Ever After Drake (19 page)

“
Would you let me know if
she does show up? Maybe she decided to grab Skyler
first.”

“
I’ll text you if she gets
here,” he says.

“
Thanks.”

Over the next twenty minutes, I try
calling Mom four times and get her voicemail every time.

Finally at seven, I give up and walk
back upstairs.

She’s trying,
I tell myself as my blood starts to boil. She’s
trying to make a positive change and make an effort. She’s going to
start being there for Skyler.

But where is she?

I flop down on my couch and grab the
remote to my ancient TV. I start clicking through channels, looking
for something to zone out to.

I settle for some documentary on the
ancient Egyptians. It’s nothing new to me, but it keeps my brain
from focusing on other unpleasant things.

Forgiving someone is really hard when
they just keep screwing up.

____

I jerk upright, my neck protesting at
the awkward angle it’s been resting at. Something vibrates loudly
and my eyes search through the dark for it. The TV glows softly and
there, lying on the coffee table, I find my phone.

I fully expect it to be my mom,
calling to apologize for not showing up, but I don’t recognize the
number.

“
Hello?” I say, glancing
at the time on my phone. It’s just after ten o’clock.

“
Kaylee? I’m so glad you
answered,” someone on the other end says hurriedly. “It’s Robin
McCain. Something awful has happened. There was this accident and
we’re at the hospital. Drake is going ballistic and none of us know
what to do.”

“
What?!” I gasp, searching
my apartment for my purse and keys. “Is he okay? How bad is he
hurt?”

“
It’s not Drake,” Robin
says with a sob. “But he needs you right now. He won’t listen to
any of us. Lake is on his way to your apartment to pick you up. He
should be there any minute. Can you meet him outside?”

“
I’m headed out now,” I
say. I pull on a coat and run down the stairs.

Just as I walk out the front doors I
see Robin’s minivan screech to a halt in front of me. It literally
slides across the road and bumps harshly against the curb. The
roads still have a layer of ice on them.

Lake meets my eyes through the
windshield with panic in his own. I dart around to the passenger
side and climb in. The second I’m in my seat he whips around and
starts heading in the direction of the hospital. The closer we get
to town, the better the roads are salted.

“
What’s going on?” I ask,
trying to brace myself as I attempt to get a seatbelt on. “What’s
wrong with Drake?”

“
This is bad, Miss Ray,”
Lake says, shaking his head as he drives recklessly. There’s a
seriousness in his eyes that I’ve never seen there before. “There
was this huge accident just a block from Drake’s place.”

“
Was Drake in a car when
it happened?” I demand when Lake pauses, weaving between two other
cars. It feels like no one will give me a straight
answer.

Lake shakes his head. “It was
Diana.”

The air grows still and quiet. It
takes me a few moments before I find my voice. “Is she
okay?”

Lake doesn’t respond for a moment and
a lump forms in my throat. “And the baby? Is the baby
okay?”

Finally, he shakes his
head.

“
It was really bad,
Kaylee,” he says. I see the hospital coming up ahead. “I mean bad.
They can’t even identify the other driver.”

My hand comes to my mouth and a sob
breaks out.

“
The baby’s gone,” Lake
finally says is a rough voice as he pulls into a parking spot.
“Diana’s on life support. They don’t think she’s going to make
it.”

A heavy breath forces its way out of
my chest. My body feels stiff and tight. Tears prick the backs of
my eyes and my throat swells.

Lake looks at me through the dark. “My
brother’s a mess.” His voice cracks just a tiny bit. “He’s been
flipping out and no one can talk to him. Mom and Dad are scared for
him. Mom thought…thought maybe you’d calm him down.”

A tear leaks down my cheek and I press
my lips tightly together. I’m scared. I’m terrified to face him. I
can’t imagine his pain right now. And I have no idea what to
say.

But I can’t walk away in a moment like
this.

“
Let’s go,” I
say.

I follow Lake through the main doors
and down hall after hall. The air is sterile smelling, and even
more sterile looking. People talk quietly, walk quietly. Suddenly,
the hospital just feels like one big waiting room for the
afterlife.

We get to the intensive care unit and
I see the McCain family gathered outside a door.

“
Thank you for coming,”
Robin says, throwing her arms around my shoulders and squeezing me
tight. Her face is splotchy and red and her eyes are swollen. “I
didn’t know what else to do.”

She lets me go and I take in the rest
of the family. Robert’s expression is grave and his skin looks an
odd grey color. Kale sits on the floor, his back up against the
wall. He looks a bit panicked and exhausted. He’s so young he can’t
possibly comprehend the weight of this situation.

Sage stands facing the door, her arms
crossed over her chest. Her expression is serious and hard. But she
doesn’t show signs of emotion or crying like her other family
members.

“
Is it true?” I ask,
wrapping my arms around myself. “The baby’s…”

Robin nods and wipes at her eyes
again. “They had to use the Jaws of Life to get Diana out of the
car. They say the baby would have been killed
instantly.”

“
What about Diana?” I ask
around the lump in my throat.

Robin shakes her head and more tears
well in her eyes. “Her parents are here, they’re in that room with
her. The doctors told them…” she takes a deep, shaky breath. “They
told Diana’s parents to say their goodbyes.”

I cover my mouth again with my hand
and shake my head. Tears well up in my eyes.

“
Kaylee, something
happened earlier,” Robin says, touching my arm gently. “We know
Diana was leaving Drake’s apartment when the accident happened. I
don’t know what was said, but for Drake to react like he
did…”

“
He started breaking
stuff,” Sage says, her voice deadpan even. “Drake punched a male
nurse when he tried to stop him.” Sage finally looks over at us.
Her eyes are empty. “I’ve never seen my brother act like
that.”

