They sat me down in the lobby, handed me a clipboard, and spoke in words that didn’t mean anything. Words I’d only heard in movies.
“—severe trauma.”
“Impact point to the driver’s side.”
“…unresponsive.”
“Inoperable swelling—”
I just nodded. Like I understood. But I didn’t, because none of it made any sense. I’d just heard her voice a few hours ago.
“I’ve got you. Like always.”
But she hadn’t walked through the doors. Not this time.
The guilt hit first. Then, the numbing silence. Then the rage.
She was on that road because of me. Every shattered bone, every drop of blood—it was a debt I had signed in her name because I couldn’t keep my fists to myself.
When they finally let me see her, I stood in the doorway for a full minute.
She looked small. Pale. One eye swollen shut. Tubes down her throat. The monitor beeping beside her steady. She looked utterly broken.
My breath hitched.
But I didn’t cry. I couldn’t.
I sat there next to her and stared.
The monitor kept sounding. She was alive… but she wasn’t living.
From that day on, it seemed like the same couldbe said about me.
Ingrid
The bed erupted beside me. I came awake to frantic movement, sheets thrown back, Tristian bolt upright beside me. Eyes bloodshot. Chest heaving.
“Tristian…” I croaked softly, already reaching for him.
He had broken out into a sweat, his eyes wide and wild, his breathing erratic. He seemed confused, lost in a daze, and grabbed my hand, pressing it against his sternum, trying to ground himself. His fingers dug into my skin, a bruising grip that I welcomed because he was still half-gone in whatever nightmare he’d just escaped.
“It’s okay… you’re okay,” I murmured.
Slowly, he leaned his head into my chest, his body finally relaxing as I ran my fingers through his hair.
I wanted to ask him what had happened, but that seemed too sudden. Instead, I settled on comforting him, running my hand up and down his back, soothing him as best I could with my voice. He stayed curled into me. His body was trembling, just slightly. And it broke me.
I’d seen him cloaked in violence—blood under his nails and bruises across his skin. I’d seen him shattered in ways he’d never speak of. But this was different. This pain seemed to be eating him from the inside out.
Finally, Tristian’s arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer, tighter. His grip was a desperate, silent plea not to let go.
“I’m right here,” I murmured, softer this time. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Finally, his voice came barely above a whisper. “She said she was coming.”
My hand froze in his hair.
“She said she’d come bail me out again,” he breathed, so quietly I almost didn’t hear it. “And I… I killed her.”
