“Kind of. Anyway, did Alec see it?”
There was a long pause after my question.
“He did.”
I winced.Poor Austin. Poor Alec. “What did you see exactly?”
“I just know that Austin was involved in a fight and Brandy can be seen in the background.” Her voice lowered. “I can hear her in the video, Syd.”
I covered my eyes. “Crap. You can hear her saying she’s in love with them both?” I wanted to die and cry and race out of here to find Alec. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know. We’ve all been trying to call him. He’s not at home. Lyria is there now. I’ve divvied up places where he could have gone. If we split up, we can cover more ground.” I could hear the sullen brokenness in her voice, which equaled mine.
My heart ached. It physically ached. “This will break him, Serena.”
“I know. That’s why when we find him, we need you there. You always calm him. You calm everyone.”
I didn’t want this to be his new reality, yet here we were. “I’m with Austin now. I had to drive him to the hospital.”
“Oh …” Serena’s voice trailed off.
I could picture her pacing wherever she was. Most likely at the office. She lived at the office. That was what my eldest sister did—she paced and worried and led the company, which was why we were all so grateful to her.
“You didn’t have to leave the meeting, Serena. You know I could have handled it.”
“It’s fine. That meeting was done before it even started.” She exhaled heavily, and I knew whatever had happened at her business meeting was bad. “We’re going to have to make some real decisions soon.”
I sensed the underlying tension in her tone. Real decisions about the business—I was sure of it.
“Is it that bad?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
“We’ll talk about it later. We need to find Alec. Family first.”
“Family first,” I repeated.
Always.
* * *
I walked back to the hospital room. I didn’t want to, but being in the room with him would be better than waiting for him in the cafeteria. Plus, I needed to get out of here, so I could go find and cheer up Alec.
My thoughts pinged back to Alec, imagining what was going through his mind. I thought of the day we had buried our mom and the days after. Alec had holed himself up in his room while Addison, his twin, cried in my arms. They had been born minutes apart, but they couldn’t have been more different emotionally. Alec clammed up, whereas Addison always wore her emotions on her sleeve.
But when he had come out of that room the day she died, his eyes red and raw from crying by himself, he’d walked toward me, and I’d held him as he shook with grief.
Everyone had processed the death of our mother differently. Serena drowned herself in work, Lyria straight-up couldn’t deal and left, Brooke occupied herself with her boyfriend at the time … and me? I had taken care of the twins.
Before I could enter the room, I saw Dr. Mendez exiting.
“Hi. How is he?”
“He’ll be fine,” Dr. Mendez said.
I learned that he had a tear in the supraspinatus muscle, which essentially meant that he had torn his rotator cuff. And if that wasn’t bad enough, his right hand was in a splint.
“But he’ll need surgery,” the doctor said. I knew by her face—most likely due to privacy rights—that I wasn’t getting much more than that.
“He doesn’t even look like he’s in a ton of pain.” I was shocked he could hide it so well.