospital, with who knows how many injuries (at least my face is okay, right?) and the only thing I can think to want is Rowen. And he’s not going to be here. He’s not going to be here again because I messed everything up. He’s not going to be here to comfort me like I need. It’s like I’m having déjà vu, except the pain isn’t on my face, it’s near my lower extremities.
When my eyes open fully, breath still coming out in huge huffs, panic about to swallow me up whole—I see my mom’s big brown eyes peering down at me. Her soft palm slides down my face the second I feel her warm breath on my cheek.
“Hi, sweetie,” she whispers and I instantly want to crawl in her lap like I’m three years old again.
“Mom.” My voice comes out raspy like I’ve been in the desert for years. I let out a little cough and I didn’t even have to ask her for a drink. Before I know it, the straw is in between my lips and the cool water splashes around my mouth, coating the back of my throat.
“Thanks,” I say, sitting up a little in my bed.
“The doctor said you’d be up soon, and I didn’t believe him,” my dad says, from the bottom of my bed. My eyes widen at the stark white cast my leg is in. My mouth gapes, and I suck in a breath.
“My leg… ”
“Oh, honey, it’s fine. You broke it and they had to re-set it, that’s why you’ve been out so long.” I look over at my mom once more, noticing the bags under her eyes. “That’s the only injury you sustained, besides a mild concussion.” I don’t say anything for so long that it becomes awkward.
“Do you remember what happened?” she asks, and I want to say no. I want to say no and pretend I didn’t drive to UNC to profess my love to Rowen and then drive like a maniac to get away from him and end up wrecking. I didn’t want to admit it, but I did anyway.
“Yes.” It comes out as a whisper, my ashamed feelings pouring out of me in the form of one single word.
See, the thing is… Rowen and I… it always ends in one of us wrecking the other. No pun intended. We always go around this never-ending circle of hurting one another—no, not a circle, more like an infinity symbol like we’re chasing one another around the loops that never seem to disappear. I can even hear the annoying Buzz Lightyear toy in my head yelling, “To infinity and beyond,” repetitively as if he’s a broken record. Is this how it’s always going to be? Having such an unbearable amount of pain just for a little bit of love and happiness with him? Is it even worth it?
The answer is, yes. Yes, it is.
“What exactly happened, babe?” my dad says, keeping his face nice and steady. Calm.
I bite the inside of my mouth, trying to come up with a better excuse. Trying to come up with anything that doesn’t make me sound pathetic and as lovesick as I really am, but nothing measures up. So, I spill. I put it all out in the open.
“He, he was happy and I tried to get away so he wouldn’t see me. I didn’t want to make things worse.” I hiccup, holding my sob in. I rambled so fast that I’m not even sure they caught I word I said.
Before they could say anything, I cry out, “It’s fine. I’ll be fine this time. Don’t worry. I can pick myself back up, after the cast is off… ” I give a tiny but painful side-smile and my parents say nothing. They look over at one another, and I see my mom grin. My eyebrows fold into themselves and I cock my head. What the hell?
Before I could ask anything else, my dad turns and walks out of the room. My mouth is ajar but I quickly closed it, trying to make sense of what just happened. Surely, he can’t be mad at me. I just got in a wreck for goodness sake; that should give me some pity points.
Watching my mom depart from the room right after my dad, I was about to yell out when I heard a loud bang coming from the hallway, like someone had fallen over a cart of medical supplies. Then… all the air in the room was swallowed up by my large intake of breath.
Surprised.
Confused.
Overwhelmed.
And then relief slapped me in the face.
“Rowen,” I whisper,
“You’re awake,” he says, red-faced. He is definitely out of breath, striding over to the side of my hospital bed. His maroon shirt is wrinkled around his waist and his dark hair is standing in about twelve different directions. He looks completely shaken up.
