Crashed(book three)(141)

He’s at my side in an instant, face etched with pain and eyes a war of unfathomable emotions. He reaches out to comfort me and hesitates when he sees my gaze flicker down and focus through my tear blurred vision on the stains of his shirt. Within a flash, he has his jacket off and his shirt over his head, throwing them into the chair before wrapping his arms around me, pulling me into him.

The ugly tears start now. Huge, ragged, hitching sobs that rack through my body as he holds onto me—completely at a loss for what to do to make it better—and lets me cry. His hands move up and down my back as he whispers hushed words that don’t really break through my haze of disbelieved grief.

And there are so many things I feel all at once that I can’t pick a single one out to hold onto. I’m confused, scared, devastated, hollow, shocked, safe, and I feel like so many things have been forever altered.

For me.

Between us.

Hopes, dreams, wants, that were ripped away from me and predetermined by a fate that I never got a say in. And the tears continue to fall as I realize what I’ve lost again. What hopes might just be a possibility I never expected to be able to get back.

And all the while Colton laces my tear stained face with kisses, over and over, trying to replace the pain with compassion, grief with love. He leans his head back and his eyes fuse with mine. We sit there for a moment, eyes saying so many things and lips saying nothing. But the worst part is, besides utter relief, I can’t get a read on what his are telling me.

The only thing I know for sure is that he’s just as lost and confused as I am, but deep down, I fear he feels this way for the exact opposite reason I do.

“Hey,” he says softly as a soft smile tugs up the corner of his mouth. I can feel his hands tremble slightly. “You scared the shit out of me, Ryles.”

“Sorry. Are you okay?” My voice sounds sleepy, sluggish.

Colton looks down and shakes his head with a stilted laugh. “You’re the one in the hospital bed and you ask me if I’m okay?” When he looks up I see the tears welling in his eyes. “Rylee, I …” He stops and blows out a breath, his voice swamped with emotion.

And before he can say anything further there is a knock on the door jamb. It’s Dr. Andrews asking if it’s okay for her to return. Neither of us even realized she had left because we were so absorbed in one another.

“Are you ready for your answers?”

I nod at her, hesitant and yet needing to know. Colton releases me momentarily—the loss of his touch startling to me—as he puts his arms through his sweatshirt. He comes back to take my hand in his as she walks back over to the side of the bed and sighs. “Well, unfortunately nothing I can tell you is concrete because we only had the aftermath of everything to try and piece together. Now that you’re a little more coherent than when we first met, do you mind telling me what you remember?”

My head feels like I’m swimming underwater but I go through everything I remember, up to sitting on the bathroom floor and then nothing until I was here. She nods and makes some notes on her iPad. “You’re very lucky Colton found you when he did. You’d lost quite a lot of blood and by the time you reached us you were going into hypovolemic shock.”

There are so many questions I want to ask her … so many unknowns my mind is still processing. I glance over at Colton and hesitate to ask the question I want answered the most because of everything we went through with Tawny. So I opt for another one that’s been nagging at my mind.

“How far along was I?” My voice is soft and Colton holds my hand tight. The idea that I’d ever even get to ask those words strikes me to the core. I was carrying a baby. A baby. My chin quivers as I try desperately not to cry again.