“I’m sorry, man. Have to respect her wishes. She seems very resolute.”

“What hospital, Jerry?”

He sighed audibly. “You don’t want to come here, Tristan. It’ll be better if you don’t.”

“Tell me!”

“St. Rose.”

“You said she’s okay, but, was she hurt?”

“She got banged up pretty bad.”

“Tell me.”

“She hit her head pretty hard, got a concussion. She’s still in the hospital, but she should be fine.”

I swallowed hard, still scratching away at my arm. “Anything else?”

“She got cut up on impact some by the debris, but she’ll heal.”

Scratch.

Gouge.

Claw.

“Anything else?”

“Her knee was crushed. She should be able to walk again, eventually, but she’ll have a substantial limp. She won’t be dancing anymore, Tristan.”

My hand moved to my chest, right over my heart.

Scratch.

Gouge.

Claw.

The phone dropped from my hand, but not before the sound of my own sobs bled through to Jerry’s end.

I didn’t last three hours.

I was in my car before I realized that my hand was bloody. I glanced down at my arm and chest, genuinely surprised that I’d scratched myself that badly. I hadn’t felt a thing.

I went back up to my apartment, showered, changed, and headed out again.

It was only on my second run that I saw Danika’s car parked at the curb. I hadn’t left the apartment in days, but it must have been there from the time of the accident.

DANIKA

The news came at me in twisted waves. They gave it to me all wrong, making it hard for me process or understand. It was only as I heard Bev chewing out the doctor that I put some of the pieces together in order.

“That is not how you tell that to someone. If a woman just lost her baby, you do not start by telling her she can’t have any more. I’m a lawyer, you ass, so watch what you say to her, or I’ll sue you for emotional distress.”

That got the doctor the hell out of the room, and Bev was at my ear, stroking my hair, a comfort in a moment where that should have been impossible.

“I can’t really sue him for that, sweetheart. I just lost my temper, and that’s my go-to scare tactic. I would in a heartbeat though, if I thought we could win. That bastard deserves worse.”

I tried to pay attention, but my mind was just circling back to what I’d learned. “I lost my baby,” I whispered.

“I’m so, so sorry, Danika. I didn’t know you were pregnant, but I know you, and I know that, since you were, you wanted that baby. I’m so sorry.”

“And I can’t have any more.”

“No, my dear. I’m so sorry, and I know this is hard to think of now, but someday, when you’ve met the right man, and you’re at the right point in your life, you can adopt. You can still be a mother, Danika, just not in the way that you’d hoped for.”

I barely heard her, only focused on my pain, only focused on my loss.

I laid there, and felt as though my very soul seeped out of me with that loss.

I’d thought I was numb. Head to toe, heart and soul, numb. But alas, no, there was something left, something awful that fired up in my chest as Tristan walked into my hospital room, his face ashen.

I’d seen him heartbroken. I’d seen him reeling from loss. I’d seen him strung out, high, drunk, devastated, and out of his mind enraged.

But never had I seen him like this. He looked like a man who had lost his whole world.

It took every ounce of willpower I had not to cave at the sight of him.

Outwardly, I was calm, but my insides had become a tempest, a great storm that I wouldn’t let Tristan close to. He couldn’t be allowed even a glimpse of it. I had to at least appear composed and resolved if I had any hope, any prayer, of making it through this.

“I just now heard about the accident,” he croaked out. “How are-er-are you doing okay?”

I shrugged, having the hardest time meeting his bright, shiny eyes set in his haggard face. I couldn’t meet them for more than milliseconds at a time, or I knew I’d be exposed. There was just no escaping his eyes for long. “I’ll live.”

“Are you in pain?”

I shrugged again. “I’ll live. I don’t really want to talk about it.” My tone brooked no refusal.

“That’s fine, that’s fine. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

I thought that okay was a pretty generous term, but I held my tongue.

“Jerry told me that you didn’t want to see me. Is that true?”

It was difficult to get the word out. “Yes.”

He staggered back, visibly upset. His hand shot to his arm and began to scratch at a spot under his T-shirt. It took him a very long time to find his voice again.

Finally, the waiting was too much, and I closed my eyes, turning my face away.

“Did something happen that night? You were coming to see me. Did we have a fight? I saw that our picture was missing from my wall, but I don’t remember what happened. What did you come there to say to me?”

My mouth hardened. “Nothing important.”

“Danika, please—“

“Please, Tristan, please just go. We aren’t good for each other. Can’t you see that? After all that’s happened, isn’t that finally clear? I need to move on from you, and the only way that’s going to happen is if we stay clear of each other.”

“You’re wrong, Danika.”

