Page 122 of Finding Fate

He handed her his phone. “I need you to call our parents.”

“What?” Emma asked in surprise, refusal coating her voice.

“Please, Emma! I need you to do this,” Jet said in earnest. “I don’t know if I could tell Bridgette. Tucker and Annie need me,” his mind added, too close to the tears he couldn’t let fall.

Emma nodded, seeing the trouble in his eyes that he was working so hard to hide. She took the phone from his hand in a slow, timid movement.

“Call my house first,” Jet instructed. “My parents will have to watch the kids. Then call Bridgette. You’ll have to call Tucker’s parents, too. Tell them we’ll meet them at the hospital.”

She nodded to him again and fingers shaking, started scrolling through the phonebook. Jet wrapped his arms around Annie while she watched the paramedics work. He kept his eyes on her.

“What’s her name?” one of the paramedics asked as they surrounded their friend.

“Isabel,” Tucker answered.

“Are you her husband?” the same paramedic asked when she saw the ring on Izzy’s finger.

“Her fiancé,” he clarified.

“Got a name, fiancé?”

“Tucker.”

“Alright, Tucker, can you tell me what happened?”

“She fell from up there.” He motioned by turning his head and looking up to where the insignificant pompoms now lay, marking the start of the fall. “She hit her head on the corner of a bench on the way down,” he added. “It knocked her out.”

“Keep the pressure on her head,” she instructed him while they continued to work over Izzy.

Tucker pressed the shirt harder against her head as they worked. He couldn’t watch. It was too much. Instead, he continued to whisper in Izzy’s ear, doing his best to ignore the paramedics’ conversation over his fiancé’s definite and probable injuries.

“How far along is she?” the woman asked. Her voice was kind but urgent. Tucker thought he could hear something underlying in her tone.

“Twenty-seven weeks,” he answered automatically. “Why?”

The paramedics didn’t answer. They just continued to work over her.

“Why? Is something wrong with the baby?” he frantically asked as a new state of panic erupted and enveloped him. Dear God, he had never even considered that. How horrible was he? Izzy would have thought of the baby instantly.

“Tell me!” he yelled when they still didn’t respond.

“Possibly,” the woman answered and pushed Tucker out of the way to tend to Izzy’s head.

Tucker sat back, his forehead rested against shaky hands as he worked hard to breathe. His lungs felt like they had constricted, refusing to allow any air to enter. This could not be happening. Izzy would die if something happened to Destiny.

“Please, God, no!”he pleaded. “Help them!”

* * *

The ride over to the hospital in Hector’s SUV was a blur to Annie. Even the first minutes in the waiting room where they all listened to Tucker’s troubled explanation of what had happened up in the stands seemed surreal to her now. The facts of the story evaded her at the moment. She mostly remembered her mother’s tears as she had tightly held her.

It felt like it had been ages since the doctor had told them Izzy was going into emergency surgery for internal bleeding and her head wound, but the clock on the wall told her it had only been a few hours.

She lifted her head from Jet’s shoulder, and removed her hand from her mother’s to stand up, stretching her muscles that were stiff from the hours of immobile waiting. She kicked the annoying, shimmery heels further beneath the less than comfortable chair with the heel of her foot and walked barefoot over to the water cooler in the corner of the room.

Pressing the nozzle to fill the small paper cup, she sipped it slowly. The cool water felt good against her throat. It was dry and scratchy from screaming and crying. Her eyes still felt puffy from her earlier tears, but they were dry now. She had cried herself out. Now, she just felt empty. Except for the sick feeling she had in the pit of her stomach, her twin vibe in full effect.

There was no doubt in her mind that her sister would pull through, though. She’d feel it deep within her very being if Izzy wasn’t going to make it, but that feeling in her gut? She didn’t know what it meant, but she couldn’t relax as long as it was there.

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