Jacked (Trent Brothers #1)(65)

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said as passively as possible, adding the sympathetic smile they taught us to use when delivering such news. It felt as though a sledgehammer hit me in the chest. A bit of anger welled at his spurious sympathy.

Sorry? You’re sorry? No, you’re not! You’re only saying that because you have to, you liar!

“Oh Erin.” My mom reached for me, pulling me out of my momentary swirl and into her arms, back into reality.

Oh God, is this the way other families feel when I tell them that their loved one has died?

She crammed her nose near my neck and I felt her body shake with each sob, finding my own lifeline and renewed sense of strength and purpose in this tragedy. “I’m so sorry, Mom. So sorry. You’ll be okay. Shhh. It’s okay.”

Father Connolly, the elderly Catholic priest who baptized every one of us, interrupted with his condolences.

I’d heard the familiar Bible passage he had read recited hundreds of times before inside this hospital, but tonight, surrounded by the people I love the most in the world, the psalm had torn through me like a knife through tissue paper.

I held my sobbing mother while my father’s arms encircled us both, and let the pain and tears have at me.





I’D NEVER LOST a family member before, well, not counting my grandpa on my dad’s side, but he had passed when I was young. The sorrow from losing someone you love was like a vortex of utter agony, pulling on my body so hard that it was difficult to walk back to the ER. My legs felt heavy, weighed down from the onslaught of emotional upheaval.

How would my cousins go on? Both of their parents—gone—just like that. No fair warning. No red flags. No months of mental preparation during a long-term illness. Thoughts of the day when my parents would depart this earth welled on top of the suffocating overload, making me miss them and fear the inevitable all at the same time.

I trudged past an exam room where a trauma team was tending to a patient. Fluids, chest compressions, orders being called out. Machines slowly beeped and hissed, while scrub-clad bodies rushed around me. The dread was turning into numbness. I felt internally abandoned.

I have to get out of here. I have to cancel meeting Tommy. Why can’t I stop crying?

“Erin,” the disembodied voice called out but it sounded muffled, distant, as though a figment of a possible delusion.

I was startled by the realization that there was a person blocking my way. My thoughts had to reroute themselves to realize that it was a woman, then they took a few extra beats to remember why this particular human with blonde hair irritated me so much. “I want you to know Randy and I are seeing each other now. I’m being up front with you so you don’t cause problems for us.”

“By the look of you, I guess you’ve heard,” Mandy said.

Confusion rippled. Was she upset that she wasn’t the first one to tell me that my uncle had just died?

“I figured you’d be disappointed but I didn’t think you’d be this much of an emotional mess. God, look at you. You know things like this aren’t within Randy’s control. You can’t blame him for what the board decides. I just hope you don’t make things, well, difficult for him.”

I felt dizzy, confused, caught in a cacophony of machine tones, alternating chimes, and a high-pitched ringing in both of my ears. “Wait. What?”

Mandy gapped at me as if I were stupid. For a moment, I was; at least I was oblivious to the point she was trying to make. Raw instinct was telling me to ignore her bullshit and just punch her. I’d dreamt about hitting her numerous times, even plotted when and how so I could get away with it, but no matter how many times I’d entertained the thoughts I just wasn’t the violent type.

“The fellowship?” she tossed back.

I wiped a tear from my face. Damn she was annoying. “What fellowship?”

Mandy rolled her eyes. “You know. The one that you and Randy have been fighting over? I presume that’s why you’re crying. You’ve probably heard that Doctor Lawson told Randy that the fellowship is his. I hope you’ll be an adult about this. He’s worked just as hard for it, Erin. You know he has.”

The meaning of her words hit me like a wrecking ball. “My fellowship?” The fellowship I’ve worked my entire career for? The singular goal I’ve had in my sights since I was sixteen years old?

Mandy narrowed her beady little brown eyes on me. “It’s not your fellowship. Not anymore. Just…,” she huffed. “Look, I don’t expect you to be pleasant. Just please try not to be a total bitch to him. That’s all I ask, okay?” Her lips twisted. She pointed at my eye. “You may want to put some ice on that. It looks pretty nasty.”

I felt gut-punched. Gutted to the core. Unable to breathe. Unable to think. My vision distorted.

As I watched her shadow walk away, everything I’ve ever wanted, including my sanity and direction in life, left with her.

I grabbed for the wall, for something, scraping my nails on the wood trim.

“Doctor Novak!” a nurse called out as she jogged toward me, passing the retreating soul-stealer. Blue smears blurred into the medicinal white walls. Florescent lights streaked through the images, casting an eerie shadow over everything.

Gone. Everything. He’s gone. It’s gone. Everything—Gone. Oh, God.