But it’s not coming to the track. It drives straight past, slowing at the next driveway over. My house.
“Oh god,” I choke. Tears fill my eyes and I look over at Ash, who is just as horrified as I am. My legs fly into action and I run toward the bridge. Ash calls my name, says something about taking his truck, but I don’t really hear it. My feet pound into the grass and sprint across the bridge, where the cries and shouts are louder now. I recognize the voice and know that Molly is okay. Then I hear Teig shouting something to the EMTs, and I know that he is also okay.
I reach the back door and throw it open, nearly crashing into a paramedic as I barge into the
house. Molly looks like an escaped lunatic, her eyes wide and her hair a mess. Teig gnaws on his bottom lip, his hands clenching and releasing at his sides.
I realize now that there is only one voice I haven’t heard yet. One person who isn’t pacing and freaking out in the living room.
Dad.
Chapter 23
The CICU. A different part of the hospital, but on the same floor as the trauma ICU where they treated Shawn last year. It doesn’t matter where it is, coming here once is too many times. I think it’s officially morning, but there are no windows in here, and I can’t be bothered to find one.
After the ambulance arrived to take Dad to the hospital, Molly clearly wasn’t in her right mind, and she dove into her own car before Ash could stop her. She didn’t even make it out of the driveway. In her panicked state, she backed straight off the driveway and into the concrete pillars on either side of the ditch. Her car is toast. It’s still sitting there halfway in the ditch, a problem for some other day.
After seeing my dad get hauled away on a stretcher, the paramedics claiming it was probably a heart attack, strangely I had been in a much better place than Molly. I was scared out of my mind, no doubt, but I had to be strong for her and Teig.
Teig cried. Molly wailed.
Ash drove us all to the hospital.
And now we’re still here, some random collection of hours later.
The scene is all too familiar. The same plastic covered chairs with uncomfortable wooden armrests, some stupid talk show playing on a television that doesn’t have a remote control. The beeps and shuffles and sounds of being in a hospital. Constant foot traffic of people who have their own things to worry about. No one cares why anyone else is here, and you all just want to go home.
Molly has permission to sleep in an armchair next to Dad’s bed in the CICU, but I don’t think the hospital staff could have stopped her from doing that if they were supposed to. The rest of us are waiting outside in the family waiting room. Teig is asleep on the floor, sitting cross-legged in front of the chair where he’s bunched up his jacket to make a pillow on the seat in front of him. I’m sitting in the next chair, my shoulder acting as a pillow. I hadn’t slept much, but I did doze off a little at some point.
Ash is . . . well, he’s not here.
I look over and then back again, as if this tiny waiting room has any place for him to be hiding just out of sight. He’s gone. I look down at the seat next to mine, where Ash had held my hand last night, his thumb sliding over my palm as we waited and waited and waited.
He didn’t have to stay. I’m glad he didn’t. He should get on with his life.
An overwhelming sense of sadness slams into me, feelings of losing Ash and worrying about my dad all wrapped into one, until I can’t hold my head up anymore. I lean forward, letting my forehead sink into my hands. My palms fill with my tears, and I just sit here, letting the pain consume me.
How am I such a terrible person that I’m still worried about Ash even now? Even though my dad is in danger of dropping dead, my brain still turns to Ash. I drag in a ragged, blubbery breath and tell myself to get over it. Shove Ash into the furthest depths of my brain. I don’t get the luxury of worrying about him now. Family is more important, and Dad is on my mind and in my heart right now, not Ash.
I don’t even pay attention to the footsteps until they’re right in front of me, casting shadows on the floor between my legs, the place I’ve been staring as I hold my head in my hands.
“Hana,” Ash says softly, his knee moving to touch mine. It’s just knee-on-knee, but it feels strangely comforting. “You awake?”
I look up, wincing from the pain in my sore shoulders. I can feel the tears smeared all over my face so I try to wipe them off, but my hands are too wet and it’s all useless.
Ash stands there, wearing the same jeans and T-shirt from last night. His cheek has a jagged crease in it from where he must have fallen asleep on something. He offers me a gentle smile. “Hungry?”
He holds up a tray from the cafeteria. There’s orange juice and coffee, three plates of food, muffins, fruit. He shrugs his broken arm. “I didn’t know what Teig liked so I got a lot of stuff. Figured we could all share.”
If I say thank you, I might start crying. So I go for something lighthearted. “I don’t think you’re allowed to take those trays out of the cafeteria.”
He grins. “Do you know how much money my family has paid in medical bills to this hospital? I’ll take a damn tray if I want to.”
My lips curve upward, and I immediately hate myself for feeling any sort of happiness while Dad is in the other room. “Thanks for all of this, but you don’t have to stay.”
“I’m staying,” he says, setting the food down on an end table that he drags over in front of us. He takes his seat next to me, and his fingers wind their way into mine. “You can’t push me away right now.”
I swallow. “About last night . . .”