RYAN
I had been dodging Candy for over a week. Sissy and everyone around me noticed a change in me; I was angry. I didn’t attend Philip’s class and stayed away from him even more than I’d been before. It just sucked not being able to be with whom I wanted. Even worse was having to live this way in order to protect a child, who should’ve never been put in this situation.
So, when I was woken up late one night to Court’s friend Tiffany screaming and crying, my blood ran cold.
“Tiffany? What happened?” I shot out of bed.
“R-Ryan, it’s… it’s C-Court.”
“Where are you?” I put my pants on and grabbed a T-shirt. I was rushing out the door within minutes.
“I’m at the hospital. They won’t tell me anything because I’m not family. You need to get here.” Her cries were escalating.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay? Don’t worry. Court is tough, she’ll get through this.”
“Hurry please.”
“I’m on my way.”
An hour and a half later, I pulled into the parking lot of the hospital, lucky that I wasn’t stopped considering it was typically a two-hour drive.
I ran into an emergency room packed with people. Tiffany was in one corner slumped in her seat. Brice was staring out the window into the darkness, and there was a guy that looked just like him sitting next to him with his head in his hands. My legs felt like logs walking over to Tiffany. I scooped her up in a hug. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. Landon was there. He stopped it and performed CPR until the ambulance got there.”
“Who the fuck is Landon?” I asked confused as to why Brice hadn’t been the one to rescue her. The guy with his head in his hands looked up at me with tears in his eyes.
“I’m Landon,” he said looking over at Brice. “I’m Brice’s brother. He asked me to watch over her and I fucking failed.” He stood up and started pacing, clearly angry with himself.
“Why? I’m so confused. Why weren’t you there yourself, Brice?” The last time I’d seen them they were happy. You could tell just by looking at them that they cared about each other. Brice didn’t answer; he just sat there staring out the window.
“Court broke up with him,” Tiffany whispered in my ear. Well hell, that was unexpected. She broke up with him and he still had his brother keep watch over her at night?
Their neighbor, Derek, walked in the door. “How’s she doing?”
“We don’t know. Ryan just got here.” Tiffany went over to hug him, still crying. My eyes dampened a bit thinking of all the people Court had rooting for her. She had to be okay. She was the only family I had left.
I walked over to the nurses’ station and gave them my name and told them I was Courtney’s only family. “Can you ask the doctors to update me as soon as they can?”
“Sure thing.” The nurse smiled reassuringly at me.
The only thing left to do was wait. I walked over to Derek and held my hand out to him. “Did you at least catch the guy?”
“Thanks to Landon over there, he’s handcuffed to a hospital bed getting checked out for a possible head injury before we take him to lockup.”
“He’s here?” I practically yelled.
“He was kicked in the head. He’s not going anywhere. We have two officers watching him.” I felt marginally better about that but was still nervous.
“Ryan?” A nurse called from the door. I hurried over, yet dreaded the information she had for me. “We have her stable, but she’s unconscious. She was without oxygen for a long time. We’ll have to wait for her to wake up before we’ll know if there’s any permanent damage.”
“Can I see her?” The news wasn’t what I was expecting. She was without oxygen? What the fuck did that prick do to her?
The nurse nodded. “Two at a time only, please.”
“Tiffany? You want to see her?” She and I walked down the hall toward her room; the nurse opened the door. I started crying as soon as I saw her frail body lying on the hospital bed. Her neck was red with angry finger marks on it, and she had a tube down her throat. Tiffany gasped and nearly fell on the floor. I was able to grab her before she collapsed.
“God, I never should have left her home to go out. This is all my fault.” She sobbed into my chest.
“Shh, she’ll be fine,” I cooed into her hair. My sister would be fine. She just had to be.
It had been a few days and Court still hadn’t woken up. Everything irritated me. The fact that Brice refused to come see Court, even though he sat in the waiting room day in and day out, was pissing me off. I told him how dumb he was several times over those few days, since I couldn’t fathom how she’d be angry with him after his actions saved her life.
