“Hello? Is there someone else in the car?” Alarm fills his voice.
“I’m on the phone. Hands-free, should be on the dash.” It’s always where Avery keeps her phone when she’s driving. “Her name is Avery Spark. She keeps her ID in the back of her phone. She’s twenty-eight years old and she has a medical plan. She has pins in her ankle from a break when she was in her teens, but no other medical issues.”
“Are you her boyfriend or husband, sir?”
“She’s my best friend. Is she gonna be okay? Do you know what hospital you’re taking her to?”
“We’ll be taking her to Mountain General, outside of Golden. Do you know where that is?”
She was on the last leg of the trip, which makes me feel even worse. “I can find it. I’m on my way now. Is she okay?”
“She’s breathing, and we’re going to do our best. I need to end the call now. Drive safe, sir.”
The phone goes silent, severing my lifeline to Avery. I immediately tell my GPS to take me to Mountain General and call London to tell her to head there too. It’s the longest hour and thirteen minutes of my life. I think about the way Avery is whenever she’s in the passenger seat and I’m driving in the rain. How she bites her fingernails and pulls her knees up to her chest. She rests her forehead on her knees, so she doesn’t have to look at what’s happening outside of the car. She’ll turn the music up and put on a chill playlist, one she knows by heart so she can sing all the songs.
I always make fun of her and tell her she should’ve tried out for American Idol or something. She has a decent voice though, the kind that’s perfect for singing lullabies. I would give anything to hear that again.
When I get to the hospital, I find Harley and London in the waiting room, both in tears.
London rushes me. “This is your fault!” Her fists connect with my chest. Harley’s face is etched through with fear and sadness. She pushes unsteadily out of her chair, eyes red, but so stoic as she grabs for London’s swinging fist.
I shake my head. I deserve London’s anger and her wrath because she’s right: I’m the reason Avery is here, in this hospital. I’m the reason she was driving her car and not my SUV, and I’m the reason she was alone.
And I’m the reason they’re reliving one of the worst times of their lives again, except it’s not their parents who have been in the accident this time, it’s their older sister. The one who has been there for them through every single heartbreak and tear.
Despite their grandmother taking the three of them in, Avery still took on the role of head of the family after her parents died. She’s integral to the foundation of their family, and I’d knocked the footing out from under them.
I let London pummel me until the fight drains out of her and she wilts against me, sobbing uncontrollably. I’ve been to plenty of family functions over the years. I’ve been Avery’s backup wedding date on multiple occasions, particularly when she doesn’t want to be asked when she’s going to settle down. I’ve attended family birthdays; I got Avery shitfaced on her twenty-first and then dealt with the aftermath—which wasn’t pretty. I’ve even been to family Christmas and Thanksgiving.
I’ve been there through a lot of ups and downs, seen Avery through the bad times and the good. But I have never, ever felt so devastatingly responsible than I do for what’s brought us all here.
I wrap my arms around London, soaking in her pain. I thought I disliked myself this morning when the fog cleared, but it has nothing on how much I loathe myself right now.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I hate you so much right now,” London sobs into my chest. She’s tall, taller than Avery, but willowy instead of strong. I hold her up, taking most of her weight.
“Not as much as I hate myself,” I promise her.
She pulls herself together and pushes away from me. Turning to face the windows, she wipes at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater.
“Do we know anything yet?” I ask Harley, who is the less emotionally reactive of Avery’s sisters, and also the least likely to hold this against me for the rest of my life, even if she should.
“She’s in surgery right now. They said there are multiple breaks, but most of them look pretty clean. She’s going to need more pins in her leg and possibly a couple in her arm, but they’re not sure yet. She also suffered a few cracked ribs. They told us she’s lucky to be alive, and they’re doing their best.”
“Doing their best?” I echo, my brain trying to absorb and reject the myriad injuries Avery has sustained. Multiple breaks, cracked ribs, lucky to be alive pings around in my head, making my stomach roil.