Jaxen: What I’m basically trying to say and that I’m terrible at is I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I’m even more sorry that I can’t, in good faith, have you. You’re better than me. So much better and deserve a hell of a lot more than a shit human being with all this fucking baggage. I hate what I did to you. I hate that I destroyed your ability to trust, but what I hate the most is that I had the fucking nerve to fall in love with you. Which I did, Girl Scout. So fucking hard I can’t even see straight, and it’s so shitty because I’m the worst for you. I can’t ask you to choose me. I’m not the one good girls choose. Not if they want to remain whole on the other side.

Tears in my eyes on this end, that he actually felt that way about himself, that he didn’t feel good enough.

Jaxen: I’m not expecting anything from this. In fact, I expect nothing from you. I’ve already taken enough.

He had no more texts message bubbles after that, and even though I shouldn’t have behind the wheel, I picked up my phone off the seat. He couldn’t not know how I felt. He couldn’t continue to think he wasn’t good enough.

My thumbs on the screen, I texted him back.

Me: You’re not taking anything from me. You never could. Jaxen, I love—

A car honked before I could send, and I jerked my gaze to the road. I’d veered into another lane, and I dropped my phone to put both hands on the wheel.

The minivan screeched beside me, dodging onto the shoulder and when I checked to see if they were okay, I failed to realize traffic had slowed in front of me.

I jerked the wheel left, which skidded me into the third lane.

The impact hit immediately.

Crunched on my side, my car in a roll as I tumbled and was impacted again from the back.

The hits continued, again and again at all sides. It was as if this was a game of pinball and my station wagon was the ball. Cars weren’t able to stop in time, hitting me from all sides as the glass shattered all around me.

I think I was screaming. I think I was crying. I honestly didn’t know.

I just knew when it all finally… gratefully went dark.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Jax

Rick and I showed up at the hospital together, coming at this thing together. His wife Maggie had called him early this morning.

Cleo had been in an accident.

She’d been trying to get to the hospital herself since it happened while Cleo had been driving back to school. Because of that, Maggie didn’t have too many details, but the urgency in her voice told of her fear. She said the hospital hadn’t told her much, but that she needed to get there asap.

Rick and I had both been on the next flight.

We’d gone together, and I hadn’t asked if I could go or should. I just went. I was going to go.

We arrived there together.

Rick gratefully knew his way around the place. He’d been there a time or two through community work so new exactly where the ED was. He gave a little information to the front desk, and they told him where to go from there. We found Maggie right away, by herself with a clipboard in her hands. She’d been thumbing through about a million cards on her lap.

“Maggie!” Rick picked up the pace right away, me flanking him. He waved right at Maggie, and the woman appeared on the cusp of tears.

Oh, God.

I couldn’t think upon seeing that, not letting myself. We didn’t know anything, and it’d be foolish to panic. Not yet until we knew anything.

“Rick. Oh my God.” Literal tears pushed through my stepmom’s eyelashes. She squeezed on Rick, trembling. “Thank God, you’re here. I don’t know what to do. I don’t…”

“It’s okay,” he said, pulling back, and I had to give it to him.

He kept his shit together better than me.

Because seeing Maggie like that, in goddamn tears and fucking panicked to hell, I wanted to lose my shit. But for his wife, he kept cool, holding her.

Tags: Eden O'Neill Court University Romance
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