She was on the last leg of the trip, which makes me feel even worse. “I can find it. I’m on my way now. Is she okay?”
“She’s breathing, and we’re going to do our best. I need to end the call now. Drive safe, sir.”
The phone goes silent, severing my lifeline to Avery. I immediately tell my GPS to take me to Mountain General and call London to tell her to head there too. It’s the longest hour and thirteen minutes of my life. I think about the way Avery is whenever she’s in the passenger seat and I’m driving in the rain. How she bites her fingernails and pulls her knees up to her chest. She rests her forehead on her knees, so she doesn’t have to look at what’s happening outside of the car. She’ll turn the music up and put on a chill playlist, one she knows by heart so she can sing all the songs.
I always make fun of her and tell her she should’ve tried out for American Idol or something. She has a decent voice though, the kind that’s perfect for singing lullabies. I would give anything to hear that again.
When I get to the hospital, I find Harley and London in the waiting room, both in tears.
London rushes me. “This is your fault!” Her fists connect with my chest. Harley’s face is etched through with fear and sadness. She pushes unsteadily out of her chair, eyes red, but so stoic as she grabs for London’s swinging fist.
I shake my head. I deserve London’s anger and her wrath because she’s right: I’m the reason Avery is here, in this hospital. I’m the reason she was driving her car and not my SUV, and I’m the reason she was alone.
And I’m the reason they’re reliving one of the worst times of their lives again, except it’s not their parents who have been in the accident this time, it’s their older sister. The one who has been there for them through every single heartbreak and tear.
Despite their grandmother taking the three of them in, Avery still took on the role of head of the family after her parents died. She’s integral to the foundation of their family, and I’d knocked the footing out from under them.
I let London pummel me until the fight drains out of her and she wilts against me, sobbing uncontrollably. I’ve been to plenty of family functions over the years. I’ve been Avery’s backup wedding date on multiple occasions, particularly when she doesn’t want to be asked when she’s going to settle down. I’ve attended family birthdays; I got Avery shitfaced on her twenty-first and then dealt with the aftermath—which wasn’t pretty. I’ve even been to family Christmas and Thanksgiving.
I’ve been there through a lot of ups and downs, seen Avery through the bad times and the good. But I have never, ever felt so devastatingly responsible than I do for what’s brought us all here.
I wrap my arms around London, soaking in her pain. I thought I disliked myself this morning when the fog cleared, but it has nothing on how much I loathe myself right now.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I hate you so much right now,” London sobs into my chest. She’s tall, taller than Avery, but willowy instead of strong. I hold her up, taking most of her weight.
“Not as much as I hate myself,” I promise her.
She pulls herself together and pushes away from me. Turning to face the windows, she wipes at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater.
“Do we know anything yet?” I ask Harley, who is the less emotionally reactive of Avery’s sisters, and also the least likely to hold this against me for the rest of my life, even if she should.
“She’s in surgery right now. They said there are multiple breaks, but most of them look pretty clean. She’s going to need more pins in her leg and possibly a couple in her arm, but they’re not sure yet. She also suffered a few cracked ribs. They told us she’s lucky to be alive, and they’re doing their best.”
“Doing their best?” I echo, my brain trying to absorb and reject the myriad injuries Avery has sustained. Multiple breaks, cracked ribs, lucky to be alive pings around in my head, making my stomach roil.
“They’re worried about her leg. It’s the same one that was injured before. It was pinned. They’re hopeful.” Harley’s eyes are haunted, her chin trembling. She was only twelve when her parents died in that car accident. Young enough to still need her mom and old enough to understand what she didn’t have anymore, and never would.
“Hopeful.” I sit in one of the chairs and run my hands through my hair, gripping it at the crown. My vision goes blurry. “She has to be okay. She has to be whole.” I can’t even begin to consider what it would be like for Avery to lose a limb. She’s forever seeking adventure. She’s the first to say yes to the riskiest things, like mountain climbing, or biking down the side of an actual mountain. The things we do for fun are things people would do maybe once in their lifetime. She’s fierce and effervescent and full of life.
Except right now, she’s in surgery and we don’t know what the extent of the damage is going to be.
“What about head injuries?” My voice is rough like a freshly paved gravel road.
“Other than bruising and swelling from the airbag deploying, they don’t think there’s any damage there.”
“Thank God.” I can handle Avery and physical injuries, but I need to know that her beautiful, amazing mind isn’t going to be altered after this.
While we wait, I text our college friends that we were supposed to meet up with for the game and give them an abbreviated version of what happened and tell them I’ll update them when I know more. I call Jerome and Mark to tell them what happened. I feel numb as I repeat the same information twice. And twice I get the question: Wasn’t I supposed to be with her? Because the guys didn’t want to go out, they left before I went to the bar. I messaged a friend from work and met him there, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to go for one drink. Which turned into several drinks and some very bad decision-making.
Twice I’m met with silence after I explain what happened. The heavy kind that’s filled with unanswered questions. And I realize that if something really bad does happen to Avery, I might stand to lose a lot more than her friendship. I might lose everything that’s important to me. Her being at the top of that list.
7
I NEED A VACATION FROM MY LIFE
AVERY
I hurt in ways that don’t make sense. It feels like I ran a marathon and then got into a boxing ring. And lost. Every part of me aches, and at the same time I feel heavy, like I’m pinned underwater, but still able to breathe.
I open my eyes, the smells and sounds unfamiliar. I blink a few times, adjusting to the dimly lit room that is most definitely not mine. I try to move, but it makes white and black spots appear in my vision. I suck in a gasping breath as pain radiates through my entire body, making it impossible to do anything but fight to breathe through it.
Once the agony settles back into a nearly unbearable ache, I slowly, carefully take a look around the room. One crucial thing becomes clear as I process the visual information accompanied by the repetitive, rhythmic beeping: I’m in the hospital and I’m very badly hurt.
Panic sets in, the kind I haven’t experienced in a decade. The same kind of panic I felt when I came downstairs after a fitful night’s sleep and found Gran sitting in the middle of the formal living room on the couch that only adults used when there was a big event of some kind. Her hands were folded in her lap, white fabric peeking out, my grandpa’s initials embroidered in one corner.