“
Where is he?” I
ask.

Sage nods at the door she’s been
staring at. “They finally sedated him about ten minutes
ago.”

I take a deep breath, trying to calm
the whirlwind inside of me. I cross the hall and put my hand on the
doorknob. Slowly, I twist it, and push the door open.

I close it quietly behind me. The room
is dimly lit, with only one light on at the side of the bed. Drake
sits in one of the chairs. He’s slouching so much he’s almost
laying in it. His chin rests on his chest and he stares forward
with a blank stare.

Between his lips is an unlit
cigarette.

There’s a broken lamp shattered across
the floor. The contents from a medical cart are thrown everywhere.
The blankets and sheets are lying haphazardly half on the floor,
half on the bed.

I drop down on my knees so I’m in
front of Drake. It takes his eyes a moment to focus on my
face.

“
Hi,” he says. His
expression is blank and hazy. I am hoping it’s mostly because of
the sedation they gave him.

“
Hi,” I say
back.

“
Did my mom call you?” he
asks. His words kind of all slur together. He lazily reaches up and
pinches the cigarette between two fingers, before his whole arm
flops back over the armrest.

I nod.

His eyes slide past me to observe the
room and the mess he’s made. “I didn’t handle things very
well.”

“
I don’t think there was
one right way to handle them,” I say quietly. I sniff, feeling all
the apprehensive parts of me start to calm down. He’s not
rampaging. He’s quiet. But I have to wonder if he’s later going to
be able to recall anything we say here. I’ve never been sedated
before, but I imagine it’s a bit like being extremely drunk. Who
knows if you’ll remember the morning after.

“
My hand hurts,” he says,
holding it up. His knuckles are starting to bruise. “I’m pretty
sure I punched someone. Someone with a very hard head.”

“
Would you like some
ice?”

He holds his hand to his chest and
nods. I stand and walk back to the door. I open it just a
crack.

“
Can you get him some
ice?” I ask Sage, who is still standing there staring at the
door.

“
Sure,” she
says.

I close the door once again and turn
back to Drake. He sits back up in the seat, no longer looking like
he will melt right out of it. I pull over the rolling stool that
sits in the corner and sit in front of him.

Drake stares at me. His expression is
still glazed over and I hate seeing him like this. But I suppose
it’s better than what his family saw not twenty minutes
ago.

“
How come your life can
change so fast, so easy?” Drake says, staring at me intently. As
intently as he can in this state. He absentmindedly twirls the
cigarette between two fingers. “There’s certain points in my life
where I can very clearly recall having it whiplash change
direction. And I’m never prepared for them.”

“
No one is ever prepared
for them,” I say. There’s a quiet knock at the door and I cross
back to it. Sage hands me a rag with a bag of ice in it. I thank
her and walk back to Drake. I take his injured hand in mine and
gently press the ice pack to his knuckles. He doesn’t even wince.
He just stares at me.

“
Diana texted me earlier,
said she wanted to talk,” he says, his eyes never leaving my face.
“I told her to come over because I had so many papers to grade, I
didn’t want to take more time away from it all then I had to.” And
now his eyes finally redden. His gaze drops from my face and his
neck sags, his head turning to the floor. “I didn’t realize how
cold it was, how slick the roads were going to get. I should have
gone over to her place.”

“
Drake,” I say. Something
surges up inside of me, preparing to fight this battle, to will him
back from the edge. “You had no way of knowing what would happen.
This isn’t your fault.”

Drake takes a deep sniff and shakes
his head. He brings it back up, looking anywhere but at me. He
clears his throat and one tear leaks down his face.

“
I feel really weird right
now,” he admits. His eyes are misty and hazy. “Like I’m either
really heavy, or I’m going to float away at any moment. And my head
is full of cotton.”

“
They had to sedate you,”
I say. I take his injured hand back in mine, holding the ice to
it.

“
Yeah,” he says. He blinks
heavy and I can tell he’s getting tired. “Diana came over. She was
nervous. Wouldn’t look at me straight. I asked her what was
wrong.”

He stops talking for a while, and I
let him have his silence. His eyes are distant, focusing on
something that isn’t in this room. He chews on his lower lip for a
moment. His hands are clammy.

“
She said she was tired of
trying so hard. This wasn’t going to work out between us and she
didn’t want to force it anymore. And she said…she said she wasn’t
ready to be a mother anyway.” He takes a shaky, deep breath and
looks down at the floor. “She wanted to talk about giving the baby
up for adoption.”

It feels like he’s just splashed a
bucket of cold water in my face.

Drake and being a father just go hand
in hand. That was a role he was always meant to play and then Diana
just wanted to rip that away?

“
What did you say?” I
ask.

He shakes his head. “I
told her I’d have to think things over. Being a father right now
when I wasn’t prepared for it was scary enough, but thinking of
doing
everything
on my own? I told her I needed some time to process, but to
not do anything before I told her what I decided.”

I have no words. I have nothing to
say. This is not my world.

“
She told me to not take
too long. That she wanted to know what to do as soon as possible so
she could make plans. But she said…” his voice grows harder. He
puts the cigarette between his lips again. “She said she didn’t
want to see me anymore. That if I wanted to keep the baby I could
come get it after it was born, but she didn’t want me in her life
in the meantime.”

“
That’s awful.” It slips
out before I can stop it.

Drake shakes his head and looks up at
me. “Can you blame her? I’ve been trying Kaylee, but forcing
yourself to be with someone when you’re in love with someone else
is damn hard acting.”

“
Drake, I—”