The second he gets to the side of my bed, I sit up a little straighter. I stare at his glossed-over brown eyes and feel the need to pinch myself to see if I am dreaming. It doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel real to be sitting in this bed, with a broken leg, after running away from a boy I love with my entire heart, only for him to be standing beside me now looking completely disheveled.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, never taking my eyes off his. I watch him blink three times before he backs away and drags a chair over right next to me, plopping down in it and leaning his head against my arm.
His breath is warm and choppy when he begins to speak, “Sadie, I promised myself a long time ago that I would always be here for you. That I would never, ever not be here for you again. I fucked up so bad the last time you were in the hospital. I will never put you through that again. Ever.” His voice is hoarse and strained, like saying these words are literally painful.
“But—” I start. “But, you and the girl, and… ” He cuts me off before I can say anything else.
When his head jerks up to meet mine, all I see is tender love. “Sadie, that girl you saw me with… is my friend, Sarah. My friend, Sarah, who is dating our other friend, Abigail.”
My mouth forms an “O,” just as Rowen’s forms a small, playful grin—a small, playful grin that makes my heart skip a beat.
Despite the pain in my leg, I feel… light. I feel like I’m invincible. Maybe I am dead. Am I in heaven? The rational part of my brain knows I’m not because I’m pretty damn sure there isn’t any pain in heaven, physical or not, and there is definitely an extreme pain coming from my right leg.
“Sadie. How could you ever think that I could move on from you? Haven’t you been paying any attention to the last few years? I would do anything
for you. I would do anything to make you happy.”
I gulp oudly before he grabs my hand and squeezes it tightly. “The only reason I didn’t go after you was because I knew I had to rethink my plan. I knew exactly what I needed to do after I sat down and let the shock wear off. You needed time.
“You’ve always needed time, Sadie. I mean, it took you an entire year to think about being friends with me again. Then it took you another year to realize that you were still in love with me. Why would this be any different? I knew you would come back to me again; I just had to give you some time to figure it out in that pretty little head of yours.”
I knew I was blushing on the outside while basically exploding on the inside. He knows me so well. He knows me better than I knew myself.
I clench my teeth so hard to keep the tears from streaming down my cheeks. I grab his hand, pulling him onto my bed with me and he willingly came, weighing down the bed so much that I think it might collapse.
When he turns his head toward mine, our faces only inches apart, he looks me right in the eye and says, “I love you Sadie, and I’m not afraid to say it.”
Moving my face even closer to his, lips brushing over his as I spoke, “I’m not afraid either… not anymore.”
His eyes light up, and he presses his lips to mine, cupping my face in his hands. The second our lips reconnect, I know that with Rowen is exactly where I need to be.
“I’m never letting you go again,” he whispers against my lips.
I whisper right back, “Me either.”
The End
Acknowledgments
I first want to thank my family for their endless amount of support. They will probably always be at the top of my list for acknowledgments because I couldn’t do this without them! Especially Joe, my husband! Thanks for being the best husband in the world, I love you!
I also want to thank my friend Stephanie at editS, for editing my work and for being so amazing at catching those annoying grammatical errors (especially all the unnecessary commas that I like to throw in random sentences… LOL). You helped me make this book come to life so thank you, dear friend!
To my new online friend, Megan, thank you answering all of my questions regarding formatting and KDP. I was in tears and you saved me, so thank you times a million!
Lastly, I want to thank every single person who read my book and took a chance on a new author! Putting my work out there is scary but to have such support from you readers is amazing! You rock!!
Xo!
About S.J. Sylvis
S.J. Sylvis is a lover of reading and writing and just recently graduated with her graduate degree focusing on English and Creative Writing (the only fun parts where the writing classes). Besides writing, S.J. Sylvis loves coffee (specifically caramel iced coffee, but really, any coffee will do), binge-watching Gilmore Girls, going to the beach and spending time with her family! She currently lives in Louisiana but is often moving as her husband is in the United States Marine Corps and they go where the military sends them!
Please be on the look out for S.J. Sylvis’s next release, JUST MAYBE, coming out Summer, 2018!
Find S.J. Sylvis online:
www.sjsylvis.wordpress.com