“Okay, okay,” she says, after laughing so hard she almost started crying. “I actually turned off the song for a reason. We need to plan your wedding announcement photo before I go home. That way I have time to edit the photos and have some printed so we can design the invitations.”
“Good idea.” My phone buzzes and I notice Jace’s name flashing across the screen, but I let it ring so I’m not rudely interrupting my conversation with Becca. “Mr. Fisher won’t mind if we use the track and we still have a few hours of daylight. Think we could do it today? Jace is probably still in his gear so he’ll already be dressed. I need to do something about my hair and makeup though.”
My phone stops ringing and then starts back up a moment later. I glance at the screen. It’s Jace again. “Go on,” Becca says, taking one hand off the steering wheel to motion for me to answer the phone. “Don’t make your sweetie pie wait forever.”
“Helloo-ooo,” I sing into the phone. I hope Jace isn’t too worn out from riding to want to take photos with me this afternoon.
“Is this Bayleigh?”
My heart stops cold. The voice on the other end of the line is not my fiancé. “Hello?” he says. “Bayleigh?”
“This is Bayleigh.” The words don’t even sound like they’re coming out of my mouth. “Who is this? Why are you on Jace’s phone?”
“Bayleigh, it’s Bobby. From the track.”
Chills. Fear. I don’t know what comes first. Bobby isn’t just from the track. He’s the on staff as a full time paramedic. He’s the guy who’s always hanging out next to the ambulance, watching the races and diving into action when someone gets hurt.
“What’s going on? Where’s Jace? Why are you on Jace’s phone?” A million other panicked questions flow through my mind but I’m too choked up to get any of them out.
There’s shuffling on the line and I can hear road noise and movement on the other side. The next three seconds of silence are the longest of my life. Becca watches me with worry, her eyes flickering from me to the road and back.
He takes a deep breath. I can hear the sirens of an ambulance burst to life in the background. I’m going to throw up and this time it won’t be from the hormones.
Bobby’s words are slow and carefully chosen. “I’m taking Jace to St. Mary’s. You need to come quick.”
All of the background noise disappears. “Is he okay?” I ask, knowing as I say the words that I won’t get an answer. Bobby has already ended the phone call.
Chapter 10
After fifteen minutes of agony and begging my best friend to drive more than ten miles over the speed limit, Becca pulls into the u-shaped emergency room driveway. I throw open the passenger door before her car comes to a complete stop. “Meet me inside,” I call out before slamming the door closed. My feet feel numb as I run through the automatic glass doors.
I’ve never been to St. Mary’s Hospital before and the overwhelming emotions flowing through me makes it hard to figure out where I’m going. A maze of beige chairs line both sides of the aisle, some with people and most of them empty. I wander through the chairs of the massive room, looking around for a sign that will tell me where to go.
The triage desk is to my left, after three rows of chairs and two massive potted plants. My heart thuds in my chest. By some miracle, I’m not crying. Shaking and stumbling over my own feet, yes. But not crying. I will not allow myself to cry.
I stop just short of crashing into the triage counter and the nurse on duty doesn’t even look up at me. “Hello,” I say loudly to get her attention. This is a freaking emergency room. People come here for emergencies and this bitch needs to do her job. My head could be hanging onto my spine by a thread for all she knows, but she doesn’t know because she’s not looking at me. “Hey! I need help.”
She looks up from her computer screen, her expression unfazed by my yelling.
“Fill this out,” she says, sliding a clipboard toward me. I shake my head. “I’m not here to check in. I’m here to see my fiancé. He was just taken here by ambulance.”
“What’s his name?”
“Jace Adams.”
She types something into the computer. I peek over her shoulder at the area behind her that leads into the rest of the hospital, but I can’t see anything. My phone sits silently in my fist. I haven’t stopped looking at it, wishing and hoping that Jace would call me, tell me he’s fine and that he just broke his pinky or something. “You need to take a seat,” the nurse tells me. “We’ll notify you when there’s information.”
