Page 147 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

Hannah moved toward the parallel bars. “Come walk for me.”

I slid the liner back over my residual limb. Even that movement had become routine behavior. There had been a time when attaching my prosthetic took twenty minutes. Now I barely had to think.

Except today. Today every sound seemed louder. The click of components fitting together. The faint pull of silicone against skin. Then the Velcro strap.

For one second, the therapy room disappeared. The rubber floor became polished hospital tile. The soft morning light through the window became fluorescent white. The padded table beneath me became a hospital bed I had no memory of entering.

And I was twenty again.

Chapter

Nineteen

CARSON

Past

I woke up because something beeped near my head. It was a slow, steady, annoying beep that didn’t stop. I tried opening my eyes, but they felt glued shut. My mouth was dry enough that my tongue stuck against the roof of it, and something heavy pressed across my chest.

For several seconds, I didn’t know where I was.

Then pain consumed my every thought.

Not just one place, but everywhere.

My head, shoulder, ribs, and hip all pulsed with pain. There was a burning sensation along the left side of my face. And something else. Something so intense my body couldn’t locate it properly. I tried moving. A hand immediately closed around mine.

“Carson?” Meme’s soft voice whispered.

I forced my eyes open and her face appeared through a haze. White hair in disarray, eyes red, and not a scrap of makeup on. I’d never seen Meme without makeup. That scared me more than the machines.

“Meme?” My voice sounded wrong. Small and broken.

She made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Oh, baby.”

I tried sitting up, but pain exploded through me. A nurse appeared from somewhere and told me not to move.

“What happened?”

Nobody answered quickly enough. My heart started racing, I remembered the crash, the truck that hit me, and then it was all black…

“Is Blueberry…?” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

Meme squeezed my hand. “She’s alive.”

The breath left me so fast it hurt. “Where is she?”

“Vet hospital.”

“Is she going to be okay?”

“They think so.”

Think.

I closed my eyes as pieces came back from that night.

Rain.