CHAPTER NINETEEN
I can’t help but go through flashbacks of rushing into the ER when Grandmother had her heart attack. It’s barely been six months since that awful night.
This isn’t quite as dire. Though my heart is still in my throat as I hurry into the hospital with Hayley at my side.
“Did Kylie say what happened?”
“No. Just that he was hurt pretty badly.”
Could she be a little vaguer?
“Was it a car accident?”
“I don’t know. But he’s been here for the past two days, so it must be bad.” We get on the elevator, and she pushes the button for his floor. “Zack’s been here since he found out.”
I can barely keep myself from jumping out of my skin as we ride up to Kellen’s floor. Here I was, blaming him for not getting in touch with me, while he was lying in a hospital bed.
I’m glad now that Hayley reached out to her sister even though I’d begged her not to.
Kylie is waiting in the hallway, sitting on what looks like a pretty uncomfortable plastic chair. “Hey,” she whispers, hugging both of us. “It’ll be okay. He woke up a little while ago.”
“He was unconscious all this time?” I can hardly breathe. Hayley has to put an arm around me for support.
Kylie nods. Her eyes are red-rimmed. “He was unconscious when he was brought in and then they found internal bleeding so they took him into surgery and were able to stop the bleeding. He’s been in and out since he woke from the surgery. They banged him up pretty badly.”
They.
They?
Who’s they?
I look to Hayley, who clearly picked up on her sister’s choice of words, just like I did.
“They banged him up? What are we talking about here?”
“I imagined it was a car accident or something,” I add.
Kylie’s bronzed skin goes white. “Oh. Right.” She runs her hands through her hair, either distracted or nervous. I’d bet on the latter.
“What happened to him?” I whisper even though I’m not sure I want to know now. Not when the little bit of information I’ve been given makes me sick to my stomach. How much worse will it be when I find out the rest of it?
She looks from me to Hayley and back again. I can tell she doesn’t want to say, which only drives me half-crazy with the need to know more.
Hayley’s legal mind is already turning. “Will it incriminate him in something if he admits what happened? Will it put either of us in jeopardy?”
Kylie frowns, shaking her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Wait.” Now, I’m thoroughly confused, like I walked into a movie halfway through. “What would he be involved in that could be so serious?”
And why didn’t Kylie act stunned when Hayley said that?
Instead, she took the questions in stride and answered as best she could.
Poor Kylie.
She glances in the direction of Kellen’s room, chewing her lip. “It’s more like I don’t think he wants it blabbed about. He’s ashamed. I know he wouldn’t want you to think badly of him. He couldn’t stop talking about you to Zack the morning after the wedding. He was looking forward to seeing you again. This is going to crush him.”
Crush him? What about me?
One look at Hayley tells me she’s no more aware of the ins and outs than I am, though she’s concerned. “If he wanted to continue seeing Kitty, this is something she would’ve found out about eventually. What is he hiding?”
Kylie rubs her temples. “Okay. You’re right. You would’ve found out anyway—I mean, I would’ve seen to it. As it was, I had my reservations, but I figured I wouldn’t say anything about it until I knew the two of you were going to continue seeing each other. No sense in bringing it up if you’d left things back at the resort. And, really, if it wasn’t for him and Zack being so close, I might’ve said something anyway. But Zack is super protective of him.”
“Protective of what exactly?” I’m ready to explode at this point. I just might unless I get answers.
She takes a deep breath and lowers her voice even further. “Briggs is a compulsive gambler. It’s an addiction. It started back in college.”
It hits me with the force of a bomb going off in my face.
Yet my first reaction isn’t one of surprise. Or dismay.
It’s incredulity.
“No. That’s not right. He told me …” I can’t go on.
“What did he tell you?”
Now, I don’t know whether or not I should say, but with the two of them looking at me the way they are, it seems like the time to keep my mouth shut has passed. “He told me Zack was the one with a problem.”
Her brow lowers. “Oh, he said that, did he? Well, he lied. Yes, I knew that Zack had bet on games in college, but he stopped very quickly once he saw how deeply Briggs had fallen into it. Apparently, there was some trouble with loan sharks—Zack would never go into detail—but things got bad when Briggs’s family found out. He supposedly cleaned up his act after that—at least, that’s what he told Zack whenever he checked on him.”
The world is spinning around me.
Kellen created an entire story—no, actually, that isn’t true. He just flipped the truth, making himself look like the good friend and Zach the gambler, when in truth, he’s a really shitty friend. I suppose addiction will do that to you.
“Here. Sit.” Hayley nudges me toward one of the chairs positioned against the wall. I have no choice but to lower myself into it.
She turns to her sister, still holding my hand. “What you’re saying is, Briggs owed people money, and they beat him up when he didn’t have it.”
“In a nutshell, yes.” Kylie touches my shoulder. “I know it must be hard to hear. I’m sorry. We really did hope he had himself back on track.”
My head bobs up and down without my meaning to move it. “I understand. And I feel like I owe you both an apology, too. I went round and round with myself wondering if I should say something about it to you or Hayley.”
“Don’t feel guilty,” Kylie says. “I understand why you wouldn’t want to bring it up at my wedding. I should have told Hayley not to push you two together and why.”
“No kidding.” Hayley snorts.
“It’s not your fault,” I remind her, looking up. “I don’t hate Kellen. I feel sorry that he got into this mess. He’s a nice person. I like him so much.”
Kylie sits next to me. “I know it would mean a lot for him to hear you say that, though nobody would ever force you to go and talk to him. I don’t know if he’d even want to face you right now. Not only because he’s banged up. He’s also embarrassed.”
“I can understand that.”
Zack steps out of the room, looking surprised to find us there. He stares at his wife, who shrugs.
“They were worried. Hayley asked me if I knew what was going on with him. I couldn’t pretend not to know.”
He looks from Hayley to me. “It doesn’t matter now, I guess. This isn’t something you can hide from people you care about. I keep trying to tell him that, but … well, it’s too late now. You were bound to find out.”