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I chuckle. “You’re attached to your car, aren’t you?” It’s gotta be five years old, and I can’t see the attraction, but she seems to really like it.
“It’s the first car I ever bought brand new, so yeah, I am kind of attached to it.”
We reach her car and I unlock it. Smiling at her, I say, “I get that.”
“Crap, I forgot my purse,” she says while rummaging through her handbag. “I’m gonna run up real quick and grab it.”
“Sure, I’ll wait here for you.”
I watch her go and then lean my back against the car while I pull my phone out and check my text messages. There’s one from Claudia from a couple of hours ago that I missed so I tap it to open.
Claudia: I meant it when I said you are the best brother. I love you, Jett.
My eyes skim the words over and over but I can’t bring myself to type a message back to her. I don’t fucking want to.
I rub the back of my neck and stretch.
Maybe a miracle will happen.
“Shit,” I mutter after pushing a breath out and sliding my phone back into the pocket of my jeans.
What’s the fucking likelihood of two miracles in one lifetime?
A siren sounds in the distance, diverting my attention to it for a minute, and I can’t help but think how the world carries on around us even when everything is falling apart.
Pain.
Loss.
Grief.
The world doesn’t know and it sure as shit doesn’t care.
My phone rings, vibrating against my leg and dragging me out of my thoughts.
“Mum…everything okay?” I ask after checking caller ID and worrying that she’s calling for a reason other than to tell me she’s leaving the hospital.
She doesn’t say anythi
ng and the dread circling in my gut climbs up to my throat. I gulp it back and am just about to ask her again when a sob leaves her mouth and travels down the line to me. “Jett…” Her voice cuts off as another sob fills the air between us.
Fuck.
Fuck!
“What is it?” I demand as my limbs turn to jelly and my head begins to spin. This can’t be happening. It can’t be what I think it is.
“Claudia…she’s gone…” Agony screams down the line at me as my mother says the words no mother ever wants to say.
I double over as the pain claws at me. Fighting for a breath, I try to form a question. “How? Why?”
I don’t understand.
Her sobs are coming hard and fast, but she manages to calm them down enough to answer me. “She went into cardiac arrest and the doctors couldn’t do anything for her… about half an hour ago.”
“No!” I scream into the air as my phone falls out of my hand to the ground. Straightening, I punch the concrete post next to the car. The pain it causes to my arm hardly registers.
No!
