Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 42549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 213(@200wpm)___ 170(@250wpm)___ 142(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 213(@200wpm)___ 170(@250wpm)___ 142(@300wpm)
I nodded slowly, because what else could I do? Taking a minute to wash my face, I followed her back to the chapel.
________
He didn’t get out of surgery until nine the next morning. It was a success, in that he was still alive. We wouldn’t know about brain damage until he woke up.
If he woke up.
I stayed at the hospital with Renee and her husband until late afternoon. That’s when Shanda came looking for me.
“Let me take you home,” she said. “You need a shower and some rest.”
“Will you be all right?” I asked Renee. She nodded, her eyes heavy.
“Get some sleep,’’ she replied softly. “I’ll call you if anything changes.”
Thankfully, Shanda seemed to understand that I needed quiet so she didn’t pester me with questions as we drove. We pulled into the trailer park around six p.m., and I saw a motorcycle in front of my house.
Boonie.
He was waiting on the porch, his face shadowed. I got out of the car and walked over to him.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
We studied each other, and for once I didn’t feel any kind of attraction. I didn’t feel anything at all—I was hollow. Used up.
Exhausted.
“I heard about Allie,” he said quietly. “Bad shit.”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice catching. “Farell’s in rough shape, too. They don’t know when he’ll wake up, or whether he’ll ever walk again. I guess it’s pretty unlikely. It was a bad accident.”
“So you were with his family . . . What does that mean?’’
I shrugged, wishing I had an answer.
“I have no idea,” I replied softly. “I don’t know what to think about any of it. I’m just so tired . . .
“And us?”
His eyes bore through me, black as coal. I studied him, remembering how he’d felt deep inside me. It’d been good. The best I’d ever had, that was for sure. But what did having sex together really mean? He’d slept with half the senior girls this past year.
“So you’re leaving tomorrow?’’ I asked after a long pause. He nodded.
“Yeah, I have to be at the Spokane airport by five in the morning.”
“Wow.”
“You need to sleep,” he said finally. I blinked. He was right—I did.
“You want to come inside?” I asked. “My dad’s home, but he won’t care.”
He probably wouldn’t notice. Between the beer and the painkillers, he’d turned into a permanent lump in front of the TV. Boonie nodded, standing and reaching out his hand. I took it, then led him to my bedroom, where we collapsed together on my twin-sized bed. I’d like to say we made sweet love all night, or that we talked and it was beautiful and special.
The truth is that I passed out in his arms and didn’t wake up for fourteen hours. By the time I stumbled out of bed he was gone, but I found a note. He’d promised to write to me.
I took a shower and went back to the hospital.
________
FOUR DAYS LATER
“He wants to talk to you privately,” Marcus told me, his eyes weary. Farell had been in a medically induced coma since the accident to let his brain heal. They’d woken him that morning, but I’d had to work and couldn’t be there. I’d come over right after finishing my shift, still wearing my uniform.
Glancing toward the ICU door, I swallowed. I felt like a giant phony, waiting at the hospital like I had a right to be here. Renee seemed to appreciate it so much, though, and even Marcus looked happy to see me.
I couldn’t understand it at first. Then Shanda pointed out that I was more than someone to sit with in the waiting room. I was a living, breathing tie to their son.
It was a lot of pressure.
Now I found myself walking into Farell’s room, wondering why the hell I was putting myself through this. He lay on the bed, hardly looking like himself. Between the bruises, the tubes, and the casts, he could’ve been an extra on a hospital drama.
His eyes opened as I sat beside him carefully.
“Darcy?” he asked in a rough, painful whisper. “Are you really here? I’ve been having dreams . . .”
“It’s me,” I said, blinking back tears. Fuck. I still cared about him—I’d come to that unwelcome realization after the second day of sitting in the hospital. Guess that’s one of life’s little jokes.
Feelings don’t just turn off.
“I talked to Bryce earlier,” he said. “I don’t remember graduation at all, or the accident. Dad told me Allie Stockwell is dead”—his voice broke—“and that I was driving the car. I killed her, Darcy. I was drunk.”
I cleared my throat, blinking rapidly.
“Yeah, that’s what happened.”
“He also told me we broke up right before it happened. I don’t remember any of this.”
I reached for a tissue, wiping at my eyes.
“Let’s not talk about that right now.”
“No,” he said, and while his voice was weak, his gaze on my face was strong. “Tell me. I need to know what happened. Nobody will tell me anything. They’re all trying to protect me, but I really need to know what I did.”