“No, of course I did. I’m being silly. It looks great.”
“Then why are you still crying? Liv, baby, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s nothing really. I just need a minute to calm down and I’ll stop being silly. I can’t—I’m going to go for a drive. I’ll be back by dinner.”
“Liv—what?”
“I promise, it’ll only be a few minutes and then we will talk about it, I promise.”
She darts away before I can get a word in edgewise, leaving me feeling a little shell-shocked.
What the fuck just happened?
I wasn’t about to let her run away from me. Not when she’s upset like that. A little paint wouldn’t have had that effect on her. Something had happened between grocery shopping and getting home. Something that made her cry.
After a call to the neighbors to watch the kids, I get in my truck to look after her. Nassau isn’t a huge town and there aren’t many places for her to hide. The sun starts to go down as I cruise the backwoods roads, but there’s no sign of her. I’m on the far side of the lake from our house when the truck in front of me stops suddenly.
I’m so distracted, I don’t react quick enough and slam right into them going way too fast.
Everything goes dark.
Chapter Seven
Olivia
What amI going to do?
Hell if I know.
The paint in the living room is the least of my worries, that’s for sure. I have to get back home and tell Ben. Explain. He’ll understand.
I’m reaching for my phone, trying to come up with the perfect words to describe what an idiot I am, when it vibrates in my hand. Automatically, I smile at it when I see Ben’s name. Then the smile drains away.
Ben: Don’t worry, but I’ve been in a car accident. The dumbass paramedics wouldn’t let me drive home because of my history of brain injury. I’ll be at Bay Medical being tortured to death. Don’t freak out. I’m okay. Luv you.
I’d been in hospitals many times over the past five years, so much so that the nurses at the children’s hospital know me by sight and call me by name. But when I pull up to Bay Medical, it’s as though I’ve never seen one before. My brain processes the sights and sounds around me at a five-second delay.
I pull into the emergency room parking lot and pause at a roundabout, not understanding the arrows painted in the middle of the road. Pedestrians hurry by and I go five-miles-an-hour as I ease down the road and blindly follow signage to a parking lot.
It’s not until I’ve parked, triple-checked my face to make sure it’s not too obvious I’ve been crying, and walked halfway to the building that the meaning behind the arrows sinks in. I’m paused in the middle of the road, staring at one when the meaning of the word “EMERGENCY” sinks in. I’m in the wrong parking lot. The emergency room is, according to those damn arrows, around the corner a ways.
Idiot.
I should have been paying more attention. Ben is inside injured and alone. I need to be there with him.
Cursing myself, I hurry back to my car and diligently follow the signs around the corner and to a parking lot clearly labeled, “Emergency Patient Parking.” There’s a ticket gate on the other entrance, but at this point, I don’t care if I get fined for not getting a ticket for parking. All I want is to be by Ben’s side, to see with my own eyes he’s okay.
God, please let him be okay.
A man gets out of his car a few spots down from mine. Like a lost little duckling, I follow him as he strides across the parking lot toward the emergency room. I skirt around a section of the driveway they must be redoing and stumble my way through the automatic doors.
As soon as I step through, I’m hit by a wave of chaos. I don’t know why, but I’m not expecting the ER to be as packed as it is. There have to be two dozen people in the waiting room alone, and they’re all talking and moving and there.
A wizened male nurse catches my eye, perhaps sensing my oncoming panic. “Can I help you?” he asks, wrapping a stethoscope around his neck and moving behind what must be an admissions desk. Another nurse types away at a computer.
I clear my throat. “Yes, yes, I’m looking for Benjamin Hart.” I say this very fast, so fast my cheeks burn. There’s no way he could have understood me.
“Benjamin…?” he repeats.