“What!” It is not a question. “What the hell does that mean? I’m not going to take a seat. I need to know his status right now. I need to be back there with him.”
“Have a seat please. We’ll be with you shortly.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I kick the potted plant next to me but with its enormity, it just sits there, unaffected. “Jace could be dying right now and I need to be there. I need to be with him.”
Her eyes narrow. “You will see him when the doctor approves it but if you continue to be disruptive, you’ll be escorted out of the building.”
My back straightens. She might be glaring at me as if she’s won this round, but I have too much at stake to keep bitching about it. “Fine,” I mutter, turning around. I choose a chair closest to the wide double doors that lead into the emergency patient rooms and sit, only to stand back up two seconds later. I can’t sit at a time like this. I check my phone again. Pace. Try sitting and then stand back up. Pray. Look at my phone.
Becca appears at my side. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes since she found a place to park and walked inside, but it feels like it’s been an eternity. I catch her up on what happened with the rude nurse and Becca snarls. “What a bitch.”
“I can’t do this,” I tell her. My voice cracks but I blink back the tears and force them to stay put behind a wall that I can’t possibly allow to break.
“Bayleigh!” I whirl around and find Ash Carter jogging across the emergency room, decked from head to toe in motocross riding gear. His boots drop dirt onto the shiny hospital floor. Ash is Mr. Fisher’s son-in-law and one of Jace’s good friends. His shoulder-length brown dreadlocks are pulled back in a ponytail.
“What happened to Jace?” I ask. Ash crashes into me, hugging me tightly. He smells like exhaust fumes and sweat. I appreciate the gesture, but I kind of just want to shove him off of me and demand that he tell me every detail right this freaking second. When he does pull away, his face is stricken with grief.
“He’s going to be okay,” Ash says, squeezing my arms.
I sigh. “Please tell me what happened. I haven’t seen him. I don’t know anything and it’s driving me crazy.”
Ash takes a deep breath. His eyebrows draw together, making me think for a terrifying second that he’s not going to tell me what happened. “We were screwing around after practice because the track was closed so we were the only two people out there.”
“And?” I fold my arms over my chest. He’s deliberately taking longer than necessary to tell me what happened.
“And, well...we were freestyling a bit?” I don’t know why it sounds like a question when he says it, but the guilt that falls over his tanned features tells me he’s embarrassed to be admitting this to me.
“What exactly do you mean when you say freestyling?”
He stares at the floor. “We were doing tricks and stuff. Jumping over the ninety-foot finish line double.”
“And he crashed?” I actually manage to say the words without bursting into tears. I’ve never seen Jace crash, exactly. I’ve seen him slide out in a shallow turn or bump into another bike at the starting line and lose his balance. He’s never crashed. “How bad was it? Where did he crash?” My questions fly out a mile a minute, faster and more detailed with each time Ash doesn’t answer. “Is he unconscious? Is his bike okay?”
The last one makes Ash laugh. He shakes his head. “His bike is toast. Probably needs
a good three grand in repairs. Knowing Jace, he’ll ditch it and buy a new one. And yeah...he’s unconscious.”
“Unconscious?!” My palms slam against Ash’s chest. “You should have said that first!”
Becca calls my name and says things that mean nothing to me because I’m not listening. Oh, and those tears I held back earlier? They burst through my tear ducts like water through a broken dam. Dropping to my knees into the chair in front of me, I lay my forehead against the backrest and curl in on myself, kneeling backwards in the chair. Someone’s hand pats my back while I cry massive embarrassing sobs.
I can’t stop picturing Jace, my Jace, lying unconscious on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance. Is he awake yet? Will he wake up? Does he miss me as much as I miss him?
“Bayleigh, I know you’re upset,” Ash says, in what I assume is in the middle of a monologue he’s been saying for the last few moments that I haven’t been paying attention. “But getting knocked out on a dirt bike is pretty common. It’s happened to me a dozen times and it’s probably happened to Jace, too. He might have some broken bones, but he’ll be fine.”
