Crashed(book three)(68)

… If it’s in the cards …

More memories graze my mind, but I can’t reach them or see them long enough to hold on to the f*ckers.

… Your superheroes finally came …

I push the memories back, push them down into the blackness. I’m so f*cking useless right now. As much as I need to remember, I’m not sure if I can handle them. I’ve always been a balls-to-the-wall kind of guy, but right now I need motherf*cking baby steps. Crawl before you walk and all that shit.

I close my eyes to try and make the room stop the f*cking Tilt-A-Whirl it’s become.

Thwack!

And another flash of a memory hits me. Five minutes ago I couldn’t remember shit and now I can’t f*cking forget. Fuck being broken or bent, I’m a motherf*cking scrap yard of parts right now.

Breathe, Donavan. Fucking breathe.

Thwack!

I’m alive. Whole. Present.

Thwack!

I take in a couple of deep breaths, sweat staining the carpet as it pours off of me. I struggle to sit up, to piece together the parts of me scattered all over the f*cking place to no avail, because it’s gonna take a whole hell of a lot more than a torch to weld me back the f*ck together.

And it hits me like a motherf*cking freight train what I need to do right now. I’m on the move. If I were more coherent, I’d laugh at my naked ass crawling across the floor to reach the television’s remote, at how f*cking low I’ve stooped.

But I don’t give a flying f*ck because I’m so goddamn desperate.

To find myself again.

To control the one fear I can control.

To confront the memories and take their power away.

To not be a f*cking victim.

Ever.

Again.

I reach the remote with more effort than it usually takes me to run my typical five miles, and I’ve only crawled ten f*cking feet. I’m weak as f*ck right now in so many ways I can’t even count them. I’m out of f*cking breath and the jackhammer is back to work in my head. I finally reach my bed and I push myself on my ass so I can prop my back against the footboard.

Because it’s time I face one of the two fears that dominate my dreams.

I aim the remote at the television, push the button, and it sparks to life. It takes me a minute to focus, my eyes have trouble making my double vision merge. My f*cking fingers are like Jell-O, and it takes me a few tries to hit the right buttons, to find the recording on the DVR.

It takes every f*cking ounce of everything I have to watch my car slingshot into the smoke.

To not look away as Jameson’s car slams into mine. Lighting the short fuse on a fireworks display.

To remember to f*cking breathe as it—the car, me—flies through the smoke-filled air.

To not cringe at the sickening sound and sight of me hitting the catch fence.

To watch the car shred to pieces.

Disintegrate around me.

Barrel roll like throwing a f*cking Hot Wheels down the stairs.

And the only time I allow myself to look away is when I throw up.





Expectation vibrates and contentment flows through me as I drive the sun drenched highway back to Colton’s house, back to what I’ve been calling home for the past week. A silent tiptoe within a monumental step of our relationship.


It’s just out of necessity. Not because he wants me to stay with him for an unspecified period of time. Right?

My heart is lighter after spending my first twenty-four hour shift in over three weeks with the boys. I can’t help but smile, recalling Colton’s self-sacrifice to get me out of the house and to the boys without a paparazzi entourage. As I was behind the wheel of the Range Rover and its heavily tinted windows, Colton opened the gate on his driveway and walked right out into the media frenzy, drawing all of the attention on himself. And as the vultures descended, I drove out the other side and left without anybody tailing me.