I roll to Rylee’s side, both of us drenched in sweat and laughing. I’ve never known sex to be so funny, but somehow it always turns out that way with us.
I’m glad she’s laughing because earlier, I wasn’t sure she was even having fun. At dinner, she seemed disconnected. Or maybe distracted. There are so many reasons why she could have been, not the least of which is that this is our last Friday night together.
She cuddles up next to me and puts her head on my chest. “I’m going to miss this,” she says, her finger curling in my chest hair. “I mean, I know you’re leaving and I’m not a fool. It’s just … well, I’m going to miss this.”
Part of me wants to pull her on top of me and hold onto her for dear life. To tell her that I’ll miss this too, and maybe we don’t need it to end. Maybe there’s spring training. Maybe there could be even more.
I don’t tell her any of that, however, because I’m not capable of more. More died along with Natalie and Keeton. But if there ever were to be more, I know for a fact it would be with Rylee.
I give her a kiss on the top of her head. “We’ve had fun, haven’t we?”
“I suppose I should thank you,” she says. “These past few months have been great. And I’m not just talking about the sex. I’ve actually been more productive at work. More focused. I think having this outlet has been good for me.”
“You’ve been good for me, too, Ry. I’m not sure I could have had such a good outlook on things if it weren’t for you.” I stare down at her and our eyes lock together. “We’re good for each other.”
“I guess we are,” she says with a sad smile.
Then she gets off the bed and walks towards the bathroom. I want to pull her back. I want to tell her she doesn’t have to go. The words are begging to come out of me. “Ry …”
She turns around and I try to gauge if I see hope in her eyes. “Yeah?”
“You’re not leaving yet, are you?” I remove the sheet and flash her with my nakedness.
She looks at my body and then at the clock on my nightstand that reads 9:00PM. “I don’t turn into a pumpkin until ten o’clock,” she says. “I just have to pee.”
While she’s in the bathroom, I dispose of the condom and make sure there is another handy. Then I go out to the mini-bar and grab a few bottles of water. When I return to the room, I stop dead in my tracks when I see Rylee. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed looking all mussed up and sexy.
And she’s wearing my goddamned Bumbershoot t-shirt.
I walk to my closet and find a plain white t-shirt. I hand it to her, hoping she doesn’t see how my heart is practically beating out of my chest. “Would you mind putting this one on instead?”
She looks up at me and guilt washes over her face. “I’m so sorry,” she says, removing the t-shirt and taking the one I offered her. “I should have asked.”
She walks over and places it back in the closet. Then I go over and re-fold it and put it in its proper spot.
“Is that …?” She nods to the t-shirt on the shelf.
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
She was going to ask if it’s my lucky shirt. Then she was going to ask why. That right there is why I don’t do personal questions.
She scoots back on the bed. “I’m sorry. I just killed the mood, didn’t I? I just … sometimes I don’t know how to act around you. Like I swear just a few minutes ago you were going to ask me to stay.”
“And if I did, what would you have said?”
She shrugs. “I would have said I want to, but I can’t.”
I nod. “We’re two peas in a pod then, aren’t we?”
She laughs, but it’s not a fun laugh. It’s a pained one. “Only I get the feeling my reason for not staying and your reason for not wanting me to stay are quite different ones.”
I look over to the closet where the Bumbershoot t-shirt sits on a shelf. Then I look back at Rylee. We stare at each other. This is the closest we’ve come to crossing the line into personal conversation. This is the closest we’ve come to admitting whatever feelings there might be between us.
My heart is pounding. My head is cloudy. Maybe I don’t know what I’m doing, but sometimes, you just have to jump off the cliff to feel the exhilaration. “Rylee, I think you should —”
Her phone rings on the nightstand, and we both look over at it. She reaches for it to see who’s calling.
“I have to take this,” she says, jumping off the bed and walking quickly into the other room. “Hannah?” I hear her say as she walks out the door.
I think you should stay anyway, I was going to say. I was going to tell her that despite my reasons, despite her reasons, she should stay the night. I sit on the bed and run my hands through my hair wondering what is happening to me.
Rylee comes running back into the room, frantically searching around for her pants on the floor. “I have to go,” she says, tears rolling down her face.
I spring off the bed and go to her, putting my hands on her arms to calm her. “Ry, what is it? Who was on the phone? Who is Hannah?”
For a split second I think maybe her mother has passed away.
She brushes my hands away and pulls on her jeans. She doesn’t bother to take off my t-shirt, she just throws her jacket on over it, leaving her blouse in a puddle on the floor.
