The scream that I hear next could easily put Nickayla’s to shame. As much as it pains me, I wrench my hand away from hers to bring my hands up to my ears and try to block it out. But it doesn’t stop. It’s so loud. It’s breaking my heart in two. It’s not until my stomach heaves, protesting to God knows what, and I lean over the open window and relieve myself of my breakfast that I realize the screaming was coming from me.
I wipe my mouth, and once I’ve put myself together as much as possible, the first thing I do is try and assess the damage to myself. The less I’m hurt, the better chance I have of helping Nickayla. I grab my seat belt, unbuckling it. I wiggle my toes, and move my legs, relieved that at least I’m intact physically. I’m a bit achy, but nothing Ibuprofen and a few days’ rest won’t cure. If only that much can be said about the woman I love.
One of my hands is in excruciating pain and I wonder if it’s because I tried to stop Nickayla’s air bag from injuring her. Clearly, that didn’t work.
I roll down all the windows in the car, knowing full well that there’s no way that I’m going to get her door open by myself. I reach for my cell phone, which is in my suitcase in the back seat, and I pull it out. I dial 9-1-1, and race over to the passenger’s side of the car.
“9-1-1, what is your emergency?” the woman who answers asks me.
“There’s been a car accident,” I blurt out. “My fiancee…she was hit from the passenger side. I don’t know the extent of her injuries, but she’s not awake. She’s…she’s not awake.”
“Sir, what is the location of your emergency?”
I close my eyes, trying to keep my cool. “Flores and Denver. We were about to get on the freeway. We’re in a…a silver 2012 Malibu. Please hurry.”
“What are the extent of your injuries?”
“I’M NOT HURT! SHE IS!”
She starts rattling off more questions, but I’m not listening to her, not answering her. I reach in the car window and place a hand on Nickayla’s cheek. Her skin is clammy beneath my touch, and I choke up, unable to bear the thought of…
Goddamn it.
I can’t lose her. Not like this. Not right now. Not when she said yes to me, when she finally gave herself to me, and we have our whole lives ahead of us and oh, God. I can’t lose her. I can’t.
I close my eyes, and when I open them, I scan the area surrounding us. Whatever car it was that hit us is nowhere to be found, but there are a ton of cars backed up, and there are people coming to our aid. Anger boils within me when I realize the other driver has just damn near killed the both of us and just took off.
Placing a steadying hand against my car, I take a deep breath. Getting angry won’t help either of us right now.
“Jesus Christ!” a man says, rushing over to me. “Jesus, kid!” He peers past me and into the car. When he sees Nickayla, he pales. “Your girlfriend?”
I shake my head. “My fiancee.” I sound completely broken. Even I can hear it. “I don’t know what to…what to do.”
The man grabs my shoulder, pushing me slightly out of the way. He reaches into the car and I watch as he places his forefinger and middle finger to Nickayla’s neck. He’s watching me the entire time.
“She has a pulse. It’s a bit faint, but it’s there. She’s alive. Breathe. What’s your name, kid?”
I almost drop to my knees when I hear those words. I repeat them in my head over and over again. She has a pulse. She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.
“Colin. My name’s Colin.”
He nods, extending a hand as if to usher me forward.
When I walk forward, I watch as the girl I love takes a ragged breath, just a second before she starts to scream. My feet can’t move fast enough, I can’t reach her soon enough to soothe her. She’s sobbing and screaming and God help me, she’s screaming my fucking name.
When I reach her I place a hand on her shoulder to steady her.
“Baby, baby, baby,” I croon, unable to stop the tears that fall when I hear her voice, screaming or not. “I’m right here, Nickayla. I’m here.”
Her eyes widen when she sees me, and I wonder idly what I must look like. The thought gets pushed to the back of my head immediately. What I look like isn’t important.
Tears are streaming down her face, and she’s completely panicked. The passenger’s side door is dented, and she hasn’t moved a muscle.
“Colin! I’m…I’m scared! Get me out of here!” she sobs before wriggling minutely, as though that’s going to get her out of the car.
“Baby. Tell me what hurts, okay? Look at me. Focus on me.”
