That answer was easy to find. No.
I called her, got her voicemail, and cleaned my room again.
This went on for days.
Five days later, I got a phone call from Dean’s mother with news that would change my life.
She threw the details at me too fast for me to understand, her tone almost blank.
“Dead?” I repeated back to her. I hadn’t seen him in days, but that was hardly unusual. I was shocked beyond all comprehension.
Even so, I was not prepared for what came next.
“He had a passenger in the car, too,” she continued, and I thought she must truly be in shock to be acting so calm when her son had just died. “Some girl that worked for your manager, Jerry.”
I was in my room, back to the wall, and I fell against it, sliding to the floor, nearly dropping the phone. “Wh-what did you say?” I asked her, my voice a terrified croak.
“There was a girl in the car with him. The car is totaled, by the way. He’d have had a serious drunk driving charge on his hands, if he’d survived.”
“What happened to the girl? Is she okay?”
“The girl? Oh…did you know her? I’m not sure what happened to her. I didn’t ask.”
I hung up, calling Jerry.
Thankfully, he answered on the third ring.
He answered with, “She’s okay, Tristan.”
Following panic came fury. “Why didn’t you tell me? This was days ago! How could you keep this from me?”
There was a long pause on the other end. “Listen…Tristan…she doesn’t want to see you.”
My free hand reached over to my arm and began to scratch mindlessly at the skin of my other forearm.
Gut roiling, heart twisting, I asked, “She said that?”
“I’m sorry, man. Have to respect her wishes. She seems very resolute.”
“What hospital, Jerry?”
He sighed audibly. “You don’t want to come here, Tristan. It’ll be better if you don’t.”
“Tell me!”
“St. Rose.”
“You said she’s okay, but, was she hurt?”
“She got banged up pretty bad.”
“Tell me.”
“She hit her head pretty hard, got a concussion. She’s still in the hospital, but she should be fine.”
I swallowed hard, still scratching away at my arm. “Anything else?”
“She got cut up on impact some by the debris, but she’ll heal.”
Scratch.
Gouge.
Claw.
“Anything else?”
“Her knee was crushed. She should be able to walk again, eventually, but she’ll have a substantial limp. She won’t be dancing anymore, Tristan.”
My hand moved to my chest, right over my heart.
Scratch.
Gouge.
Claw.
The phone dropped from my hand, but not before the sound of my own sobs bled through to Jerry’s end.
I didn’t last three hours.
I was in my car before I realized that my hand was bloody. I glanced down at my arm and chest, genuinely surprised that I’d scratched myself that badly. I hadn’t felt a thing.
I went back up to my apartment, showered, changed, and headed out again.
It was only on my second run that I saw Danika’s car parked at the curb. I hadn’t left the apartment in days, but it must have been there from the time of the accident.
DANIKA
The news came at me in twisted waves. They gave it to me all wrong, making it hard for me process or understand. It was only as I heard Bev chewing out the doctor that I put some of the pieces together in order.
“That is not how you tell that to someone. If a woman just lost her baby, you do not start by telling her she can’t have any more. I’m a lawyer, you ass, so watch what you say to her, or I’ll sue you for emotional distress.”
That got the doctor the hell out of the room, and Bev was at my ear, stroking my hair, a comfort in a moment where that should have been impossible.
“I can’t really sue him for that, sweetheart. I just lost my temper, and that’s my go-to scare tactic. I would in a heartbeat though, if I thought we could win. That bastard deserves worse.”
I tried to pay attention, but my mind was just circling back to what I’d learned. “I lost my baby,” I whispered.
“I’m so, so sorry, Danika. I didn’t know you were pregnant, but I know you, and I know that, since you were, you wanted that baby. I’m so sorry.”
“And I can’t have any more.”
“No, my dear. I’m so sorry, and I know this is hard to think of now, but someday, when you’ve met the right man, and you’re at the right point in your life, you can adopt. You can still be a mother, Danika, just not in the way that you’d hoped for.”
I barely heard her, only focused on my pain, only focused on my loss.
I laid there, and felt as though my very soul seeped out of me with that loss.
I’d thought I was numb. Head to toe, heart and soul, numb. But alas, no, there was something left, something awful that fired up in my chest as Tristan walked into my hospital room, his face ashen.
I’d seen him heartbroken. I’d seen him reeling from loss. I’d seen him strung out, high, drunk, devastated, and out of his mind enraged.
But never had I seen him like this. He looked like a man who had lost his whole world.
It took every ounce of willpower I had not to cave at the sight of him.
Outwardly, I was calm, but my insides had become a tempest, a great storm that I wouldn’t let Tristan close to. He couldn’t be allowed even a glimpse of it. I had to at least appear composed and resolved if I had any hope, any prayer, of making it through this.
“I just now heard about the accident,” he croaked out. “How are-er-are you doing okay?”
I shrugged, having the hardest time meeting his bright, shiny eyes set in his haggard face. I couldn’t meet them for more than milliseconds at a time, or I knew I’d be exposed. There was just no escaping his eyes for long. “I’ll live.”
“Are you in pain?”
I shrugged again. “I’ll live. I don’t really want to talk about it.” My tone brooked no refusal.
“That’s fine, that’s fine. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
I thought that okay was a pretty generous term, but I held my tongue.
“Jerry told me that you didn’t want to see me. Is that true?”
It was difficult to get the word out. “Yes.”
He staggered back, visibly upset. His hand shot to his arm and began to scratch at a spot under his T-shirt. It took him a very long time to find his voice again.
Finally, the waiting was too much, and I closed my eyes, turning my face away.
“Did something happen that night? You were coming to see me. Did we have a fight? I saw that our picture was missing from my wall, but I don’t remember what happened. What did you come there to say to me?”
My mouth hardened. “Nothing important.”
“Danika, please—“
“Please, Tristan, please just go. We aren’t good for each other. Can’t you see that? After all that’s happened, isn’t that finally clear? I need to move on from you, and the only way that’s going to happen is if we stay clear of each other.”
“You’re wrong, Danika.”
“Listen to me, Tristan. You are bad for me. I am done.”
Horrible noises were leaving his throat.
I finally looked up to see him staring at me, the most devastated look on his face. He was scratching at his chest now, those low, harsh groans still coming out of him, as though escaping from deep in his chest. “Done, Tristan. Please go.”