This Girl (Slammed #3)(49)

They were all dead.

I turned around and I walked out. I didn’t want to be in there. I had to go outside. I couldn’t breathe. When I reached the grass across from the parking lot, I fell to my knees. I didn’t cry. Instead, I became physically ill. Over and over, my stomach repelling the truth that I refused to believe. When there was nothing left in me, I fell backward onto the grass and stared up at the sky, the stars staring back at me. Millions of stars staring back at the whole world. A world where parents die and brothers die and nothing stops to respect that fact. The whole universe just goes and goes as if nothing has happened, even when one person’s entire life is forced to a complete halt.

I closed my eyes and thought about him. It had been two weeks since I had spoken to him on the phone. I had promised him I’d come up the next weekend to take him to his football game. That was the same weekend Vaughn begged me not to go. She said midterms were in two weeks and we needed to spend time together before then. So, I called Caulder and canceled my trip. That was the last time I had talked to him.

The last time I would ever talk to him.

“Will?”

I looked up after hearing my grandfather’s voice and he was standing over me, looking down. “Will, are you okay?” he asked, wiping fresh tears from his defeated eyes. I hated seeing that look in his eyes.

I didn’t move. I just lay there in the grass, looking up at him, not wanting him to say anything else. I didn’t want to hear it.

“Will . . . they . . .”

“I know,” I said quickly, not wanting to hear the words come out of his mouth.

He nodded and looked away. “Your grandmother wants . . .”

“I know,” I said louder.

“Maybe you should come . . .”

“I don’t want to.”

And I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to set foot back inside that hospital. Back inside the building that now housed the three of them. Lifeless.

“Will, you need to come . . .”

“I don’t want to!” I screamed.

My grandfather—my poor grandfather just nodded and sighed. What else could he have done? What else could he have said? My entire life had just been ripped from me and I wasn’t about to listen to reassurances from nurses or doctors or clergymen or even my grandparents. I didn’t want to hear it.

My grandfather hesitantly took a few steps away from me, leaving me alone in the grass. Before heading back inside, he turned around one last time.

“It’s just that Caulder has been asking for you. He’s scared. So when you’re ready . . .”

I immediately snapped my head in his direction. “Caulder?” I said. “Caulder’s not . . .”

My grandfather immediately shook his head. “No, son. No. Caulder’s fine.”

It wasn’t until those words came out of his mouth that everything hit me all at once. My chest swelled and the heat rose to my face, then my eyes. I pulled my hands to my forehead and I rolled onto my knees, my elbows buried in the grass, and I completely lost it. Sounds came from deep within me that I didn’t even know I was capable of. I cried harder than I’ve ever cried before—harder than I’ve cried since. I sat on the lawn of that hospital and I cried tears of joy, because Caulder was okay.

“Are you okay?” Julia asks, breaking me out of my trance.

I nod, trying to push back the memories of that day. “I’m fine.”

She readjusts her position on the couch and sighs. “I don’t want her to have to raise Kel,” she says. “Lake needs the chance to live her own life. I’d never burden her like that.”

“Julia,” I say, speaking confidently from experience, “it would burden her not to have him.” Not having the choice to raise Kel would kill Lake. Just like it killed me when I thought I’d lost Caulder. It would absolutely devastate her.

Julia doesn’t respond, indicating I may have crossed my boundaries with that comment. We both sit quietly on the couch for a while. I feel like neither of us has anything else to say, so I stand up.

“I’ll take the boys somewhere this afternoon. I’ll make sure Layken wakes up before I go so you guys will have time to talk.”

“Thank you,” she says, smiling a genuine smile at me. It feels good. I respect Julia’s opinion and having her disappointed in me feels almost as bad as when Lake is disappointed in me.

I nod, then turn and leave. I make my way back inside the house and back into the bedroom where Lake is still sleeping. I ease onto the bed at her side and take a seat.

“Lake,” I whisper, trying to wake her successfully this time.

She doesn’t move, so I pull the covers off her head. She groans and pulls them back up.

“Lake, wake up.”

She kicks her legs, then throws the covers off. It’s well past lunchtime and she acts like she could sleep twelve more hours. She opens her eyes and squints, then finds me sitting next to her. She’s got mascara smeared underneath her eyes, some of which is still on my pillowcase. Her hair is in disarray. Her ponytail holder is on the sheet beside her. She looks like hell. A beautiful hell.

“You really aren’t a morning person,” I say.

She sits up on the bed. “Bathroom. Where’s your bathroom?”

I point to the bathroom across the hall and watch as she leaps off the bed and darts for the door. She’s definitely awake now, but I can almost guarantee she needs coffee.