“What’s happening?” I ask again, more forcefully.
“Stryker’s hurt. She’s taking him to the hospital. I have to go there. Now.”
“Stryker? Your boyfriend?”
She pulls her purse over her shoulder and stops to look at me in surprise. “Boyfriend? No. Stryker, my son.”
“Your what?” I fall back against the bed.
“Brady, I h-have to go to the hospital, I’m s-sorry.”
Mascara is running down her face and I see that her hands are shaking.
Fuck.
“Well, you can’t drive yourself. You’ll have an accident. I’ll drive you.”
I quickly throw on some clothes and join her in the living room as she’s waiting impatiently by the front door. I take her keys from her knowing she’s in no condition to drive.
“Can you tell me what happened?” I ask as we get into the elevator.
She closes her eyes. “He loves those little iced cookies, the ones I keep in the jar on the kitchen counter. He knows he only gets one every night. But he’s precocious and sometimes he tries to sneak more, so I have to put them up in the cabinet where he can’t see them. B-but, I f-forgot to put them away tonight before I left. It’s my fault. Hannah said he came out of his room after she put him to bed and he must have climbed up on the counter to get one. She heard the crash in the kitchen and when she went in … ” She covers her mouth in horror. “Oh, God … when she went in, he was lying on the floor – dazed.”
“Jeez, Ry, I’m sorry.”
I know only too well that she’s going to blame herself if anything happens.
I’m still reeling. Rylee has a fucking kid? Everything starts to make sense all at once. The way she’s always having to move things around so she can go out with me. The way she knows all the animals at the zoo and the aquarium. The way she’s always home by ten.
“How old is he?” I ask.
“He’s only three. Oh, my God, Brady. What if he’s really hurt? What if he …”
I don’t hear anything she says after “He’s only three.” I lean over like I’ve been punched in the gut. I put my hands on my knees and try not to hyperventilate. Because Rylee’s the one who is losing it here, I can’t afford to lose my shit as well. I do my best to pull myself together, but I feel like I’ve just been hit by a truck.
The elevator doors open and she runs ahead of me. I can’t get my feet to move. She turns around. “Are you coming?”
When I don’t answer – when I can’t answer, she gets pissed.
She holds out her open hand. “If you can’t act like an adult long enough to get over the fact that you’ve been sleeping with a single mother, then hand me my goddamned keys and I’ll drive myself.”
“It’s not that,” I say, finally walking out after her.
“Can we not do this now, Brady? Stryker is hurt. He’s my top priority, not the fact you’re thinking I deceived you. Which I didn’t.”
“It’s not that either.” We reach her car and as we get in, I look in the back seat. No child seat. “Why don’t you have a booster seat in the back?”
“I always put it in Hannah’s car when she watches him. He likes to go to the park and the playground.”
If only it had been in here and I had seen it that very first time I rode in her car. If I had seen it, we wouldn’t be doing this. And if we weren’t doing this, Rylee would have been home and she would have put the cookie jar away.
If only I hadn’t walked out of our apartment thinking only of myself.
I shake off my thoughts of that horrible day.
“Which hospital?” I ask.
She gives me the directions as I speed through the nighttime traffic to get there. As I do, my stomach turns and bile rises in my throat thinking of the other time I raced through traffic to get to the hospital.
I drop Rylee at the emergency room entrance.
“You don’t have to stay,” she says, jumping out of the passenger seat. “You can leave my keys at the desk.”
I watch her run into the hospital. I know exactly how she feels. I know exactly what kind of pain she’s in for if …
I pound on the steering wheel, wanting so badly to stay for her. Wanting so badly to leave for me.
I find a parking spot and sit for a minute, contemplating my options. She gave me an out. She doesn’t expect me to stay. I can walk away right now.
But despite the voices in my head screaming at me to leave, I find myself walking into the waiting room of the emergency department. I look around and find a seat in the corner, pulling my baseball hat down low so nobody will recognize me. I sit here and people-watch as the minutes on the clock above my head tick away.
A lady comes in through the doors, frantically trying to find her husband who was brought in by ambulance. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she screams, as a nurse takes her into the back. I listen to her pathetic pleas to God in her weak and broken voice as she disappears down the hallway.
It doesn’t work, I think to myself. Pleading with God doesn’t work.
I put my forearms on my knees and lower my head, succumbing to the memories that I know will devastate me.
Dripping wet from the many bottles of champagne that were poured over us in the locker room after our momentous victory, my coach pulls me aside, looking as somber as I’ve ever seen him. Oh, shit, did we lose after all? Was there some kind of technicality that disqualified us?
