“Stevie St. James. What room is she in?”
“Are you family?”
“I’m her friend.”
She frowns. “Let me call for a nurse. You should really get back to your room before—”
“She’s in here.”
Whipping around, I lock eyes with Stevie’s sister. A sullen dark gaze stares back at me, her eyelids puffy, lashes damp with tears. I swallow. “Can I see her?”
She hesitates.
Then Joplin offers a slight nod before pivoting around and ushering me toward the room down another endless hallway.
When she swipes open the cornflower-blue curtain, two more sets of eyes pan in my direction. Her parents. Her grieving, shell-shocked parents. I stand there, out of breath and out of place as Joplin trudges into the room and sinks down in an empty chair.
I look over at Stevie.
And my heart sinks to the grubby tiles.
Her leg is elevated and wrapped in a bulky splint, the swollen knee beneath it looking painful and unnatural. A bandage, stained dark red, is wrapped around her head, and her complexion is pale and sallow. Tubes and IV lines snake into her arm—more than I had.
But her eyes are open.
She’s awake.
I move closer, every step heavy, as if I’m wading through thick fog. The room is quiet except for the rhythmic beeping of the monitors and the occasional rustle of medical staff in the hallway. And my damn heart. It sounds like a freight train plowing through my chest.
“Hey,” I murmur.
What a stupid fucking thing to say.
Stevie cranes her head in my direction, her eyes glazed over like frosted emeralds. Her bottom lip trembles. I can’t imagine the pain she’s in, the pain I’ve caused.
I blink over to her family members and shake my head.
I don’t even know what to say.
Joplin leans forward in the chair and clears her throat. “A rib fracture. Minor lung contusion. Broken leg. Crushed knee.” She lists off the injuries, her words cracking. “Concussion, bruising, surface wounds. By all accounts, it could have been a whole lot worse.”
Numbness digs deep into my bones as I swivel back to Stevie.
She stares up at the ceiling, and a tear slips loose from the corner of her eye.
“Stevie…” I cup a hand over my jaw, then drag it up through my hair andsqueeze the strands as I hold my weight up on one leg. All the weight. Every weight.
I’m still trying to think of something to say when chaos unleashes.
“Where the fuck is he?”
My father’s voice booms through the hallway, icing my veins. A second later, he charges through the curtain, a pair of cops rushing in behind him.
Mom hollers his name from behind, trying to catch up on her fifty-inch heels. “Mortimer!”
“Sir, you can’t be in here—”
“I’m an attorney,” he snaps, ripping free from the officer’s grip. Then my father whirls me around by my gown and yanks me to his chest. “What thefuckdid you do?”
