“What are you saying, Lana?” Layla asked. “You...?”
Lana’s gaze locked with mine. “You can’t remember anything, but until you do, I won’t ever believe that you didn’t have sex with her.”
I swallowed hard, knowing that she was telling me that unless I did remember, we were over. “I’ll never remember, Lana.”
“Yeah, I know. Just like you will never remember our night together.”
I felt like someone had actually punched me in the gut. “Our night together?” My voice was weak.
“The night before Jesse and Layla got married? The night you took my virginity?” Her whisky eyes were on fire. “I’m sure that night is a blank hole in your mind. Probably why you don’t know why I was so shattered the next night when I heard you fucking some slut against the hotel room door that separated our rooms.”
“No!” I moved without even realizing I was doing so. I grasped her arms, holding on to her even though I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to hold on to us. “Tell me that it didn’t happen!”
“I can’t.” She jerked away from me.
A sob seemed to be trapped in my chest, tears spilled, but I didn’t care. The last nail was being hammered into my coffin, and I didn’t know how to stop it. I was defenseless to stop the pain that was starting to consume me.
Emmie and Shane’s raised voices didn’t even penetrate the darkness surrounding me. Lana ran away from me, and I knew that my world had official stopped. Cold, gentle fingers touched my arm, and I blinked my eyes to see through my tears. Layla stood beside of me, her face a mixture of emotions. “I know this is hard, but you have to go. Jesse is going to kill you, Drake.”
I glanced at my friend, seeing the storm building with each passing second. “Let him,” I told her. An end to the pain I was feeling would be welcomed…
--
I don’t know how I ended up on the floor.
One minute I was standing in Lana’s living room, feeling the worst pain of my life, the next I was out cold. Emmie was leaning over me, her hand firmly tapping me on the cheek as she yelled my name over and over again. “Drake!”
I blinked, unable to keep my eyes open for longer than a second or two before I had to close them again. “Fuck!” I exclaimed, raising a hand to touch my throbbing jaw. “What happened?”
A shadow appeared over me, and I squinted up at my brother. “Layla tried to warn you, bro. Jesse has a freaking badass right hook on him.” The brief glance I got of Shane’s face told me he wasn’t feeling any empathy for me. “You’ve been out for about two minutes.”
I groaned, turning on my side so I could try to get up. “Where’s Lana?” I demanded.
“In her room. Probably throwing up again.” I shot Shane a frown as I straightened. “She hasn’t been in the best shape this morning. Finding her boyfriend asleep with another woman’s naked ass against his crotch tends to turn a girl’s stomach.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, running a shaking hand through my hair. “I need to talk to her.”
“You need to go home.” Emmie’s cool voice told me, and I turned to look down at her. “Jesse is holding onto his temper by his fingernails. Layla pushed him down the hall so he wouldn’t kill you.”
“I’m not leaving until I talk to Lana,” I told her, pushing past my brother and heading toward Lana’s bedroom. Jesse’s punch must have knocked some sense into me because I was seeing things more clearly now. If I didn’t talk to her now, didn’t see her now, then I was going to lose her forever.
The muscle head stood in my way when I reached the hall that led to the bedrooms. Linc was a hulking brute, even bigger than Jesse in size and muscle. “Leave her alone, man. I don’t want to kick your ass.”
He was bigger than me, outweighed me by at least twenty pounds of pure muscle, but I wasn’t in the frame of mind to care. I had only one goal and that was to get to Lana, to plead and beg for one more chance. No one was going to keep me from her.
“Lana!” Harper’s scream was full of fear. Linc didn’t even hesitate; he just turned and ran down the hall. Everyone followed, and I pushed through the masses of family and roommates to get into Lana’s room.
She was lying in the doorway that led into the connecting bathroom. Harper was leaning over Lana, trying to make her wake up. Layla was already there staring down at her sister in horror. I followed her gaze and my heart stopped when I saw that her yoga pants were covered in blood.
“Lana, wake up!” Harper pleaded, as she tapped her on the cheek. “Please, please, please, wakeup.”
Shane was just behind me, and when he saw the blood on Lana’s pants, the blood that was still almost gushing out of her and flooding the tan carpet under her, he made a gagging noise. Emmie pushed him toward the door, her phone already to her ear. “Get out, Shane. Go wait for the paramedics!”
I bent down beside of Lana. Her face was pale, the life seeming to drain out of her. I grasped her hand. It was so cold. “Angel…” I whispered but she didn’t even flinch.
Linc pushed Harper out of the way and felt Lana’s neck for a pulse. “It’s very slow.” He said, looking over at Emmie who was on the phone barking out orders. I could only guess she was talking to 9-1-1.
My heart was racing, fear gripping me so hard I almost couldn’t breathe. I wanted to do something, anything, but I was useless. It felt like an eternity before the paramedics arrived, but it was only ten minutes. My heart stopped when Linc yelled that Lana had stopped breathing just as the paramedics came through the door. I was pushed out of the way so they could get to her.
Layla was talking to the EMT in charge, asking if she could go with them, but they couldn’t let her or anyone else, not when Lana was barely hanging on. As they loaded her onto the gurney, I reached for her hand once more. Her fingers were like ice now, and I was doing nothing but praying, almost willing her to live. I had heard what the paramedics had said, I knew what was wrong. One more thing I was responsible for. One more thing that threatened to take Lana away from me forever…
Lana was losing our baby.
Chapter 23
Lana
I sat on the end of my bed, my head in my hands as I sobbed. I had just destroyed the man I loved.
I knew that nothing happened the night before. I couldn’t not believe it when both Layla and Emmie had beaten it out of Gabriella. It had just taken me a minute to get it straight in my head. Now I had to fix what I had broken in the next room, and I had no idea how I was going to do that.