I walked into the waiting room after going to the fast food restaurant down the street and handed him a burger. “She won’t even know you were there.” I tried to reason with him.
“It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t want me around. I just want to know she’s okay,” he said still staring out the window.
“You’re both fucking morons,” I growled before stomping away. They clearly loved each other but they were letting a stupid misunderstanding tear them apart. I was forced to step away from who I wanted to be with and these idiots were just throwing their relationship away. I didn’t have a choice in the matter; they did.
My phone kept ringing off the hook. I took the few calls from Sissy but Candy called nonstop. I ended up shutting my phone off because I was sick of hearing it ring. It gutted me to have Abby think I was abandoning her, but I couldn’t talk to Philip. I shouldn’t have even been thinking about him with my sister unconscious in a hospital bed, but there was a lot of time to think sitting in a hospital room with nothing to do but wait and worry. A guy walked in the room with a vase full of brightly colored flowers. “These are from everyone down at the station.”
“Hey, I know you. I saw you at the park with you’re—” He cut me off.
“No, I don’t think so.” The look he gave me was weird. I knew it was the same guy who was with the boy. Why the hell was he denying it? Did he not want anyone to know about Kaden? Tiffany raised an eyebrow at him, but he shook his head at her too. Whatever, there was too damn much going on in my own life to have to worry about his.
“My name’s J. I work at the radio station with Brice.” He stuck his hand out to shake.
“I’m Ryan, Court’s brother.” His shoulders relaxed when I played along. Tiffany was looking at us curiously.
“What were you doing at the park?” she asked me.
“Hanging out with Abby.”
“Who’s Abby?”
“She’s a little girl I met at a meeting. Her foster parents were abusing her. Long story, but Philip and I look after her.” I shut the conversation down after that; the whole thing was just too painful to talk about.
It was a few hours later that Court woke up. While the doctors were checking on her, I walked to the waiting room. Brice looked up at me with hope in his eyes as I powered my phone back on. “She’s awake,” I said gruffly, having just let my sister have a piece of my mind only moments after she woke up from a coma. What kind of certifiable asshole does that? Brice continued to sit there. God, the two of them were getting on my nerves.
The notifications started going off. There were so many it sounded like a damn slot machine. One text after another from super skank. The last one had me cursing and unlocking my phone.
Super skank: That’s it Ryan, if I don’t hear from you in 10 I’m going to expose you.
That was the first message I saw. It was from the day before. The next one had a link.
Psychology professor put on administrative leave after allegations of a sexual relationship with a student.
“Shit, oh shit, no. Holy fuck this can’t be happening.”
“What happened?” Brice asked on full alert, finally taking his gaze away from the damn window.
“Nothing, Court’s fine. It’s Philip and Abby I’m worried about.” I was clutching my phone hard. It started ringing and I looked down to see Sissy’s name flashing on the screen.
“Ryan, what the fuck is going on?”
“Chill, Sissy. Damn, I used to be able to hear out of that ear.”
“What is happening? They pulled Professor Marks out of class yesterday and classes have been cancelled until further notice. They’re looking for you.” She had officially become hurricane Sissy and there was no stopping her until she got it all out. I didn’t even attempt to cut in. It’d be a waste of energy, so I held the phone away from my ear and waited. “Well? What’s going on? Tell me!”
“Candy blackmailed me into sleeping with her but my sister was attacked, and I haven’t been answering her calls, I guess she got impatient and exposed us.” That was a pretty short, concise version without all the drama mixed in.
“So, it’s true? I knew you were spending a lot of time together on the case study, but I never would have guessed you were sleeping together. Why didn’t you tell me?” She sounded hurt but I didn’t have time to worry about her at the moment, nor correct her assumption that we’d actually slept together, though we’d pretty much done everything but. Right now I needed to find out what was happening with Philip and Abby, because I’d sacrificed the man I saw a future with for the child I loved, and now it appeared it’d all gone to hell and I’d lost them both.
“I’m sorry, look I’ll call you later there’s something I need to do.”