Page 73 of Until Posey


Font Size:  

“Maybe.” Even though I wanted to grab my phone to see who called or messaged, I didn’t move. It already felt like I’d shit myself if I moved wrong. No need to take chances.

“You gotta let us help you, bro,” he said, glancing at me when we came to a stop at the light. “You can’t torture yourself forever.”

Watch me. “I appreciate the concern, but there isn’t much to do now, bro. Just get me to the hospital. This fucking hurts.”

“On it.”

The last thing I remembered was tilting my head back on the seat. The next time I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital bed and a portable x-ray was hovering over my foot.

Oh yeah, this wasexactlywhere I wanted to be.

Fuck my life.

Chapter 19

Posey

Monday morning came too fast. Again. I had a head-splitting migraine from crying so much over the last two weeks, and no matter how much I tried to focus on anything other than Hunter and Destiny, I couldn’t. They were both at the forefront of my mind, along with my mother’s words of wisdom.

She’d given me too much to think about, especially the jealousy I hadn’t been able to name. The oily ickiness in the pit of my stomach I experienced the first time I met Hunter. It wasn’t my anger toward a man who had no idea he had a child—which he didn’t—it had been the fact I was giving him a child no older than I’d been when I first went into the system. Unlike me, Destiny wouldn’t know what it’d be like to bounce from house to house or to be abused. She wouldn’t understand going hungry or having a foster sibling who was psychotic.

I resented Destiny for no other reason but envy.

Crazy right? I had that breakthrough thought last night as I went over the Miller file while trying to finish writing the final petition to the court to terminate Tiffany’s rights along with her abusive husband’s and give the kids to the state as wards of the state. Not even her mother wanted them back after everything that’d happened. I didn’t blame her. She’d done everything right, protecting those kids as she should, only to learn of the heartache caused by Tiffany and her husband.

There wasn’t even a way for me to put a caveat into the paperwork to allow Tiffany to regain rights once she proved the husband was gone. We’d tried that already. We were right back at square one with her, only this time deeper because of the positive drug test and the premature baby still in the NICU.

I scrubbed my face. I hadn’t even been at work half the day and I already needed a drink. The judge assigned a court date for the petition, which made my stomach cramp. I hated this part of my job. I might have seemed confident when I railed against Hunter for lying to me, but I’d been dying on the inside. Hunter went above and beyond what he had to, to be Destiny’s father. He could have laughed in my face and told me to get a paternity test to prove Destiny was his.

He hadn’t.

In the wee hours of this morning, I’d realized I’d been wrong about the whole situation. I couldn’t say it was the talk I had with my adoptive mom, or whether my mind and heart were finally on the same page after all this time, but when I sat up and pushed my unruly hair from my face, guilt ate at my stomach. I was taking a child from a man who didn’t have to step up, but he did anyway, and Destiny thrived in his care.

I’m so fucking messed up.

What I should have done was apologized, instead I sat there and cried more because I came to the right answer, and I didn’t know how to proceed. I could go to Gail and ask her opinion as a neutral party. Unfortunately, the things I said to Hunter in anger and jealousy, I couldn’t take back. Plus, there was the fact I’d been jealous of an almost eight-month-old baby. Who the fuck did that? Who hated babies so much they were jealous of them?

The answer was simple.

It was me. I was the problem.

Instead of sleeping, I’d gotten up. Now, I was paying for it. I could barely keep my eyes open, and I still had more work to do on the Miller case. As I stood to grab another cup of coffee—fuck, maybe I needed to suck it up and get a Red Bull instead—my phone rang. Ireland’s name appeared on the screen and my insides knotted.

I sat back down at my desk. My heart thumped in my chest while my hands trembled, waking me right up. Shaking, I skimmed my thumb along the screen before answering the call. “Ireland, what’s up?” The steadiness of my voice belied the tremors racking my body.

“There’s been an accident. Hunter’s on his way to the emergency room. I can’t leave. I have Mack Jr. and Destiny. Please hurry. He’s alone and badly hurt.”

You know how in books and movies, a person’s world narrowed to a pinpoint as their lives got turned upside down, or worse? I understood those moments now. My vision contracted to the words on my laptop. My heart thundered, galloping at a wild pace, and my stomach twisted and turned with anxiety as I gripped my phone tighter. “Which hospital?”

“St. Thomas, in Murfreesboro,” Ireland said. “I gotta go. Destiny is crying because she saw Hunter’s hurt.”

Fuck. Me.

I said nothing else. I hung up and went straight to Jenna’s office. I knocked once, then went in. “There’s been an accident.” I didn’t wait for her to say hello or anything. “A friend has been hurt. I need to run to the hospital. It’s an emergency.”

Jenna stared at me, then nodded. “Keep in touch. Did you get everything sent off for the Miller case?”

“I did.” I’d just hit send on the secondary petition for court before my phone rang. “We’ll have a hearing on the twenty-fourth at eight once the judge approves and we have another for Monday. We’ll be ready.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com