Crashed(book three)(137)

“The vessels attaching her to the baby severed somehow—they’re trying to determine everything right now—but she lost a lot of blood. She’s getting transfusions now to help with—”

“Is she awake?” My mind can’t process what she just said. I hear baby, blood, transfusion. “I didn’t hear you say she’s going to be okay, because I need to hear you say she’s going to be f*cking okay!” I shout at her as everything in my life comes crashing down around me, like I’m back in the f*cking race car, but this time I’m not sure what parts I’m going to be able to piece back together … and that more than anything scares the f*ck out of me.

“Yes,” she says softly, that soothing voice of hers makes me want to shake her like an Etch A Sketch until I get a little more assurance. Until I erase what’s there and create the perfect f*cking picture that I want. “We’ve given her some meds to help with the pain of the D & C, and once she gets some more blood transfused, she should be in a lot better state, physically.”

I have no f*cking clue what she just said, but I cling onto the words I understand: she’s going to be okay. I hang my head back into my hands and push my heels into my eyes so I don’t cry, because any relief I feel isn’t real until I can see her, touch her, feel her.

She squeezes my knee again and speaks. “I’m so sorry. The baby didn’t make it.”

I don’t know what I expected her to say because my heart knew the truth even though my head hadn’t quite grasped it yet. But her words stop the world spinning beneath my feet and I can’t breathe, can’t draw in any air. I shove myself to my feet and stagger a few feet one way and then turn to go the other way, completely overwhelmed by the buzzing in my ears.

“Colton!” I hear my dad, but I just shake my head and bend over as I try to catch my breath. I bring my hands to my head as if holding it is going to stop the turmoil bashing around inside of it. “Colton.”

I push my hands out in front of me gesturing for him to back the f*ck off. “I need a f*cking pit stop!” I say to him as I see my hands again—the blood of something I created that was a part of Rylee and me—saint and sinner—on my hands.

Untouched innocence.

And I feel it happen, feel something shatter inside of me—the hold the demons have held over my soul for the last twenty-something-years—just like the mirror in that goddamn dive bar the night Rylee told me she loved me. Two moments in time where the one thing I never wanted to happen, happens and yet … I can’t help but feel, can’t help but wonder why hints of possibilities creep into my mind when I knew then and know now this just can’t be. This is something I never, ever wanted. And yet everything I’ve ever known has changed somehow.

And I don’t know what this means just yet.

Only how it feels: different, liberated, incomplete—f*cking terrifying.

My stomach turns and my throat clogs with so many emotions, so many feelings that I can’t even begin to process this new reality. All I can do to keep from losing my f*cking sanity is focus on the one thing I know that can be helped right now.

Rylee.

I can’t catch my breath and my heart’s pounding like a f*cking freight train, but all I can think of is Rylee. All I want, all I need, is f*cking Rylee.

“Colton.” It’s my dad’s hands on my shoulders again—the hands that have held me in my darkest hours—trying to help me break away from this f*cking darkness trying to pull me back into its clutches. “Talk to me, son. What’s going through your head?”