She blinks, and her eyes widen slightly in fear. She lifts her head a bit, and I gasp, getting, for the first time, a good look at the gash on her head. I don’t know what it’s from, but it’s bad enough to make me want to hurl again. I fight the urge as I wait for her to tell me where she’s injured.
“Hurt,” she says, and her gaze flashes to mine. “Ribs.”
I nod, closing my eyes. That’s not good, but it could be worse. Much worse.
“Okay, baby. Where else? Tell me what else hurts.”
I’m trying to keep her talking, trying to keep her awake long enough for the paramedics and police to get here. I want her to stay awake. I’m afraid that if she doesn’t, I might lose her for good, and that’s not a risk I’m willing to take. Not with her life.
She moves a fraction of an inch, and I wince, wondering what else is wrong with her.
“HURT!”
She only screams that one word, and it’s like a punch to the gut hearing the agony in her voice. I don’t want to see her like this. I can’t see her like this. It’s going to fucking kill me.
“HURT!” she screeches again, and my heart starts to race. “HURT, HURT, HURT!”
I cringe every time she yells, and each time she does, another piece of my heart shatters into a million tiny pieces. By the time this is all over and done with, I won’t have a heart left. I’d rather be dead than see her in this much pain.
“Okay, baby. I know it hurts. You have to tell me where, Nickayla. What hurts?”
She’s openly sobbing, her mascara running down her face in long, black streaks, and her hair falling forward. She screams at the top of her lungs, and I close my eyes, wishing away my own anguish. “MY LEG!”
Fuck me.
Her head starts to loll, and I shake my head, nudging her shoulder lightly. I place a hand on her cheek, and her dark brown eyes spill over with tears.
“Stay with me baby. I know it hurts, and I’m so sorry. We’re going to get you out of here,” I promise her.
“Attaboy,” the man from before says. “Keep her awake. Keep her talking.”
I nod, and I gather what little strength I have left to hold on. I’ll hold on to her. This girl is my life. She’s my heart. She’s home for me. There’s nothing for me in this world but her.
“What else hurts, Nickayla?”
“HEAD!”
I nod. “What else?”
She goes silent, and her eyes start to droop. I run a finger along her cheek, hoping that my touch will convince her to stay with me.
“I know it’s hard, baby. I know it hurts. I love you so much, and I’m so sorry. Please tell me what else hurts. Is there anything else that hurts?”
There’s the tiniest movement of her head in a downward motion, and I realize that she’s nodding. Tears fill my own eyes as I watch her, and she looks away from me.
I watch, horrorstruck, as her left hand comes up and slams over her heart. She closes her eyes tightly, like she’s trying to wish it all away. Her body shakes as she continues to sob, and her shoulders sag. She continues to nod, and then, for just a second, her chocolate eyes meet mine.
She closes her hand into a fist over her heart, and she slams her fist against her chest. “Hurt.”
Her voice is a whisper, and it breaks, just like my heart does when a second later, her eyes close and her head falls forward. Her hand falls from her chest, and I kee
p my eye on her engagement ring as, in slow motion, her hand makes its way to her lap. I reach inside for her hand, grabbing it, squeezing it, begging for some type of motion, some feeling from her.
But nothing. Her hand is limp. She’s not holding mine. She’s not…oh, fucking God.
“Nickayla,” I implore, screaming. “Nickayla! Baby, stay with me. Stay with me! Nickayla!”
I squeeze her hand with one of mine, and with the other one, I grab the handle of the door, trying to wrench it open. But it won’t budge. It won’t fucking budge and I can’t get her out.
I can’t describe what I’m feeling right now, but devastated and hopeless come pretty fucking close.
“Nickayla! Stay with me! I love you! Please, stay with me!”
The man from before comes up behind me, a hand on my shoulder, and I whip around to look at him. He’s looking at me the way you look at someone who’s lost the person they love.
“I think she’s gone, kid. I’m so sorry,” he whispers.
