Changing Course (Wrecked and Ruined #1)(41)

"You must think I'm a complete idiot. I spoke to her!" I shout to prove to him, and myself, that there is no getting past this.

"Where's your computer?" he asks oddly.

"I don't have one."

"You're a college student and you don't have a computer?"

"Are you here to make fun of me now? Add insult to injury? No, I don't have a computer. My old one broke, and I didn’t have the money to replace it. I work in a coffee shop, and I figured rent was a little more important than a new computer," I say sharply.

"I'm not making fun of you. Stop getting so defensive. I told you, I would never laugh at you. I meant it."

"Yeah, well you told me a lot of things that weren't true, so please excuse me for not believing you now."

"Jess, I want to show you something. Where is your phone? Sarah wouldn't give me mine back, and I didn't have the time to fight with her about it. I wanted to get over here and make sure you were okay. Which, you obviously are not."

"You need to leave."

"Where is your phone?" he repeats, not at all phased by my stern command.

"On the table." I give in, punctuating it with a huff as he walks across the room retrieving my phone. He hands it to me and steps away, careful not to invade my personal space.

"Type this into Google: ‘Sarah Sharp Manda Baker April 2009,’” he instructs.

Willing to momentarily humor him, I open the Internet browser on my phone and do a quick search. I'm floored by the number of articles that pop up. First about Manda's death and the investigation into who was driving the car. Then there were several articles about Sarah’s attempted suicide covered by the local news. There was even a picture of Brett covered head to toe in blood, wrapped in Caleb's arms while standing on the front porch of a small white house.

"Brett," I whisper. Not sure what any of this proves about our current situation, but I feel horrible for the tragedy these two men experienced. A single tear escapes my eye, and for the first time in hours it’s not for myself.

"Are you ready to listen now, gorgeous?" He steps back towards me. He barely drags his fingertips over my neck, while gently brushing my hair off my shoulder. The graze of his gentle fingers sends chills all the way down my spine. It's something so common, but the way he does it makes it intimate.

"I'll listen, but I can't promise I'll believe you."

"You'll believe me. I won't accept it any other way."

"Then tell me about Sarah before I lose my nerve."

"Sarah and I met when we were twenty-one, and I was lucky enough to keep her for seven years before I lost her one tragic night in a car accident on 290. She, and her best friend Manda, wrapped their car around a tree on the way home from dinner. To this day, no one is sure who was driving. Sarah can't remember anything about the accident. They were both thrown from the car, but Manda was killed on impact. Sarah was unconscious afterward, but eventually escaped with just some pretty serious cuts and bruises. Or at least that was the way it looked at the time.

“It wasn't more than a few hours after the accident that I noticed something wasn't right with her. She hated me as if I had done something to cause the wreck. See, Caleb and I got called away from dinner to close up a case. They were laughing and eating pizza when we left. So full of life. I never would have left if I had known it was the last time I'd ever see my wife. I'm not talking about Sarah, I've seen her a lot since that night. But I never saw my wife again.

"At first I felt like maybe she was harboring some bitterness towards me for leaving them that night, but within days of coming home from the hospital, it was obvious that something more was going on with her. She wouldn't even sleep in our bed. I had to go out and buy a whole new bedroom set for our guest room, just to keep her under the same roof with me. A month later, she tried to kill herself."

I take in a deep breath as his voice painfully cracks. I'm not sure I want to hear the rest of this story after seeing Brett covered in blood in the picture online. The pain of his memories is etched in his face as he continues. "She took every pill we had in the house. If I hadn't found her when I did that night, she would have been successful.

"She thankfully made it to the hospital in time to avoid any permanent damage to her body. Even knowing the way she had become after the accident, I was unwilling to accept that my Sarah would have done that to herself. I became a madman on a mission, demanding answers from everyone who even walked into the room. The doctors, for the longest time, said that it was guilt eating her away, but she just refused to talk to anyone. I knew it was more than that though. Even her taste in food changed. She just became a different person.

"I beat down the door of every doctor in town trying to get someone to help me get my wife back. In the end, one doctor finally diagnosed her with Post-Concussion Syndrome, as a result of her head injury after being thrown from the car. There is no cure or treatment for PCS, so he just sent us along on our merry little dysfunctional way. But at least we had something. After that, all of her doctors started taking her issues a little more seriously.

“Over the seven months after the accident, she tried to kill herself a total of three times. Each time, the method she used became more drastic. The last time she sliced open what seemed like every inch of her body with a kitchen knife." He looks down at the ground, intertwining his fingers, and resting them on top of his head. I could see the effort it was taking him to keep it together during this story. It was heartbreaking to hear this level of devastation, but worse to watch him relive it.