Authors: Katlyn Duncan
“Dammit,” I grumble and turn the wheel sharply before accelerating towards the hospital.
***
When I arrive at the hospital I am pointed towards a bank of elevators, leading to the third flood. The hallways of the hospital are off-white, reflecting the sallow fluorescent light. I reach a floor with observation rooms and stop at the desk with several nurses in front of computers.
“I’m looking for William Carson,” I say.
An older nurse doesn’t look up at me as she sifts through papers on her desk.
“Who are you?” she asks.
I massage the back of my neck, the twinge returning with a vengeance. “I’m his son.”
“Room 1132, around the corner there.” She points.
“Thanks,” I say, and trudge down the hall. My chest constricts when I reach the room. My hands ball into fists at my sides before I enter.
The room is designed for two people but the second bed is empty. A tall woman blocks Dad's face from my view. She writes something down in the chart then turns to me. “Are you family?”
“Yeah. His son.”
Her expression softens and she turns back to the machine next to him. Its steady beeping is a good sign. “He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, so the airbag struck his face and chest. We’re monitoring his lung function before we return him to Patriot Center.”
I round the bed and avoid his face. “What did he hit?”
She looks up at me with tired eyes. “A guard rail.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. I don't need him ruining anyone else’s life in addition to mine.
She clicks the top of her pen. “I’ll be back in an hour to check on him again.”
I nod and sit in the chair by the window.
She closes the curtain between us and the door. I take the private moment to look at him. His face is covered with bruises and several shallow cuts, but it's him. My eyes flick to the monitor again, watching the blinking numbers. I release a breath I've been holding since I received the phone call from Dr. Santos. I watch the slow rise and fall of his chest, rage building inside me. This could have been so much worse. I want him to wake up so I can scream at him for being a drunken fool. But I wait. I fuel my anger by opening up all of the memories I locked away, letting them out to breathe. Taking each one of them out like a stack of dusty photos and actually letting myself look at them before flipping to the next. I try to find a few moments of good between us, but those were few and far between since Mom left.
His hand twitches and I sit up in the chair, but his eyes remain closed. I count the beeps of the heart monitor as each second passes. High heels click across the floor outside the room and my head snaps up when they halt in front of the door. I can’t see who it is, until the curtain is pushed aside. And for the second time that night I’m thrown back into my past.
I stand up from the chair. “Mom?”
The only part of me that reflected any part of my mom was my eye color. It was the defining factor for the both of us. But instead of bright like I remembered, her's are rimmed with red. Her hair is shorter with grays at the root and her posture is stiff.
She doesn’t come closer to the bed, but I know she wants to.
“What are you doing here?” I ask defensively.
She moves forward slowly, as if I’m a rabid animal. “I could ask the same thing.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
She sighs. “Your father and I have been in touch lately.”
My gaze flicks down to her left hand. Her ring finger is weighed down by a large diamond that my dad did not give her. I know Mom cheated on Dad when he didn’t want to leave Spring Falls. They had different ideas of their future. She wanted to leave but he couldn’t leave his business. And when I came along, that caged bird yearned to be free.
“Don’t you have a new family to look after?” I spit.
“That’s unfair,” she warns.
I laugh sharply. “That’s unfair? You have no right to tell anyone what is fair. You left us, remember?”
“Will, that was years ago—”
“You did this to him.” My voice rings in my ears. “We would have been fine if you just divorced him like a normal person.”
Dad groans from the bed. “Will?”
His bloodshot eyes are slits.
“Yeah.”
He blinks a few times before speaking. “Well I’ll be. I guess it takes me almost dying to get a visit from you.”
“I’m selling the house,” I say.
He nods once. “Mabel told me.”
“What were you thinking?” I spit. “After all the money we put into your treatment you go and do this?”
“Will,” Mom warns.
“No!” I shout and turn back to him. “You’ve been wasting Mabel’s money keeping you up here and you’ve learned nothing. You’re the same as when I put you in here. You could have killed someone tonight.”
His jaw clenches. “I know.”
