“We lift on three. You ready?” one of them said to the others, pushing me out of the way. “One, two, three!”
In perfect synchronicity, Nick was lifted onto a stretcher, then carried to the ambulance. I watched with tears in my eyes as he was strapped in and electronic monitors were placed on various parts of his body. A machine on the ceiling beside them sprang to life, and one of the medics called something up to the drivers.
It wasn’t until they were pulling shut the doors that I realized I was about to be left behind.
“Wait!” I screeched. A sudden surge of feeling coursed through my body as I shook off the paralyzing numbness and launched myself toward the van. “I’m going with him!”
The nearest EMT looked at me skeptically. He knew who Nick was, that he had one of the world’s most desirable men lying unconscious in the back of his car. He obviously hadn’t read the headlines, because at that moment, he mistook me for the perfect ambulance-chasing groupie. “Are you family?” he asked routinely, the flat glint in his eyes speaking the doubt and accusation he wouldn’t say out loud.
My strength crumbled, and my mind blanked as I glanced back to the small pool of blood staining the street. A tremor shook my entire body as I stared back in dread. “I’m... I’m his...” My eyes flickered back to Nick, so quiet and still on the gurney. “I was with him—”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the man replied bluntly. “Only family allowed.”
With that, the ambulance was off, cutting through the crowd in a whirl of lights and sirens with the love of my life, the father of my child, strapped to a stretcher inside, all alone and possibly dying.
“Taxi!” I broke through the rope line and tore toward the first car that pulled my way, then leapt inside before it even came to a full stop. I slammed the door shut and yanked down the window, stretching half my body outside as I pointed straight ahead. “Don’t lose them!”
Of course, in New York traffic, that was easier said than done. It was even more difficult because Nick was who he was.
The second the ambulance loaded Nick into the back and shut their door, they started racing for the nearest hospital in Brooklyn. Because they realized how precious their cargo was, it wasn’t long before they were intercepted by a helicopter, who took him to private facility in the opposite direction, leaving my taxi driver to play a desperate game of Follow that Chopper! From the ground.
I had the same trouble getting into the facility that I’d had getting into the ambulance. In fact, my only chance was to run to the gift shop and return with a magazine that had a picture of Nick and me on the front cover. Finally, they gave me clearance to the upper floors, but once I was there, there was nothing left to do but wait.
I affixed myself to the ugly green chair nearest the reception counter, ready to live there for the next fifty years if I had to. My shoe tapped a constant rhythm against the floor, and after glancing down at my phone for what felt like a small eternity, I finally caved. My eyes closed, my shoulders wilted, and I found myself doing what so many Hunter women had done before me in times of abject terror and fear: calling Harold Oates.
He answered on the fourth ring, after an internal debate over whether or not he should let it go to voicemail. “Where the fuck are you, Wilder? You and Nick missed breakfast.”
Strangely, the second Nick wasn’t around, I reverted back to the publicist pariah. I wanted to retort with something snappy, something to put him in his place. At the very least, I wanted to make him fear the loss of his job, but all I could manage was a small, trembling voice that uttered, “There’s been an accident. Nick’s hurt. He was hit by a car.”
I could practically see the shock, his face paling to the color of bleached bone, because it was that evident in his voice.
“What!?” he asked in a dreadful hush. “Are you there with him now? Where are you? Is he...” His voice quieted even more. “Is he going to make it?” he asked gravely.
“I’m at Mather Willis in Manhattan,” I managed to croak out. That part was easy enough to answer, but the rest was a little more difficult to rehash. “He was hit by a taxi, Harold, flew over the top of it. He wasn’t conscious when they brought him in, and I-I don’t know anything else.” A stream of tears slipped down my face to join the pool already on the floor. “They won’t tell me anything because I’m not family.”
My weakness seemed to unleash Harold’s inherent strength. He cleared his voice
and fired out a command he must have given a million times before: “Stay right where you are. We’ll be there soon.”
Then, without another word from him, the line went dead.
I stared at the phone for a minute before pulling it slowly away from my face. I found myself neither comforted nor upset by the call. At that point, I was simply numb.
Of course it wasn’t the first call I’d made. There was one call that came before it, and when the double-doors whooshed open, I knew that call was not in vain.
“Where the hell is he!?” James Cross asked as soon as he rushed inside. Even though it was sunny, he was inexplicably wet, shaking drops of water from his jacket. He stopped in the middle of the floor and spun around like some kind of Hollywood hero, desperately searching the room.
“James!” I waved my hand to summon his attention. “Over here!”
He was beside me the next moment, and his face went white with fear. “Abby, how bad is it? And don’t you dare lie to me, girl.”
I pulled in a fractured breath and shook my head. “I don’t know. No one will tell me anything since I’m not family.”
James paused, staring at me oddly. “Why didn’t you just tell them you’re his wife? Because the entire world thinks you’re married to him now.”
Just like that, it hit me like a ton of bricks, the obvious simplicity washing away all other emotion as a bright, judgmental lightbulb blinked over my head. “Oh. I didn’t think of that. I wasn’t thinking straight. I was upset.”
There was an incredulous pause before James let it go. He was too upset to pay attention to my lack of problem-solving capabilities; his focus was centered on one thing and one thing only. “But he was alive when you last saw him?” he asked quietly.