“Son, you need to head back to Lincoln right now,” he says. “There’s been an accident.”
“Accident?”
He nods sadly. “Natalie and Keeton are at Lincoln Memorial.”
“What? No, Natalie is here at the game.”
“I’m sorry, son. She never made it here.”
“A car accident?”
“I don’t have any details, Brady.” He motions for one of the assistant coaches. “Dan will drive you as soon as you get changed.”
Nat and Keet are in the hospital? The gravity sinks in and I feel a wave of nausea. I run over to Dan. “I don’t need to change, let’s go now.”
In the car, I call Natalie’s phone, hoping she’ll answer. Car accidents happen all the time. Maybe they took them to the hospital as a precaution. She doesn’t answer. I try her sister, Katie, next since Natalie was supposed to drop Keeton off with her before she came to the game. No answer.
I hesitate as my finger hovers over her father’s name on my contacts screen. Was he in town this weekend? I can’t remember. I tap on his name, wondering if it’s the right thing to do. If he doesn’t already know about the accident, I have no details to tell him. If he’s not in town, knowing him, he’ll jump on the next plane just so he can try to micromanage the doctors and nurses should Natalie or Keet need special care. But my call rolls to voicemail.
I start the process over again, first calling Natalie, then Katie, then Dennis. Someone has to answer eventually. I’m about to give up and try to call the hospital directly when Katie answers her phone.
“Brady, hold on.” I hear her talking to someone who yells at her before the voices go silent and a door shuts in the background. I could swear it was Dennis’s voice I heard. “Are you on your way?”
“Yes. What happened? And why hasn’t anyone been answering the phone? Was that your dad? Why was he yelling at you?”
“He … he thought it best not to bother you during the game. He knows how much the game meant to you.”
“Wait, hold on a damn second. He told you not to bother me during the game? Just how long have they been in the hospital?”
“About five hours.”
“Five hours?” I shout into the phone. “Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t someone get me out of the game? Hell, that was before the game even started. What the fuck happened, Katie?”
I can hear her crying. Shit.
“Katie?”
“J-just get here as f-fast as you c-can, okay?”
“Katie, what the hell is going on?”
The line goes dead. I check the time to see we’re still about twenty minutes out. “Drive faster, Dan.”
When we reach Lincoln Memorial, he drops me at the emergency entrance and I run in and tell them who I am. A nurse buzzes me through to the back and puts me in a room where she tells me to wait for a doctor. I pace around the room as I wonder where Katie and Dennis are. Where my family is.
A short and stocky man with a white coat walks through the door. “I’m Dr. Lathem,” he says. “I was the doctor on call when your wife and son were brought in.” He gestures to a chair. “Why don’t we take a seat.”
I don’t want to take a fucking seat. Taking a seat is what they tell you to do when they have bad news. Taking a seat is how they keep you from falling down when they deliver it.
In the end, though, I do take a seat, because I double over when I listen to what the doctor has to tell me. I sit in the fiery pit of hell as he describes in detail what happened to my wife and child. I lose the contents of my stomach when he tells me my son is gone and my wife is critical.
A nurse rushes in with a glass of water for me as someone starts cleaning up the mess I made. Dr. Lathem asks if I have any questions. I have a million, but I can’t put two words together to ask them. I just need to get to Natalie.
The nurse takes my arm, telling me she’s going to bring me up to Natalie’s room in the ICU. She goes over some of the things that the doctor told me on the way up.
“Do you understand what he told you?” she asks. “Your wife may be aware, but she’s unable to move or speak due to the damage to her brain stem. It’s called locked-in syndrome. You can talk to her and if she’s awake, she can communicate with you with eye movements. Blinking and such.”
“Oh my God,” I say, doubling over in the elevator. Our life. Our perfect life with the three of us – gone in an instant. All because of me and my stupidity.
I can’t even think about Keeton right now. I’m compartmentalizing this. I can only deal with one thing at a time. Natalie is alive. I have to focus on that. I have to be strong for her.
When I get to her room, Katie and Dennis come outside before I reach the door. I’m trying to plow past them, but Dennis stops me.
“Get your fucking hands off me,” I tell him. “You’ve kept me from her long enough. What the hell were you thinking, not calling me earlier? I could have been here hours ago, you bastard. You robbed me of this time and I’ll never forgive you.”
Katie steps between us. “What’s done is done,” she says. “It wouldn’t have mattered, Keeton was …” She chokes up and tears roll out of her blood-red eyes. “He w-was gone when they brought him in.”
