While I Was Away(85)

A road on some level in hell.

“Please don't let him die,” she whispered, burying her face in the stranger's sweater. “He can't die.”

“Shhh,” he hushed her. “Just take deep breaths and you'll be okay. You'll get through this. Just think of it as ... as a bad dream. A bad dream, and you'll wake up soon, and it'll be like it never happened.”

She almost laughed. A total stranger talking to her about dreams. This wasn't chance. This wasn't happenstance. This was meant to happen, and there was nothing she could do to change it. Nothing she could do to stop it. Nothing she could do to take it back.

... but there was something she could do for Jones.

“I'll be there,” she whispered. “We can be back in our place and you won't be scared and I won't be alone and we can just exist in the now forever.”

She believed that. She really did. She had to.

Because she knew he believed it, too.





37




Adele hobbled to one end of the hall. Stared at her reflection in the vending machine. Then she hobbled her way back to the other end. Counted the letters on a poster about washing hands. Then she did the circuit over and over again.

By the time Charlie showed up at the hospital, she was fairly proficient on her crutches.

“Oh my god,” he gasped the moment he saw her.

“It's not as bad as it looks, it's just a – oof!”

The air rushed out of her lungs as he swept her up into a big hug. When he finally sat her down again, he held her at arm's length.

“When you called and said you were in the hospital,” he sighed. “I almost had a fucking heart attack.”

“I told you it was just a sprain,” she reminded him, and she held out her foot for his inspection.

It was definitely swollen, and it was all swaddled in a hot pink bandage, but she'd been assured that she'd be walking on her own again in no time. The crutches had only been given to her because she'd refused to stay seated for any length of time – a concerned nurse had fetched some for her after watching her limp around the halls.

“So,” Charlie started, always the pragmatic. “What exactly happen?”

Adele should've called her brothers, she knew. Would catch hell for not calling them first. And she would call them eventually, she really would. Soon. Very soon.

But from the moment she'd arrived at the hospital, she'd known it was Charlie she'd be asking to come help her. Her brothers were amazing, they loved her and they looked out for her and they took great care of her.

Charlie, though, was the only person who could truly understand her in this situation. He was the only one who'd gone through it before. Her brothers, they'd had to deal with an injured sister. Charlie'd had to deal with an injured lover.

Sure, technically they'd broken up right before the accident, but still, there had been a certain kind of love between them. They'd shared their hopes and dreams and hearts with each other, once upon a time, and then he'd had to watch her waste away right before his eyes.

And from everything she'd heard, he'd handled the whole situation with relative grace and strength. Adele would need grace for what was coming, she would need strength. She would need someone who knew how she felt.

She would need a friend.

“Let's sit down,” she sighed, and she led him back to the plastic chair she'd become so familiar with over the last couple hours.

She glossed over the accident, deciding to spare Charlie the gory details – he already had PTSD from their car crash, he didn't need to hear a play-by-play of hers.

Our car crash, my car crash. I'm never getting in a fucking car again.

Instead, Adele focused on Jones and everything the doctors had told her so far.

“He hit his head,” she spoke slowly and clearly. “Most likely when the Honda hit us, it smacked right into his side. He seemed fine to me, at first, but he already knew.”

Charlie's hand found hers and squeezed it tight.

“We don't have to talk about this now if you don't want to,” he said softly, but she shook her head.

“He fractured his skull – he knew something was wrong, almost right away. He told me to tell the paramedics to be careful with his head. The doctors said the fracture wasn't too bad, but his brain probably started to swell almost immediately after the accident. He was unconscious when the paramedics pulled him out of the wreck, and he hasn't woken up since.”

“Jesus.”

“They had him in the ER for a long time,” Adele's voice started to shake, so she took a deep breath. “They had to shave his head, and I think drill? Or do surgery? I didn't catch it all. They kept him under observation down there for a while, and then they finally moved him up here to ICU. I've been waiting for them to let me in.”

“Why did you wait so long to call anybody?” Charlie asked, but his tone wasn't accusatory at all. Just concerned.

“First I was dealing with my foot, then I had to hunt for information about Jones – thank god they brought him to his hospital and I know a lot of nurses here,” she snorted. “Or I wouldn't know anything. After they explained it all to me, someone had to call his father.”

“Oh, god, Adele, you didn't.”