Yay.
Can’t you feel my enthusiasm?
“Uh-huh,” I say, so Hunter will keep talking. He’s excited, and I like that my friend has found an outlet for all his energy, aside from wrangling our generation of Herevians into backyard barbecues and Sunday Funday brunches. He’s been a great boss, and I don’t want that part of our relationship to end.
He drones on about setting up co-op paperwork and the idea of throwing a new ownership party at the top of Sirens Valley.
My phone rings in my back pocket and I ignore it. I’m not expecting any calls, I don’t really want to talk to anyone, and it’s my turn anyway and I need two sixteens and a twenty.
The phone stops ringing, I nail the double sixteen, and the phone starts up again. I retrieve the darts with one hand and pull out my phone with the other.
It’s Rory’s grandmother.
“Hello?”
“Morgan?” There’s something urgent and wild in her tone that has the hairs on the back of my neck rising.
“Yeah?”
“Rory’s in the hospital after a hit-and-run. Come pick me up. Right now, Morgan!”
She hangs up before I can fully process what she says, and then I turn to Hunter, my eyes wide. “I gotta go.”
There’s no barging through the door shouting, “Where is she!” Instead, I trot after Mrs. Patterson, who’s plowing along with her cane while her voice wobbles with emotions. We get directed down the hall after verifying that Mrs. Patterson is Rory’s next of kin, and weave through the maze of rooms and curtains until a nurse pulls one aside and there she is.
“Oh,” Rory’s grandmother says next to me, and that one word is infused with so much. Rory’s eyes are closed and she’s lying prone in the hospital bed. Staff buzz around her.
Her face is . . . her face is bad. There’s road rash on one side and dried blood on her chin and lips. Her nose looks wrong, and her loose hair has grass and gravel in it.
My heart feels like it’s in the wrong place, like I misplaced it weeks ago and have been looking for it. Like the beeping of the machine Rory’s hooked up to is my heartbeat, not hers.
How could I have let Rory go without fighting harder?
“Valerie Patterson?”
I glance over and there’s a doctor beside us, consulting paperwork on a clipboard. Mrs. Patterson hasn’t made a sound yet, and the look on her face can only be described as devastation. She lost her daughter, Rory’s mother, years ago, and now she might lose her granddaughter.
I swallow thickly. “Yes, that’s her.” I carefully touch Mrs. Patterson’s elbow and direct her attention away from Rory.
The doctor continues. “Your granddaughter is lucky she was found so quickly. I know it looks bad, but she’s sedated right now while we prep her to set the bone. She has a broken tibia, and obviously you can see the damage to her face?—”
“Wasn’t she wearing her helmet?” Mrs. Patterson interrupts.
The doctor hesitates. “Her helmet was nearby, but she wasn’t wearing it at the time of impact. The police will be checking in once we get her stabilized and awake to try to piece together what happened. But for now, what you need to know is that her injuries only look bad. We don’t detect any internal bleeding. She’s in good hands, and we’ll get her sorted.”
The nurses start to wheel her bed out to the hallway but Mrs. Patterson shouts, “Wait!” And moves to her bedside. The nurses stop, and Mrs. Patterson briefly sets her hand in her granddaughter’s and squeezes. After a few seconds, she pats the hand and lets them move on. “Thank you,” she tells the staff.
We wait. I pace often, wondering if I should even be here—if Rory even wants me here. But I admit that I just can’t be anywhere else right now. The woman I love just went through something terrible, and if she wants to kick me out, push me away, when she’s awake, then she will.
What was she doing on the road so late anyway? It was well after the time she normally came into the bar, and I try not to read too much into it. Try not to hope that she was going to visit me. It’s more likely she and her grandmother had a fight and she left to blow off some steam.
Mrs. Patterson sits with a deceptive calm, her eyes closed, her hands clenched on her cane. If Rory was out on an escape, if they fought, I’m sure Mrs. Patterson is a wreck.
I sit down beside her, our thighs almost touching. I’m here.
Rory’s leg is set and they move her into a room. Same chairs, different location. The police come in and ask us a few questions.
Mrs. Patterson explains that Rory was helping her pack, and tells them what time Rory left her apartment.
