“Is he . . . he’ll be okay, right?” My voice doesn’t sound like my own.
“I don’t know. The trauma team is trying to stabilize him. Jessie is with you, right?”
“Yeah.” I look over at her. She’s watching me, eyes wide.
“Can you pass the phone to her?”
I hand her the phone, and she looks down at the caller ID.
“It’s Trey, Knox is hurt,” I choke out as she holds the phone up to her ear.
“What happened?” she asks in a far calmer tone than I could right now. The nurse side of Jessie kicking in.
Trey says something and she nods. She taps away on her phone, changing the address for the Uber.
I stare blankly at the sidewalk, hearing Trey’s words over and over, “The trauma team is trying to stabilize him.”
“We’ll be there in ten minutes.” Jessie hangs up and grabs my hand.
“Jessie, what if— What if he . . . ” I can’t finish my sentence. I don’t even want to think the thought, it makes my chest tight, andI can’t breathe. I feel the panic setting in and start panting shallow breaths.
“Hey. Hey, don’t think that.” She squeezes my hand. “Breathe, Kacey.”
I suck in a deeper breath, holding it for three seconds as she keeps talking.
“He’s going to be okay. It’s Knox. I’m pretty sure he eats nails for breakfast before going to the gym for five hours.”
All I can do is nod my head and take another breath so I don’t pass out.
“Our Uber is almost here, let’s go.” She grabs both our bags and leads me down to the Uber pickup.
We walk into the hospital and head straight for the front desk, but Jessie stops me. “They won’t tell you anything. You aren’t immediate family. Let’s find Trey.”
Trey jumps to his feet when he sees us enter the waiting room. He’s pale and has clearly been running his hand through hisnow-messy hair. His cowboy hat sits on a chair, his long-sleeve shirt covered in sponsor patches is untucked and wrinkly. And he’s still wearing his dirty jeans from riding. You would never guess him to be a pretty boy looking at him right now.
He rushes to me and pulls me into a hug. I’ve been trying to hold it together, but feeling the fear radiating off him pushes me over the edge. I can’t hold it back any longer. Tears start rolling down my face as I sob into his chest.
“Have you heard any news?” Jessie asks what I can’t.
“They won’t give me any details, but I’m going to call his mom when the doctor comes out,” he answers, still holding me upright.
Jessie has us both sit, and I’m able to calm down before we hear, “Ward family?”
A doctor in a white coat is looking around the waiting room. We jump up and Trey dials Knox’s mom, Jen.
“Are you immediate family?” he asks.
“No, we’re his friends—he doesn’t have any family here. We have his mom on the phone,” Trey tells him, and Jen acknowledges the doctor over the phone, asking for an update.
“He’s stable now, we had to put him in an induced coma because of the cerebral edema—swelling on the brain—caused by the concussion. He also has a lacerated liver, cracked sternum, and we need to do surgery to remove his spleen. Because of the induced coma and the amount of swelling on his brain, we will admit him into the ICU and monitor him closely after surgery.”
“Can I see him?” I ask the doctor.
“Not yet. He’s being taken into surgery now. Once he’s out and settled in the ICU, one of you can go back and sit with him.”
“Is there any brain damage?” Jen asks.
“We don’t know yet. The next twenty-four hours will tell us more. Hopefully, the swelling goes down, we can wean him off the medications, and he wakes up.”
