“Yeah, uhm… Reece, I think you should come to the hospital as soon as possible.”
My mind was racing, trying to comprehend the magnitudeof what I’d just been told while my stomach was battling to keep my breakfast inside of me.
I could feel a headache building up, a knot in my throat, and a stinging in my eyes, but I had no idea what exactly I was feeling at that moment. It was everything and nothing at all.
It wasn’t just nausea, that I could tell. It was a sense of the ground crumbling beneath my feet. It was a dreadful realization that, no matter what happened, my life was never going to be the same again from this day forward.
Life had thrown me a curveball I wasn’t prepared to catch.
“Did you call Colin?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what to say, my mind was blank, but I suppose Colin had to know. She had to have called him first, right? They were married. Of course she called him first.
“He’s on the phone with your mom. It’s why I’m calling, not Colin.”
“Okay,” I breathed out, unsure of what else to say. “I’m on my way. Could you meet me outside?” I turned around and walked back to my car. Screw that stupid meeting, it was probably unnecessary anyway.
“Yeah, sure,” she replied, then stayed quiet again for a beat before adding, “Reece? Drive safe, okay?”
“I will.” Or I would try to. Luckily, the hospital wasn’t that far away from Anthony’s office, so I didn’t have to turn a long drive into something rather short. It’d take me maybe fifteen minutes, or thirty with New York’s traffic.
I hung up the phone, ripping the door to my car open. After starting the engine, I called Brooke because… just because.
Brooke might’ve not been the closest to my parents, but she still deserved to know. I wanted her to know. I needed herat the hospital because I couldn’t possibly go through this without her by my side to catch me when I fell.
I tried to reach her about fifty times, but she never picked up her phone. I tried calling Miles and Emory, but neither of them picked up either. But of course they wouldn’t. They were probably already on their way to the arena, or had just gotten there.
By the time I reached the hospital parking lot and got out of the car to race to the entrance and find Lily, neither of them had been picking up or calling me back.
I started to spam Brooke with messages in hopes that she might peek at her phone soon and call me back, but I knew better. She rarely used her phone before a competition. Brooke was always so focused on figure skating, she didn’t want to get distracted by anything. Not even important calls.
But I didn’t understand why neither Miles nor Emory picked up either.
From afar, I could see Lily standing in front of the main entrance, pacing back and forth. She was on her phone, probably on a call with Colin or someone else.
Oh, God… if Colin was on his way, was he going to bring the kids?
I wasn’t even sure what would’ve been better—children being there to possibly watch their grandfather die, or staying home and just being told he passed.
My pace slowed down as I got caught in my mind, trying to think back to when my sister died. Would I have preferred having been there? Would I remember if I was? Maybe I was there, I just had no recollection of it.
I was almost four when Eira died, surely I should remembersomething, but I didn’t.
Sometimes, when Colin or our parents talked about Eira, I remembered a few things, like her playing with me andmaking me laugh. She used to sing me a song, but I didn’t remember it, I just knew she did it.
But I couldn’t remember her dying. Or her funeral, which I was sure I attended. Hopefully. Or I was too young and stayed with Brooke and her grandparents or Emory.
Aiden—who was the oldest of us all—was entirely wiped from my memories. I couldn’t remember a damn thing about him, but that didn’t surprise me, seeing as I was a literal baby when he died.
“Colin’s on his way,” Lily told me as soon as I reached her. “They’ll be like an hour because traffic seems to be terrible today.”
Lily was breathing quite erratic, her eyes were red and puffy. Tears stained her cheeks, and she kind of looked like her life had been sucked right out of her soul. I’d never seen her like this.
She hadn’t even been crying this much when her mother died from liver cancer a couple of years ago, and as far as she told me, my dad was still alive.
Truthfully, I didn’t know what to do. The only person I was good at consoling was my fiancée, and that was only because I knew Brooke. I knew what made her feel better, and I knew how to make her smile, and how to distract her mind.
But I didn’t know any of those things about Lily. I wasn’t even sure I knew how to do these things for myself.
“Is he dead?” I asked again, unsure of how to understand her distressed state. If Dad was still alive, surely she wouldn’t have been as upset, right?