“It does matter!” I yell. “I could have been with Natalie. She needs me more than she needs anybody.” I look at her dad with fire in my eyes. “More than she needs you.”
I put my hand on the door, but Katie covers it with hers. “Wait. We haven’t told her about Keeton. She needs all her strength to fight this.”
My forehead falls to the wall as reality sinks in. My son is dead. My wife is dying.
My world is over.
“You two stay out here,” I say, before walking through the door.
There are all kinds of machines hooked up to Natalie. Despite that, she looks perfect except for the bandage around her neck and some cushions holding her head in place. Tears cloud my vision as I walk over to her and take her hand.
Her hand is limp and heavy in mine. I squeeze it hoping she can feel it. The nurse in the corner of the room coughs and Natalie’s eyes open. When she sees me standing over her, tears fall down the sides of her face. I wipe them. And then I wipe my own.
“I’m here, babe.”
Her nurse comes over and explains what I’ve been told. She says I can ask Natalie questions and she knows to blink once for yes and twice for no.
“Are you in pain?” I ask.
I watch her eyelids close once, then again, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
I lean down and place a kiss on her forehead. Her eyes. Her lips. “I love you so much, Natalie.”
She blinks her eyes three times. She’s telling me she loves me.
I ask her a few more questions but then she starts batting her eyelids like crazy and looking to the door. I don’t have to ask what she’s trying to say. I know she’s asking about Keeton.
She might hate me for lying to her. She might never forgive me. But there is nothing I can do for him. She’s my priority now. And even if it kills me, I have to be strong. “Keeton is fine,” I lie. “He’s waiting for his mommy to get better so she can hold him and sing to him. They won’t let him in here because he’s too young. He wanted me to give you a kiss for him.”
My words break up and my voice cracks and I wonder if she can see through all the lies I just told. More tears stream down the sides of her face. She blinks her eyes three times again and then they close. Then alarms go off in the room and the nurse rushes over, pushing me away from Natalie as she presses a button and calls “Code Blue” before more people come swarming in the room.
Someone pulls me out of the room as I fight to get back in. “No!” I yell. “No!” I try to push and claw my way through everyone to see her again. I have to be with her. It can’t happen like this. This is not how our story is supposed to end.
“Brady!” someone yells, shaking my shoulders.
I look up and see Rylee, worry etched into her face as she pulls me from my nightmare.
I look around the room and remember where I am. Soaked with sweat, I hop up from my chair and run outside just in time to vomit into the bushes.
I hear footsteps behind me, then a gentle arm on my back. “Brady, are you okay?”
I shake my head and wipe my mouth with my t-shirt. “Isn’t that what I should be asking you? How is he?”
“He’s going to be fine, thank God. They did a CT scan to rule out any bleeding in the brain. They said he has a mild concussion and will stay overnight for observation. They are putting a cot in his room so I can stay with him.”
I look at what she’s holding in her hands. Two stuffed toys – a stingray and a tiger. She follows my gaze. “Hannah grabbed them on their way out. She knows they are his favorites. I’m watching them while they move him to his room.”
“Good. That’s good news.” It’s all I can manage to say as I stare at the stuffed animals thinking about another three-year-old boy who loved them.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Stryker,” she says.
“No need to be sorry.” I shrug. “It’s my fault. My rules.”
She puts a hand on my arm. She nods back at the hospital. “What just happened in there? It’s like you were in a trance or something.”
“I’m fine. I just need to get out of here. I can’t be here. I … I can’t do this. Do you need anything?”
She shakes her head sadly. “Hannah is going back to my place to get me a change of clothes. But thanks for asking.”
She looks at me like the broken man that I am. She feels sorry for me. She feels sorry for things she doesn’t even know about me. This is why I don’t tell anyone. They ask too many questions and shed too many tears. I don’t need their sympathy.
I back away slowly, looking into her green eyes. The green eyes I thought could maybe heal me. I was stupid to think such a thing. Nothing can heal what is broken beyond repair.
“Good luck with everything,” I say. “I’m glad your boy is okay.”
She cocks her head to the side, studying me.
“Goodbye, Rylee,” I say, slowly backing up into the darkness.
I think I see a tear escape the corner of her eye. “Goodbye, Brady.”
I walk down the sidewalk, away from her. Away from my pain. When I reach the corner, I turn around to see her sliding down the wall, head in her hands as her body shakes with sobs.
Yeah, it fucking hurts, I think, feeling my own heart being squeezed like it’s in a vise.
But it could be worse.