I let go of her hand for one solid second, and I turn around and deck the shit out of this guy. Only I would hit him with the hand that’s already injured as Hell. My hand objects immediately, but I don’t give a shit. I punch him again. “Shut the FUCK up! She’s not gone! She’s not gone!” I turn to face her again, and I grasp her hand. Not a single thing about her has changed. It’s still her hand. It’s still her hand. It’s still warm. It’s still her finger that’s carrying my engagement ring. She’s still with me. I know it. She has to stay with me. I won’t accept anything else. I refuse to accept a reality without her. “Nickayla! Please, stay with me, baby! Please!”
I hear the sirens, I hear them. They’re coming. They’re coming, and they’re going to save her. Everything is going to be okay. My heart surges when I hear them getting closer.
The sirens get closer. They’re closer.
And then suddenly, I’m wrenched backward, and her hand slips from mine for the second time today. I wrestle against the bear-like human who’s pulling me away from her, and I’m screaming at the top of my lungs. My heart is no longer inside me. It’s on the fucking floor beside her, and I’m being pulled away.
“SHE’S NOT GONE! SHE’S NOT DEAD!” I scream, fighting like a bat out of Hell, trying to release myself. “SHE’S NOT DEAD! NICKAYLA!”
Thirty Two.
No one will tell me anything. Not a fucking thing, and it’s been four hours since they admitted her. I keep pacing back and forth around the waiting room, and Michele keeps getting up to tell me to sit down. That works for exactly five minutes before I start to feel antsy and get right back up again.
The paramedics got to work on Nickayla immediately, and the first thing they did after giving me a sedative and patching me up was tell me that she was alive. That they were going to do everything in their power to save her.
That was four fucking hours ago and I’m barely holding myself together.
I keep replaying the past few weeks, from the day she got sick until last night, when we made love for the first time. My head won’t let go of the good memories of her, because they’re all that’s keeping me afloat right now. As much as I try to focus on the good memories, the bad ones find a way to come back and haunt me.
No matter how hard I try to fight it, I keep replaying the last thing she said before she went unconscious.
“Hurt.”
That’s the last word that she said to me, and it completely slayed me.
It seems that all I’ve done since my dad died is hurt her. We tried to be intimate and I went too far too fast. Hurt. I put my friendship with Mads over my relationship with her. Hurt. I didn’t listen to her when she told me that Madilyn was no good. Hurt. I made her feel like she was crazy. Hurt. I didn’t listen to her warnings, and in the end, Mads turned out exactly how Nickayla said she would. Hurt. She begged me to fight for her, literally got on her knees and begged, and I walked away. Hurt.
All I’ve done is hurt her, and I can’t help but wonder if I’ve done her any good at all since I’ve met her. All she’s ever wanted to do was prove how strong she could be for herself, and for me. And my dumb ass never told her that she was.
She’s always been strong. And beautiful. And brave. God, she’s so brave.
And my strong, beautiful, brave girl is in there with no one beside her. I don’t even know the extent of her injuries, because they separated us so that they could tend to mine.
I shove my bandaged hand into my pocket, nearly choking from the emotions that course through me when I find the box that, until yesterday, held Nickayla’s engagement ring.
She only got to wear it for one day, and now I’m afraid it’s the only day she’ll get to wear it. I don’t want that to be true. I don’t even want to think about it. The thought of losing her…God, it’s unbearable.
“Colin?” my little sister says as she races through the waiting room. She’s running so fast that she can’t stop herself in time, so she crashes into me and we almost collapse to the ground. I wrap my arms around her. “I just heard. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here sooner. What can I do for you? Have you eaten? Do you wanna go to a hotel and get some rest, take a shower?”
I shake my head when she finishes each question.
I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and see that I have eleven missed calls from Madilyn. She’s been calling nonstop since the last time I saw her at the apartment, the day Nickayla and I broke up, but for some reason, she’s choosing today to blow my fucking phone up. “I can’t eat. Shit, I can barely see straight. I’m not going anywhere until they tell me something about Nickayla.” I hand my cell phone over to Suze. “But what you can do for me is tell Madilyn to stop calling me. My fiancee is in the hospital fighting for her fucking life and Madilyn won’t leave me alone.”
