The ride to the hospital was eerily quiet. Nobody wanted to talk or face the inevitable.291Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGqvfDREbsl
Except Caleb.
But Tesa left him back at the house.
“Right this way,” a nurse escorts us through a maze of corridors and hallways. She stops in front of one door. “This is Mr. Barrent’s room. Mr. and Mrs. Lockman are down this way.”
I stop and peek into the room. My dad lay on the hospital bed sleeping. He had so many tubes and monitors connected to him, I could barely recognize him.
I stood in the doorway as Tesa and Logan walked around me to follow the nurse.
Logan stopped and turned around to face me. He gave my shoulder a squeezing before turning back to his parent’s rooms.
The world seemed to freeze as I watched my father. Many doctors, nurses, and visitors moved around me, but I barely noticed. The faint beeping of the hospital’s many sensors were drowned out as I recalled past memories of my dad.
I took one step into the room. I remember running to him as a little girl, jumping into his arms when he returned home from work.
I took another step closer to his bed. I remember him tying up a tire swing in the yard, then pushing me late into the evening. “Higher!” I would scream as I giggled, my hair blowing about and covering my smile.
I walked along his bed, my eyes tracing the tubes to the different monitors. I remember him helping me with my homework, and me getting too frustrated to listen.
I sit down on the side of his bed.
“Hey, Dad. I know what I want now,” I tell him, referring back to the night of the wreck. “I want you back,” I lay my head against his chest, listening to my broken breaths.
I stay there for a very long time.
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Once again, the ride back was quiet. Everyone was lost in their own thoughts about what comes next.
Things with the Lockmans obviously went just as poorly as they did with my family.
What was the point in hoping?
The doctor said we are going to lose them, but from my perspective, we have already lost them.
What will happen to me when my family’s gone? Do I stay with the Lockmans, or will I be put into the foster system?
I let my gaze wonder to the buildings and trees whizzing past us. I watched everyone move about, with purpose and business.
What happened next was too much of a blur to fully comprehend. Tesa slammed violently on the brakes while crossing through an intersection. Another car spiraled out of control toward us. The car rammed into my side of our vehicle, sending us off the road.
We hit a ditch and started to roll.
Once.
Twice.
The car stopped on my side.
Everything was quiet.
Till I felt the pain. It shot through my leg like nothing I have ever felt before.
I glance down to find the cause of the pain. My leg was bent in an unthinkable way.
I looked at Logan, who was sitting beside me, but because of the position of the car, he was now above me. He had grabbed onto the chair to keep from falling on top of me.
His scared eyes were the last thing I was before the darkness took over. Again.
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