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Grace
There was blood. So much blood.
“What did you do!” I yelled at Jeremy as I scrambled off the bed, running toward Sawyer’s crumpled form. I put my hands over the spreading redness, over the hole in Sawyer’s stomach, as tears I wasn’t aware I was crying fell down my cheeks.
“It was an accident,” Jeremy said, his voice now an odd, confused tone as he dropped the gun to the ground. I flinched, expecting it to go off but it didn’t.
He went from pissed, to kind, to malicious, to…this? What was wrong with him? He needed serious help but I didn’t give two shits. I could care less when the man I was in love with was bleeding out below me.
I could see flashing blue and red lights outside my window. Apparently Jeremy saw them too, as he started to cry and apologize over and over again. I could hear as the police pushed through the front door, clearing the house as they made their way down to my room.
I didn’t open my mouth though, in fear Jeremy might have another Jekyll and Hyde moment. Finally, the cops made it into the room. Under any other circumstance, I would be petrified at Sawyer and my state of undress but right now, I just needed him to be ok.
God Sawyer, be ok.
Jeremy went willingly with one of the cops and when another came over, he seemed to step back momentarily at the sight of Sawyer’s gun near his hand. I needed the man to move faster! Didn’t he realize Sawyer could be dying right now?
“He’s a cop. A detective!” I kept my hands pressed to Sawyer’s stomach. God, couldn’t these people move any faster? I knew I was crying, but when a tear hit my hand, falling over the slope and intermixing with the red seeping below and around my hands, my breath hitched and the tears came faster.
He was so still under my hands. His eyes were closed and his breathing was slow and steady. Too slow. But it was steady. That said something, right?
I tuned out everything around me. I was aware of the flurry of activity as the cops checked Sawyer, others checking the house. A pair of medics made their way into the room and thankfully didn’t push me out of the way, letting me sit next to Sawyer as they did what they could do before getting him ready for transport.
I leaned down into the man who held every fantasy of mine in his hands—the man who brought so much promise to my life—bringing my mouth close to his ear as I closed my eyes, squeezing them tight. “Don’t you leave me, Sawyer Meadows. Don’t you fucking leave me,” I whispered, my voice shaking.
I wasn’t expecting an answer, but when I did, his voice rough as if he’d been sleeping for a long time, fresh tears fell. “I’m not going anywhere, sweetness.”
When Sydney and Caleb arrived at the hospital, Sydney took one look at my shell-shocked face and put her sisterly worry aside, pulling me into a bathroom to help clean me up. Prior to leaving with the ambulance, I managed to pull on a pair of pants but my shirt was still Sawyer’s and had his blood on it.
I had stopped crying some time ago, but watching the red swirl down the sink brought on another batch. Sydney comforted me, yet I felt like a terrible friend because she had yet to shed a single tear for her brother in front of me.
Once Sawyer made it out of surgery, Caleb headed back home to relieve their neighbor from watching the kids, making Sydney promise to call if anything changed. The rest of the Meadows family showed up within the last thirty minutes and while I knew every one of them, I felt oddly out of place. Susan and Sam returned from sitting with Sawyer and now it was mine and Sydney’s turn but…
I just…
I couldn’t do it.
Every single one of my fears had been realized tonight.
And I couldn’t do it.
“I can’t…” I whispered to Sydney, shaking my head as my voice wavered.
Screw states apart; this was the very reason why I couldn’t pursue a relationship with Sawyer. Dangerous situations, gunshot wounds…
I couldn’t do it.
Sydney hugged me tight. “Oh but Grace, you can.” Her own voice was wet with her tears, having finally shed them when her parents arrived. “He needs you right now, Gracie,” she said, pulling back from the hug only to hold both of my hands in hers. Her use of Sawyer’s name for me further twisted the dagger in my chest.
I shook my head again. “I can’t.”
“Give her time, Chief,” Caleb said from behind Sydney. I glanced up to see him standing behind Sydney with his hands on her shoulders, squeezing supportively. I wasn’t sure when he’d come back. Where were the kids?
Sydney stayed there, holding my hands, after Caleb kissed her temple and stepped away. When it was just the two of us in the sea of Sawyer’s family, I confessed on a choked whisper, “I love him, Sydney. But I can’t… This. I can’t do this.”
I shook my head again and pulled my hands from hers. A look of hurt passed over Sydney’s features but was quickly replaced with what I believed to be understanding.
I could only hope that Sawyer would get there someday himself.