My hands are shaking and I take a steadying breath. “You know. Did you know we have to sell the house to pay off the bills to keep the ranch? That’s all on you.”
“Son—”
I back away from the bed, staring him down. “You have no right to call me that. You haven’t been a father in a long time.”
“That’s enough,” Mom interrupts.
I glare at her. “Don’t even get me started on you,” I say through gritted teeth. “This isn’t a happy family reunion. I’m out of here as soon as I can, and I don’t want to have any contact with either of you.”
Mom presses her lips together before speaking. “I already spoke to Mabel and I’ve offered to pay for the hospital bill.”
“We don’t need any favors,” I snap.
She tilts her head. “It’s not a favor. I just know you’re struggling—”
“I don’t want your money. Why the hell are you here anyway?”
“That’s enough,” Dad says, straining to sit up. The monitor's beeping picks up. “She’s been helping me over the past few months. We’ve met with a counselor to discuss our issues.”
“Well that seems to be going well,” I say, looking around the room. “I’m sure your husband is happy about that.”
Mom’s lips part and she looks at Dad. “Jason died a few months ago. Lung cancer.”
Shit
.
“Sorry,” I manage.
“We were able to settle our differences before he passed,” Dad interjects.
Behind Mom, the curtain moves to the side. Hadley stands there in obvious shock. “Will?” she asks in a small voice. “What are you doing here?”
Ethan moves into view.
Hadley’s eyes are red-rimmed like Mom's. Those eyes dart around the room first to me, then Dad. She shakes her head, closing her eyes as if she doesn’t believe what she’s seeing.
“Hadley?” Mom says in disbelief.
My skin prickles, overwhelmed. The room closes in around me and I head for the door. I take Hadley’s hand and pull her from the room. Ethan moves out of the way as we pass. I hear Mom say something to him but the sound is muffled under the roar in my ears. I nearly crash into some girl sitting outside the room.
I mutter an apology and continue down the hall until we reach the corner. I let go of Hadley's hand and move to the other side of the hallway, needing distance.
“Why are you here?” I say, leftover anger palpable in my voice.
“We got a call from some rehab center. Savannah told me your dad was dead. So I thought it had to be you. And the way you got into the car before I just—I just thought— I thought the worst.”
“My phone wasn’t charged.”
She nods. “But why did Savannah tell me your dad was dead? She’s ditzy but I don’t think—”
“I told her he was dead. It was easier.”
Her mouth drops open. “What was easier?”
I lean against the opposite wall, unable to meet her eyes. I could lie. God knows I'm good at it. But almost everything was out there. Mom and Dad seem okay with being open, why wouldn’t that stretch to Hadley and Ethan. I'm the only one who can tell her the truth about why I left.
I let a slow breath out through my teeth. “After Mom left, Dad started drinking. A lot. And because of his business I took it upon myself to help cover it up.” I risk a glance at her. Her arms are crossed but her attention is on me. “He was only violent with me a few times but the last time I put him in rehab.”
“The night you left?”
I nod slowly. “I did it to protect our family. I went to live with Mabel after that. It was the only way to keep his secret.”
Her eyebrows knit together. “Why couldn’t you tell me that? It’s not a big deal.”
“It
is
a big deal,” I snap. “Everyone tells me I’m exactly like him. I couldn’t deal with that baggage up here. It’s bad enough being here now and having people remind me.”
“Everyone has baggage.”
I snort. “You don’t have baggage.” I regret the words the second I say them.
She recoils. “Excuse me?”
I rub the back of my neck. “Hadley, you have everything going for you. A great family and a future you’ve always dreamed of. Don’t pretend you understand what this feels like.”
Her eyes glisten. “I might not have a broken family but I know what it’s like to be broken inside. To have my best friend shatter me into some fractured version of myself. You broke my heart Will.” She swipes at tears streaming from her eyes. I should go to her but I can’t move.
I scrub a hand over my face. “I’m sorry. This is my problem and I have to deal with it on my own. I won’t apologize for that.”
Her hands drop to her sides. “So that’s it? You’re taking the job, aren’t you?”
