AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ethan
Iwas aware of a few sounds and my own heart beating for a time, but nothing made sense. I recognized a couple of voices, but words seemed distorted and as if they were coming from a far distance. I tried to remember where I was and what was happening, but I couldn’t.
For a long time, I floated. In what I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think I was floating in the water—I didn’t feel wet—but I didn’t think it was air either. How could I float? Where was everyone else? Had I died? Was I in some limbo between life and death?
As if thinking about death released the memory, I saw Riley’s face. Her beautiful face morphed from angry to fearful in a second, and I turned my head in my mind to see a truck coming at us.
Had that truck killed me? Was Riley alright? Was our baby alright? I tried to fight myself to the surface, but I couldn’t. Something was holding me down, and the stronger it pulled, the more I fought it. Other memories swamped my mind, distorted memories of other family moments. Funerals and flowers, and I thought of my mother. If I had died, wouldn’t she be here waiting for me?
Had I been such a bastard in life that I was heading to purgatory? Was this my hell? Was I going to have to float here for eternity with my own fucked-up memories? Please, no!
I had to get back. I had a life to live, a family that needed me. I had a child, or had I killed the baby as I’d killed myself? Was Riley alive? Riley couldn’t die! What had I done?
* * *
I don’t knowhow long it was before I could flutter my eyelids, and they opened to a bright room. I squinted against the lights, and someone was in my face. “Ethan, I’m Rose, stay calm for me, and I’ll get that tube out of your throat.”
She messed with a machine beside me and then leaned back over. “I want you to cough as hard as you can when I tell you.” She removed the tape from my mouth and started to pull the tube. It was like someone had reached down my throat and was pulling my lungs up with it.
“Cough,” she told me, and I forced myself to cough as hard as I could, which didn’t seem like enough. My entire body ached, and I felt weak while my shoulder and head pounded.
As soon as the tube was out of the way, she shifted the bed so that I was sitting up slightly. My eyes shifted around the room to find my father and Cara off to the side. They stepped forward immediately, both of them crying.
“Hey,” I breathed and winced at the sound of my froggy voice.
“Your throat is going to hurt for a few days, but that will go away. I’ll have the doctor come in to speak with you in a few minutes. How are you feeling right now?” the nurse asked me.
“Like I got hit by a truck.”
She glanced at my father and sister.
“Ethan, do you remember what happened?”
I hesitated, did I? I wasn’t sure. My mind was a jumbled mess.
“You were in an accident,” my father said. “Youwerehit by a truck.”
“So that memory was real.” Suddenly I remembered something else. “Riley? The baby?” I asked as the nurse turned off a switch to quiet the beeping.
“Riley and the baby are fine,” my father said, and I noticed my sister purse her lips. “They are home resting, and they are fine.”
“Who is taking care of them?”
“Ethan, don’t worry about that,” Cara said a little harshly. “The last thing you should worry about is her.”
“Cara,” my father growled at her.
“What are you talking about, Cara?”
“She’s the reason you were in that accident. If she hadn’t been such a selfish bitch, you would be fine.”
“It wasn’t her fault,” I told her.
My father looked at her sternly. “Enough, Cara. Not another word.” He paused, “We know it wasn’t her fault, and it wasn’t yours either, Ethan. Accidents happen. That’s all it was. You’re back with us now. That’s all that matters.”
Back with them now? How close had I come to not being here? I learned that answer a few minutes later when the doctor arrived.