I sit up and wipe the wall of tears off my face with the back of my hand. “Broken bones? Did you see him up close? Was he hurt? Did you see blood?” Again, images manifest in my mind of Jace’s unconscious body, now covered in bodily trauma with severed bones sticking out of his arms and legs.
I catch the sounds of a whisper and turn toward Becca, who snaps her mouth shut and smiles at me. She was probably telling Ash to shut up and stop making things worse for my overactive imagination, but I glare at her anyway. Hell, I’ll glare at everyone and everything until I’m sure that Jace is going to be okay.
It really says a lot about the structural integrity of St. Mary’s flooring when, after half an hour of pacing the small area in front of the emergency room doors, I haven’t worn a hole through the tiles. My friend Hana is here now, snuggled next to Ash in one of the waiting room chairs. Becca has called her mom asking for prayers and I called my mom, but didn’t get very far into the call before bursting into hysterical sobs.
I’m rounding past the stupid overgrown fern in the corner when the emergency room doors swing open. A nurse in baby blue scrubs with her hair in a severely tight bun on top of her head steps out and surveys the room. “Adams?”
“Me!” I shout, running over to her. “Is he okay?”
“He’s awake,” she says.
“Oh thank God.” I swallow but it doesn’t help to soothe my dry throat. “Can I see him?”
She nods. “Follow me.”
Chapter 11
There’s a digital clock on the wall of Jace’s hospital room. Red LED lights blare the time at me the moment I open my eyes. It’s two-sixteen in the morning. The light is off in here, but the heavy oversized door is cracked a bit and it lets in all the light from the hallway outside. Hospitals don’t shut down when it’s time to go to sleep.
I yawn and sit back, straightening my spine from the awkward way I had been sleeping. The plastic fake leather armchair in the corner of Jace’s hospital room had sufficed as my pseudo bed. I had dragged it across the room, right up next to Jace’s bed, carefully avoiding the wires and tubes that hung from various places on his body.
The doctor had informed me that Jace suffered a concussion. After extensive testing, they said the damage wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good. He’d need to stay for observation and make sure his brain didn’t start swelling or something else–some kind of fancy medical term that made my stomach tighten. Instead of dwelling on what might happen, I had promised myself to stay calm and trust that everything would be okay. There’s no way fate would take Jace away from me. Not now.
My right hand is wrapped tightly in his. It’s sweaty and uncomfortable but I don’t dare move. As much as I want Jace to wake up and talk and laugh and kiss me, the doctor said it’s best that he gets some rest now. His body can heal better when he’s sleeping, and I’ll just have to wait.
I rearrange the flimsy pillows in my chair and try to get in a more comfortable position. I tuck my other arm under the lowered handrail on the side of the bed and rest my head on the mattress next to Jace’s shoulder. My anxiety fades as I close my eyes and soon, sleep overtakes me.
When I wake up for the second time, it’s because a nurse walks into the room. She lifts an eyebrow when she sees how I’m positioned both in a chair and on Jace’s bed. I sit up quickly and rub my eyes. I almost expect her to chastise me for how I was sleeping, but she doesn’t say anything at first.
She checks Jace’s monitors and taps something into a tablet. “Good morning,” she says finally as she adjusts the IV bag and checks the time on her watch. “Breakfast hasn’t been here yet?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Has he woken up this morning?”
I shake my head again. My hand is still interlocked with his, my hand sweat and his hand sweat merged into one sticky mess. Still, I don’t want to let go. Jace’s constant sleeping doesn’t seem to bother her. She tells me she’ll request an extra breakfast tray for me and then leaves before I have time to tell her that won’t be necessary. I’m still so full of nervous energy that I’m not sure I could eat right now even if I had food in front of me. And hospital food? No thanks.
