“Cohen!” Andy shouted. “Cohen, you okay, man?”
Oscar the paramedic leaned closer. “You’ve also got some very concerned friends. I probably shouldn’t let them, but for thesake of all our sanities, I’m going to let the loudest one stick his head in and see you for himself, okay? Then we’re going to work on getting you out of here and onto a stretcher.”
A stretcher? No. I couldn’t let that happen. I wasn’t about to leave what had clearly been a wreckage the same way my parents had, even if I still had breath in my lungs.
I reached up slowly and began to pull the oxygen mask off my face.
“Woah, woah. Easy now,” Oscar said, but I ignored him, pulling the mask off completely, just in time for Andy to push his way forward, his breathing erratic as he stuck his head over Oscar’s shoulder.
Within a few blinks, the unshed tears in his eyes became my focal point.
I’d never seen such panic on Andy’s face. Never seen tears in his eyes.
Were they all for me?
“Cohen, I’m sorry, brother. I’m so fucking sorry,” he cried, the first tear falling down his dirt-streaked face. “I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to lose control.”
The others would probably think he was talking about the car, but I could see it in his expression that those words meant something else entirely.
His apology was for everything that had come before the crash.
I closed my eyes slowly one last time before I looked back up at him again. “Forget… it…” I croaked, trying to clear my dry throat.
“Promise me you’ll be okay. I can’t lose you, Cohen.”
A barely there smile tugged at one corner of my mouth. “Stop… being… dramatic.”
He stared at me for a beat longer before a sob of relieved laughter broke free. “You got it, mate. Whatever you ask of me from now on. Just… get out of there, yeah?”
Oscar politely moved Andy back before he came closer to me, sticking his head into the car again as he said, “Let’s get to work on that, shall we?”
“Please,” I croaked, a feeling of determination washing over me.
Because I may have not had my parents there to save me this time, but there was another face pushing its way to the forefront of my mind now, and with my life having just flashed before my eyes, I realised time could not be wasted on any man’s fears.
Especially not mine.
I had to get out of here so I could go to her.
Whether she wanted me or not.
“I really would advise against doing what you’re thinking about doing.” Oscar stood in front of me, all his kit in both hands while I sat on the back of the ambulance, a cold compress pressed against my head. “That banking’s drop may not have been long, but you still hit the ground with some force.”
I’d been out of Andy’s wrecked car for over an hour, having refused the gurney when it had been brought to me, telling them I had no need for the neck brace either. We’d made our way back to the main road, where the ambulance waited for me, but Oscar and his colleague Guy were not hiding their frustrations over my decisions too well now. Not that I cared. Why waste time on protocol when I knew my body better than anyone else did?
“You’re no doubt concussed, and that’s not even taking in to account the physical impact on your body.”
“You said nothing’s broken, right?” I adjusted the cold compress at the front of my head.
“I said it doesn’t appear to be. That doesn’t mean you’re not running on adrenaline right now, which could be masking any fractures or breaks. The best thing you can do is let us take you to the hospital and?—”
“No. No hospital. I’ve already told you.” I hadn’t been in one of those things since I’d been forced to identify the bodies of my parents. I didn’t intend on going back to one any time soon.
“Cohen,” Jace said in a tone one would use to try and reason with a three-year-old. “I think you should listen to them.”
“Please, mate. They know what they’re doing,” Andy said from his place beside me on the ambulance’s edge. He hadn’t left my side from the moment they’d all helped me limp my way out of the vehicle—the one Andy had somehow manoeuvred enough to turn it on its side, so that when it hit the small tree, the back seat Jace wasn’t sat in took most of the impact. How he’d done it, I didn’t know, but that was something we could figure out together another time.
“We like to think we do.” Oscar raised his brows at me.
