They don’t stop as Gran gets loaded in the ambulance, or as Wyatt holds me when they close the doors. They keep going when he gets us shoes and as he helps me into his truck and drives me to the hospital, and when we show up at the registration desk in the emergency room. They come quicker when I don’t receive any answers, but I’m told to sit and wait. They stop briefly when I call and wake my parents, telling my dad what happened. I force myself to control them when he demands answers and I don’t have any, but they come on full strength when I hang up and realize I’ll need to face my parents.
To face how badly I screwed up.
Because I know that’s the way they’ll see it. And I don’t know that they’re wrong.
She’s supposed to be my priority. She’s supposed to be my number one thing. What kind of granddaughter am I if I can’t be there for her? What if she doesn’t survive this? It’ll be my fault.
The intrusive thought has reared its ugly head multiple times since I first entered the kitchen, but I’ve tried my damnedest to push it away every time. The longer I have to sit in this stupid waiting room with its dumb light grey walls and posters plastered all over about hand washing hygiene and using hand sanitizer before entering and how to cough properly, the more the thought creeps in.
The more I wonder if she died on the way to the hospital and they’re trying to save her. Trying to revive her so they don’t need to come and break the bad news to me. News that no family member ever wants to receive and no doctor ever wants to give.
My cheeks sting from the tears now, but I don’t bother wiping them away anymore. I haven’t for a while, even though Wyatt quietly keeps passing me tissues. I use those on my running nose, leaning into his quiet comfort, his arm wrapped around my shoulders.
This man, who hasn’t known me for more than a month, a steady presence at my side. We haven’t said much, but he hasn’t seemed to mind. He’s just taken care of me. Tissues, water, even checking in at the triage desk for an update—there wasn’t one. It’s been a couple of hours, and besides a nurse asking questions about Gran’s history when we first got here, no one has talked to us. No one has told us how she’s doing.
I curl tighter into myself, then snuggle closer into Wyatt’s side, inhaling his scent. It wraps around me like a tight hug, and not just from the man himself. I don’t remember if it was when we got into his truck or when we got to the hospital, but he gave me one of his hoodies. It made me realize how cold I was, and I still haven’t warmed up despite it. My hands and feet feel like ice. Hell, my whole body feels like I’m stuck in a snowbank.
When his arm tightens around me, rubbing up and down my own arm, I tilt my head up to him. “Thank you for… being here.”
He gives me a soft smile. “Of course. You’re sure I can’t call Savanna or Jordan for you, though?”
It’s not the first time he’s offered, but I shake my head. “I don’t want to bother them.”
“I don’t know them well, but I know they wouldn’t feel bothered.”
Probably not, but it’s not a burden they should be dealing with. It’s not a burden Wyatt should be either, but I haven’t had the courage to tell him he can leave. Not that he would. Even in my current state, feeling disconnected from the world, I’m almost certain he wouldn’t. Unless I forced the subject.
“Honestly?” I say, and damn it, renewed tears are springing in my eyes. “I’m partial to the company I have.”
For the first time since before we went to sleep, his smile touches his eyes, and it has the tiniest one appearing on my own lips. I don’t want him to leave, and I don’t want anyone else here. Even if I’m questioning myself and my priorities and how I’ve screwed them up since he came into my life, he might be the only thing keeping me together right now because I’m hanging on by a thread.
My eyes close briefly when he presses a kiss to the top of my head, and I release a sigh, along with the smallest amount of tension from my shoulders. Warmth seems to seep a little further than the core of my body, but that brings on the feeling of needing a restroom.
Sitting up a bit, I look around the room that I’ve been staring vacantly at for the past couple of hours. Four rows of green chairs fill the area to the right of the nurse’s triage station and a security desk. The entry to the entire ER is ahead of that, and on the other side of the room near the door is a restroom. I glance at the door leading to the emergency room, knowing Gran is somewhere back there, before looking at the restroom again.
“Go,” Wyatt says beside me, reading my mind before I have a chance to say anything. “I’ll hold the doctor down if he comes to talk to you while you’re gone.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, kissing him on the cheek before getting up.
By the time I finish in the bathroom, my hands are back to being ice. The anxiety of missing the doctor had me rushing through my business, but as I leave the room, Wyatt is still sitting there, no one else in sight. Disappointment floods me. It’s killing me not to know anything.
There are no patients at the triage desk, though, and I head towards it, intent on trying to get some answers when my name stops me dead in my tracks.
“Brynleigh!”
It’s my mother’s voice, and my shoulders lift to my ears, stiffening at the sound. Wyatt meets my eyes, hearing the same thing, and goes to rise from his chair, but I shake my head, willing him to stay put.
Fuck. I should have warned him. I should have thought this through. My dad told me they were coming, and I understood that, but I didn’t grasp what that would mean with Wyatt still sitting here with me. Having them meeting like this would not go well, but I have no way of communicating that to him.
He seems to get it by the look on my face. Sitting back, he settles into his seat, his eyes sliding away from mine after a subtle nod of his head. I’ll need to explain further, but I thank my past self for telling him about my parents earlier tonight.
“Correct your posture,” my mother hisses from behind me.
Like her command has snaked a leash around my neck, my shoulders drop and roll back, my back straightening. I smooth my hands down the front of my body. With one final breath to steady myself and the tears that stopped the moment I heard my name, I slowly turn towards my mom.
“Good god,” she gapes at me, clutching a hand to her chest. “You look ghastly.”
She has the same chocolate-brown hair as me, but hers islonger and blown out, looking perfect despite the early morning hour. Even her tan khakis and white buttoned shirt look clean and crisp despite the distance she and my father drove. My dad, in a pair of black dress shorts and a blue golf shirt, looks almost as put together as she does, his salt-and-pepper hair tousled in the same style he’s worn for years.