“Listen to me, Tristan. You are bad for me. I am done.”

Horrible noises were leaving his throat.

I finally looked up to see him staring at me, the most devastated look on his face. He was scratching at his chest now, those low, harsh groans still coming out of him, as though escaping from deep in his chest. “Done, Tristan. Please go.”

I had to look away again, closing my eyes. I’d break for sure, if he didn’t leave soon.

I felt him watching me for a while before he spoke, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “Can I please have the picture back?”

“It didn’t survive the crash.” Like so many things.

Finally, mercifully, he left.

TRISTAN

Bev came at me like a Tasmanian devil. I’d never seen anything like it. A skinny white woman in her forties trying to take on a huge motherfucker like me.

I just let her abuse me, holding still as she pounded on my chest and slapped my face. She was panting and crying by the time she finally got it out of her system, glaring at me, the wrath in her eyes daunting. This was a formidable woman, not in size, but in will. I had no doubt that if she wanted a thing done, it would happen just how she wanted it to. I wouldn’t have been all that surprised if she put a hit out on me.

She poked a finger in my chest, her voice very quiet, but shaking with fury. “You need to leave. She’s asked you to go, and so that’s what needs to happen. Before you go, though, I have a few things to say. Did you know that guy Dean was giving her a ride home? Did that happen with your knowledge?”

I grimaced. So much of the night was a blur to me, but I did recall screaming something along those lines to her. I was almost positive that had been my idea. “I did. I’m sure you know that Dean was my roommate.”

“Danika was dosed with Rohypnol. Do you know what that is?”

My entire body stilled.

He wouldn’t have, I thought, my mind racing.

He’d never dare, I told myself.

“She was dosed at your place. The only thing she drank was half a glass of orange juice that your buddy Dean served to her. You brought that into her life.” She was screaming by the end, her voice cracking.

Her mouth hardened as she regained her composure, and her hand shot up, slapping me again.

I took the abuse. I knew I deserved it. I didn’t think there was any way even Bev could have hated me more than I hated myself right then.

“You put her into a car with a rapist motherfucker who was high as a kite. You did this to her. You. Now get out of my sight. If I see your face again, I will make you pay.”

I left, my mind still reeling with the information she’d given me. I believed her that she’d find some way to make me pay if she saw me again, but that wasn’t why I left. If Danika had wanted me there, I would have stayed with her, not matter what. No one could have kept me away this side of death. But that was the problem. She didn’t want me there. She’d been very clear about that. I wasn’t good for her. She could do better, and she finally saw it that way.

I went to Dean’s funeral. I seethed through the entire thing. I’d lost people, close people, but never had I lost someone and realized that I loathed them. I should have felt bad, but I wasn’t even sorry he was dead. In fact, the only use I would have for an alive Dean after what I knew he’d done was to kill him with my own hands.

Even when he’d pissed me off, I’d still trusted him not to do something like that. It was a hard pill to swallow; how misplaced my trust had been.

If he was capable of drugging Danika and doing God knows whatever he’d been planning, what else had he done? It was downright devious, outright evil, what he’d done. If it had been anyone but an incensed Bev who had told me about it, I wouldn’t have believed them. She had no reason to make a thing like that up, and she was not a woman that dealt in misinformation.

I spent a week in pure hell, torturing myself with regrets, dosing myself liberally with any drug at hand.

Seven days after I saw Danika in the hospital, I checked myself into rehab.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

DANIKA

They gave me details. So many pointless details about loss of cartilage and muscle tissue. Painful details about irreparable damage to my uterus. Endless details about surgery and physical therapy. The gist of it was: I was now a cripple, and I could never have children. My response to that reality; I will not let this define me. So help me God, I won’t even let it slow me down. I wasn’t a dancer anymore, and I would never get to grow a child inside of me. Those were facts. I refused to cry about it, or if I did, to even so much as acknowledge those fucking useless tears. I would find something else to define me. I just had to figure out what.

Bev took time off work to take care of me. I was shocked, as I’d never known her to take more than a week of vacation from work before. But she took nearly a full month off for me.

She helped me around the house, kept me company, kept me sane.

“Why are you so good to me?” I asked her at one point. “Why have you always been so good to me? I’m such a burden to you, and you’ve done so much to help me. We both know I can never repay all of your kindness.”

Bev gave me the saddest smile, and one of her soft hands moved, as though in slow motion, to stroke over my hair. “Oh, you poor girl. Don’t you know?”

I blinked at her and shook my head, completely lost. “Know what?” I asked her.

“You were never a burden, Danika, and this isn’t kindness.”

I shook my head at her again, my brow furrowing in confusion. “If it’s not kindness, then what is it?”