Two years ago
I answer my phone with a croaky whisper. ‘Hello.’
Heavy breaths shudder on the other end of the line.
I sit up in bed with a start, blinking hazily at the pitch-black bedroom, my mind a jumble of sleep fog. My dry mouth clacks when I speak. ‘Zac? What’s wrong?’
He lets out a choked sob, and instantly, I’m awake. ‘Zac?’
The heartbreaking sound of him crying sends a rush of tears to my eyes.
‘Zac, what is it? Where are you?’ I lower the phone for half a second to glance at the time. It’s three o’clock in the morning.
He breathes out hard in my ear. ‘I’m at the hospital.’
My palm flies to my chest. ‘Why?’
‘I was … in … a car accident.’ He can barely get the words out.
‘Oh my god, are you OK? Which hospital? I’m coming.’ I fumble to switch on my bedside table lamp, then jump out of bed, so disoriented that I bang into the dresser.
‘She’s gone, Josie,’ Zac sobs into my ear.
The painting on the wall of a windswept beach becomes a wobbly blur of blue and grey, and a sharp pain clamps around my torso.
‘Who’s gone?’ I whisper, even though I already know.
‘Tara.’
CHAPTER 22
Today
I struggle to peel open my eyelids, my tongue refuses to detach from the roof of my mouth, and my legs kick at scratchy, bunched-up sheets.
‘Josie?’ breathes a familiar voice that soothes me for half a second before a wave of nausea shoots up my throat. I groan, and a hand catches my upper back, encouraging me to tilt forward. A metal bowl appears beneath my chin.
‘Be sick in this,’ the voice says, and the acidic taste of vomit splashes over my tongue and into the bowl.
Oh god. I feel terrible.
His palm gently rubs my back. ‘It’s OK. It’s probably just the pain medication.’
I flop against the pillow that rustles like it’s made from plastic and blink dazedly at Zac. He looks as unwell as I feel: his cheeks are ashen, his eyes are shadowed, and his messy curls are twisting up out of control. He handsme a tissue with a sympathetic look before slipping through a curtain with my puke bowl, leaving me to figure out my surroundings.
I’m in a hospital bed. A thin tube runs from my hand to a gently beeping monitor, and a blue curtain forms a privacy wall around me. Above my head, a small TV is playing a daytime talk show with the volume turned down, and an impressive bouquet of colourful flowers bursts from a table on wheels beside me.
My head swims, and I gulp a panicky breath as images swipe through my memory: a close set of taillights … a white hatchback screeching past the window … flashing blue and red lights … a paramedic with a pixie haircut peering into my face.
Zac steps back through the curtain.
‘Was I in a car accident?’ I blurt, my voice raspy like I’ve smoked a hundred cigarettes.
He nods, his eyes wrung with distress. ‘Lindsay was driving you home last night, and the cops said he was on the wrong side of the road. He hit a car, and another one smashed into you from behind. He had a blood alcohol reading of 0.145.’
‘Is Lindsay OK?’
Zac’s brows jam together as he drops into the plastic chair beside the bed. ‘He’s fine. Not a scratch.’