Her eyebrows raise as soon as I say the word “fiancee”, but she doesn’t interject. “What do you want me to say to her?”
I shrug, taking my seat next to Michie, who immediately reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “I don’t give a shit. Whatever it takes to keep her the fuck away.”
Nickayla’s brothers and sister are here, along with Sarah, Hanna, her Nonna, Brody, Sabrina, and Michele. My brother and Carly are here, too, and Keaton’s been texting Jamie periodic updates—even though we haven’t really gotten any. Her dad’s on his way, rushing away from work, and her mom’s currently talking to a nurse and trying to find something out, anything.
There’re so many people here who care about her besides me, but the only one I gravitate to is Michele. She’s the only one who didn’t choose sides when Nickayla and I were broken up, and she’s the only one besides me who believed there was still hope for the two of us.
I gaze at my sister who’s regarding me expectantly.
The hardest thing about being her big brother is that I’m supposed to be the strong one. I’m supposed to protect her. But ever since we were kids, whether Keaton was around or not, it’s like Suze has been protecting me. She’s been my strength when I have none. And as much as I hate to, I’m depending on her strength now to get me through this.
I lean forward, bending double.
The last time I was afraid of something was on Nickayla’s birthday last year. When she came rushing into my parents’ house to protect me, and she got hit in the crossfire. That was nothing compared to the feeling I have in my gut, in my heart right now. I have never been afraid like this in my life. And I don’t ever want to be again. But this fear won’t leave me until I know that she’s okay, that she’s safe.
Michele’s hand comes up to rest on my back, and she leaves it there while I cry.
She hasn’t cried yet. She hasn’t given herself over to whatever emotion she’s feeling, to the fear. While everyone else is blubbering like I am, she’s holding it together. She’s being my anchor.
When I first met Michele, I didn’t expect to like her. I always hated the notion that the best friend and the boyfriend have to get along. I hated it even more when I fo
und out one of Nickayla’s best friends was a guy—a jock no less. But Michele surprised me. She agreed to meet me for lunch, giving me intel on Nickayla before I took the leap to ask her on a date. She was nice to me. She was funny. She’s had Nickayla’s back since they were kids. And because Nickayla loved her, I couldn’t help but love her, too. She became my best friend, too.
She’s doing for me what I know she’s always done for Nickayla, and for that, I’m incredibly grateful for her in this moment.
She keeps her hand on my back, trying to soothe me even though we both know that’s damn near impossible. I feel her tense up a bit, and I look up to see what she’s reacting to.
My eyes meet Sabrina’s, Brody’s not-yet-girlfriend, and she gives me a weak smile. Brody’s hand is on her lower back as he ushers her forward. He gives me a nod before taking a seat on the other side of me.
“Colin, I brought you some coffee,” Sabrina says, approaching us, carrying a two cardboard trays of coffee. She extends one tray to Mich. “There’s a white chocolate mocha with your name on it.” Michele gives her an appreciative smile before offering me a cup that literally has my name written on it. “We figured you guys would need it. No one’s going anywhere until we know something.”
I nod in appreciation, not only at the fact that she’s here, or the fact that she’s here with coffee. But more at the fact that she’s not looking at me disdainfully, even though I know she knows I know that she’s the one who picked Nickayla up when she left me.
“Thank you. Both of you,” I say with a nod to Brody.
Brody doesn’t say anything in response. He doesn’t have to. He’s a man of few words, and without him even saying it, I know how much he loves Nickayla. It’d kill him if anything else happened to her.
Thirty minutes later, Nickayla’s dad comes barreling through the waiting room of the ER. His eyes scan the room, and besides Nickayla’s crew, there are only two other families here. He reaches his wife, and he leans down to kiss her on the forehead before he walks over to me. My heart starts pounding, and the fear from earlier triples. Mr. Quinn walks like he means business, even when he doesn’t. The minute he’s in front of me, I leap to my feet. Michele gets to her feet beside me, and I silently thank God for her.
Almost Everything (Nickayla Quinn Trilogy Book 2) Page 27