“I have to.”
She nods slowly.
My hands close into fists at my sides. “I need to pay the hospital bill and like you said, this has an expiration date.”
She steps back until her back hits the wall. “Like I said.”
Her disappointment stings. I can’t look at her. “I should get back.”
Her gaze lowers. “Okay.”
I round the corner and head back to the room and towards a different future. One that will take some getting used to, but it's for the best.
Ethan asks for his sister and I tell him where she is. He claps a hand on my back and leaves the room.
Mom sits in a chair next to Dad, her hands resting in her lap.
I meet Dad’s eyes, which are more alert then they had been a few minutes ago. “It’s nice you kept in contact with the Beaumans.”
“Yeah,” I respond. I hear footsteps outside of the room but I don’t turn around. God knows if I see her again I might just chase after her.
Hadley
“Hadley?” Ethan says, appearing from the corner.
“I’m here.” My voice cracks. Everything changed with one conversation. Everything this summer changed within the blink of an eye. I'm grateful that Will is alive and I am so happy to see his father still alive. I'm not sure why his mother is involved but I can't wrap my head around my own relationship, never mind that twisted one.
He touches my shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, staring at the ceiling, willing gravity to suck my unshed tears back into my head. I don't need a barrage of questions from Ethan. Not now. “I think we should give them some privacy.”
Ethan nods.
We pass the room where Will and his family are, the same girl I saw before sits in a chair outside of the room. She glances up at me, but I focus on the end of the hallway.
Ethan puts his arm around my shoulders and I rest my head against his chest as we walk. I promised myself I wouldn’t let Will break me again and, even though it feels like I will, I reach inside for the strength I had after a year of pining for him. Less than a few hours ago I told him to go and he was just doing what I asked. I won't do what his father did to his mother and keep him somewhere he doesn't want to be. I wonder if that is even the truth. After him keeping his father’s habits a secret, what else has he kept from me? I can't talk to Ethan about it, even though he knows Will and I were together.
I text Lily again but I get no response. “Can you drop me at Lily’s?”
***
We pull up to Lily’s house less than an hour later. There aren’t any cars in the driveway but I know where the hide-a-key is for the basement door. I get out of the car.
Ethan leans over the seat. “Do you want me to wait for you?”
I shake my head, but stop when I notice Carter’s car parked in the street. What is he doing here? Ethan follows my gaze and his narrows.
“Yeah, wait here.”
I’m across the lawn before I realize my legs are moving. There must be a perfectly good explanation for Carter being here. We used to all hang out there late when we were dating. Her brothers had a loose policy on us hanging in their space and playing video games.
The basement door is unlocked. I open the door but pause on the threshold, my heart hammering in my chest. I open the door slowly and the sounds I expect to hear aren’t playing in the background. No ping pong balls hitting the table or electronic video game noises from the television. The light near the stairs is on so I feel safer instead of rooting through the basement in the dark.
Something moves over by the couch and I let out a small squeal, jumping back. I hit the ping pong table with my hip and it slides a few inches. I reach up, knowing there is a light somewhere above me. I find the string and pull.
My muscles go rigid as I focus on the people in front of me. Lily’s body is crushed against the couch by Carter. Her shirt is hitched above her bra and she shoves it down into place. Carter’s eyes are wider than hers but there’s an all around shock factor going on. She scoots out from under him and he wordlessly sits back on his knees.
“What are you doing?” My hands are numb and my legs tremble slightly.
“Why are you here?” Lily asks, smoothing her shirt down over her stomach.
I lift my phone. “You didn’t—” I can’t finish the thought with the image of them burned in my mind.
She picks up her phone from the coffee table, knocking over an empty bottle of beer and flips off the mute button. “Sorry.”
“Sorry for what? Not picking up your phone or for doing this?” I wave my hand at them. “How could you?”
“We’re not together anymore,” Carter interjects.
“But my best friend?” I turn to Lily. “You were the one to tell me to let him go and here you are scooping him up. Was that your plan the whole time? Taking my sloppy seconds?”