Her brows crease further and she opens her mouth to say something, then shakes her head as if she changed her mind about what she wanted to say. “The police were here too. They wanted to get your statement about the accident.”
“Are they still here?”
She shakes her head. “They left, but they’ll be back in a few hours.”
My gaze wanders back to my mother just as she stirs awake. She glances in my direction and whispers, “Grace?” Then she’s on her feet and dashing toward me.
The nurse excuses herself and leaves the room. Then Mom’s hands are on me, touching everywhere she can reach: my face, my arms, my hair. “You’re awake, thank God. How are you feeling?”
I open my mouth to tell her I’m okay, but end up crying instead, which turns to full-on sobbing.
Mom mumbles, “Shh, I’m here now,” as she wraps her arms around me in a hug, and I sink into her embrace.
She strokes my hair, then kisses my forehead. I wince when her fingers graze the wound. “Shit. I’m sorry.” She pulls away, gently turns my head to the side and gasps. “What the hell happened at MJ’s party? I met Father Foster downstairs on my way here. He gave me a rough rundown from the version he got from Ivan. He’s also been in touch with Levi’s parents. ”
I bury my face in my hands, too embarrassed, too guilty, too everything. I don’t even know where to start. “Did he tell you how they are doing? Are they seriously hurt?”
Mom sighs. “Levi has a broken shin bone in his right leg and bruised ribs. Sol, on the other hand, broke the thigh bone in his right leg and his shoulder is a bit banged up.”
“Oh my God,” I breathe out a sob.
Mom rubs a hand on my back. “Can you tell me what happened?”
I drop my hands to my lap, bunching them into fists. “Sol and Levi got hit by a truck because of me.”
She frowns. “How do you fit in the story?”
I clasp my hands to avoid wringing them. “I kissed Sol,” I whisper. “Levi found us, and he was so angry, Mom.”
She doesn’t say anything for several moments. “What were you thinking, Grace? I thought you and Sol were over.”
“I . . .” I wasn’t thinking. I inhale a deep breath and finally acknowledge what I feel out loud. “I still love him, Mom. We were talking, and he said he was going to kiss me, and that I should say no if I didn’t want him to. It’s like . . . I can’t explain it. I kissed him back.”
“What about Levi?”
“I love him, too,” I whisper.
Her eyes widen as understanding dawns in them. She murmurs, “Oh, sweetheart. You love them both?”
I nod, blinking back the tears threatening to fall again.
Pulling back the covers, she kicks off her shoes and joins me in bed, shifting on her side so we’re facing each other. She wraps her arm around my waist. “Come on. Get some rest. We need to keep your stress levels down, okay? We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
Sinking into her embrace, I close my eyes and attempt to breathe through the dull throbbing building at the base of my neck. “Why am I like this? Why is my heart so restless that it needs to be constantly fed with attention?”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“I hurt two people I love. What kind of person gets involved with someone else when they still have feelings for another?”
She sighs again, then says tiredly, “Did you ever stop to think that God put two men in your life for a reason? That both had a purpose?”
“Did He really?” And what does He think of me right now? That’s what I want to ask, but it’s not His fault. He might have brought two men in my life for whatever reasons, but everything else is on me. Maybe it was a test. And if it was, I failed miserably.
One of the night nurses walks back into the room and hands me two ibuprofen, then leaves again. Once I’ve taken them, I snuggle back in my mother’s arms. We don’t say anything, the silence interrupted only by feet shuffling in the hallway on the other side of the door. My mother pulls me tighter, and I bury my face into her chest and soak the front of her shirt with my tears.
Mom starts to hum under her breath, and before long, my eyes are falling shut, and exhaustion pulls me into a dreamless sleep.
“It’s coming! The truck! Move out of the way!” I scream, sprinting toward the street where Sol and Levi stand, waving my hands to catch their attention. But before I can reach them, before I can save them, the truck beats me to it. The deafening thud of metal crushing bone is all I hear. That and the sound of my own screaming as I try to get to where they are lying, but my feet aren’t moving fast enough.
Suddenly, someone is shaking me with enough force to rattle my bones, repeatedly saying, “It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re having a bad dream.” But I can’t stop trembling. I can’t stop sobbing as the images replay behind my closed lids. “Come on, kiddo. Wake up.” The familiar voice repeats the words over and over, coaxing me from my nightmare.
I blink my eyes open. The first thing I see is Christopher’s worried expression as he stares down at me, his hands on my shoulders relaxing a bit.
“There you are,” he murmurs, sliding one of his hands to push the hair off my sweaty forehead, his eyes scrutinizing me.
“I’m good,” I say, pushing up on my elbows to sit up, then wipe my cheeks. “It was just a bad dream.”
“Everything okay in here?” a nurse asks from the door.
Christopher’s gaze bores into mine in question, and I nod. He looks over his shoulder at the woman. “She’s fine. Just a bad dream.”
After she leaves, he faces me. “Want to talk about it?”
“I couldn’t save them in my dream. I really tried to warn them about the truck, but I failed. Again.” I press the heel of my hands into my eyes. “My legs couldn’t move fast enough.”
“It was only a dream, Grace,” Christopher says gently. I drop my hands on my lap. “According to the doctors, they are doing quite well.”
Hope beats its little wings in my chest. “Really?”
He nods, bridging the space between us and pulling me into his arms. He kisses my hair, then whispers, “Everything’s going to be okay.”
I sniff, wiping my eyes with his shirt. “Mom already left?”
“She had to head to the diner, but she’ll be back in an hour or so. Feeling better?”
“Yeah.” Pulling back, I squint through bleary eyes. “Thank you for being here.” Someone clears their throat, and Christopher shifts to the side to reveal a new doctor. He looks oddly familiar. Where have I seen him before? My brain is still too muddled to think straight.
“Dr. Bachmann was just telling me you can go home if things check out,” Christopher says, interrupting my scrutiny.
My chest constricts at the name. Dr. Bachmann. Bachmann. Wait. This must be Gavin’s dad. No wonder he looks so familiar.
Memories of my first boyfriend, Gavin, dumping me after the pep rally back in high school, followed by the rumors he spread about me flash inside my head. A cold sweat bathes my body. I thought I’d buried that experience deep down, but right now, it’s rearing its head. The things he said about me and my mother . . . I wish the floor could open up and swallow me.