After what feels like hours, I turn on the television in the room and try to find something worth watching, but nothing takes my mind off of the situation. I want Jace to wake up so badly but I don’t want to be the one who wakes him up. I want to be patient and allow him to sleep as long as he needs to. But…I might yawn a little loudly and make a big deal about standing up and repositioning myself next to him on the mattress.
It doesn’t work.
Even when his cell phone blares to life on the table next to the bed, Jace sleeps soundly. I peek over at his phone, the top corner of which is lit up red to signal that the battery life is low. It’s his mother calling, and honestly, I’m surprised she didn’t call sooner. I glance over at Jace and when he hasn’t woken up by the third ring, I take the phone and answer it.
I’d normally be a nervous wreck talking to his mom for the first time ever, but somehow I manage to say hello without my voice cracking.
“Hello?” She sounds confused at first and then her voice softens. “Is this Bayleigh? Or did my son develop a high-pitched voice?”
I smile, hoping it takes the nerves out of my voice. “It’s Bayleigh. Jace is still sleeping.”
“Really? I guess he didn’t have work today?”
“Work?” The word suddenly has no meaning to me. “Why would he be–Wait, do you not know what happened last night?”
“I haven’t heard from Jace in days, honey. Why, what’s wrong?”
She called me honey the first time she’s ever talked to me. That’s kind of a huge deal, but I’ll have time to be excited about that later. Right now I feel sick to my stomach over the fact that his own mother doesn’t know he’s admitted into the hospital. It was all my fault. I’m the fiancé. I’m his emergency contact. I should have been smart enough to call her but it never even crossed my mind. I spent all night worrying about Jace and never once worried about his family.
I swallow and try to think of the best way to give a mother scary news. “Well...first of all, he’s okay. But he’s in the hospital from wrecking his dirt bike yesterday.”
“What?” she snaps as if I’ve just told her some juicy gossip instead of terrible news. “He better not have broken any bones right before the wedding! Oh, I’m gonna kill that boy if he did.”
“No...no broken bones. Just a concussion and some scrapes and bruises.”
“No brain swelling?” She asks the question as if it were as casual as asking what’s for breakfast.
“No swelling.”
“Good.”
Jace hasn’t stirred since I answered the phone. I decide to talk a little louder. “Do you want me to wake him up for you?”
“That won’t be necessary
, honey. I trust you’re taking good care of him. I was just calling to invite you two to come over and see Gary and I next weekend. Do you think ya’ll can make it?”
I almost blurt out Who is Gary? but before I put my foot in my mouth, I remember that’s his dad’s name. Plus there’s a bigger situation at hand right now. His mother just invited us to come visit them in California. For the first time.
“Um, sure,” I say without really thinking about it. “I mean, assuming he’s out of the hospital and feeling better and all that, I’m sure we can come over.”
“Oh he’ll be out of there by this afternoon,” she says with a laugh. “You take care of him but if that boy tries milking it just for the attention, you better tell him to get off his ass and take care of himself, okay?”
“Okay.” I can’t believe she’s taking this so lightly. Her son is in the hospital. The hospital. My mom would be freaking out if I were in the same position, but Jace’s mom acts like it’s no big deal. “I’ll talk to him when he wakes up.”
“Great,” she says in the same cheerful tone she’s had she’s the beginning of our conversation. “Tell him Dad’s credit card has a lot of miles on it so he won’t need to buy plane tickets.”
“Sounds good,” I say.
“Okay, hun. Talk to you later!”
When I hang up Jace’s phone, I stare at the home screen for a few seconds while I take it all in. I’ve just spoken to Jace’s mother for the very first time since our relationship began. And it wasn’t even that scary. She was really nice. I mean, he had always promised me that his mother was nice, but I guess I never believed it. And up until now, I had known that the first time I met them would be at our wedding, but I was trying to cover up the nervous feelings I had about that and try to focus on the wedding. Now we’ll be meeting them before the big day.
The Beginning of Forever (Summer Unplugged Book 5) Page 7