Page 42 of Accidental Love

“Jenna,” Devon said, relief filling his voice. I barely had time to get up before Devon was hugging my body tight against his. I squeaked in pain, to which he quickly pulled away. “You’re hurt,” he commented.

“Yeah, I hurt my ribs. But that doesn’t matter. Why are you guys here?” I asked, looking between them. “How did you even know where I work?”

“Like we couldn’t find you,” Grayson said in a “duh” tone.

“Is, uh…is he with you?” I asked, looking over their shoulders to the front door.

“No, he isn’t. He is getting discharged at the hospital,” Grayson said, going over to the seat next to me. Devon moved to the one of my right so I was sandwiched between them.

“He doesn’t know we are here,” Devon added. “He actually doesn’t know where you are at the moment.”

“Enough about that for a minute. Why are you here, Jenna? Why aren’t you at the hospital with Liam? He is literally freaking out about where you are,” Grayson said, looking at me. Not wanting to see the look in his eyes, I gazed down at the table. I felt guilty hearing Liam was freaking out about me, and a part of me was glad to hear it. Maybe since he was freaking out, he wasn’t mad at me.

“You can tell us, Jenna. We won’t tell him. We haven’t for the last two days. No one has,” Devon said.

“Wait, ‘we haven’t’? Who else knows?” I asked, confused.

“Lennon and Blake. They’ve known for a while apparently, and have been giving you space to think, but don’t you think a week is plenty of time to think?”

“Devon, it isn’t that simple. Lilly is beyond angry at me. She told me to never come near Liam again, that I caused the accident. And I did! It was kind of my fault that he is in the hospital.”

“You can’t possibly think this is your fault?” Grayson asked, his tone filled with shock.

“Jenna, it isn’t!” Devon butted in.

“Yes it is, guys.”

“Hey,” Grayson said, hooking his foot on my stool and turning it to face him. “Jenna, it is not your fault. That car that ran into you guys ran a red light! Adam thinks it wasn’t an accident.” At that, I paused. Wasn’t an accident?

“What do you mean wasn’t an accident? Someone purposefully hit us?”

“We don’t know for certain, and Adam is checking it out. It doesn’t seem like an accident, because where you were parked at a red light, a car couldn’t have ‘accidentally’ hit you guys if they weren’t intoxicated, or for some other intentional reason.”

I took in all that information. Why would someone want to do that to us? Did they want to see one of us really hurt? I tried to look back on that night, but all I could really remember was seeing bright lights heading our way and our car rolling over.

“Jen, you need to get over this stupid idea that you were the cause of this. Why you or even Lilly thought that, I don’t know. It is an idiotic thing to even consider. You are punishing yourself and Liam for something you had no control over. You weren’t the one driving the other vehicle, and you weren’t the one who got Liam hurt. Things work out for a reason. Maybe this was a way for you to finally realize that not everything that happens is your fault. Sometimes things happen that you have no control over. That doesn’t mean you are the cause of it, or the center of it all,” Devon said, lightly putting a hand on my shoulder.

“But, guys, I…I can’t be selfish with Liam. He deserves better, something I can’t give him,” I said softly.

“Well, maybe for once you should be selfish. I know I don’t know a lot about you or your relationship with Liam, but I do know that you put others before yourself too much. You never let yourself take any of the credit, nor do you let yourself be happy. You may think that letting Liam go is the only way it can be, or that he can be happy, but do you really believe that? Do you really think that forcing yourself and him to do that is the best way? It is finally your chance to make yourself happy. Instead of sitting here, wallowing in self-pity and self-loathing, you should be at that hospital with him.”

I couldn’t help the few tears that broke free from my eyes.

“What about Lilly?” I brought a hand up and brushed away my tears.

“Screw Lilly. If she really thinks that about you, then she is missing out on something incredible. If Liam cares for you the way I know he does, he won’t let anything, even his mother, get in his way. You love Liam and he loves you. Who cares what others think? Let them judge, because the only thing that matters is your happiness.” Grayson said. He looked over my shoulder at Devon and smiled.

My brain was on overload at everything I had just heard in the last twenty minutes. I pushed aside the fact that maybe the car accident wasn’t really an accident. That wasn’t the most important thing. Devon and Grayson’s advice swam in my head as I sat there. The two boys knew I was thinking for they didn’t interrupt me.

Maybe you should be selfish. Devon’s words flashed in my mind. Maybe he was right. I had been putting myself on hold or behind others instead of doing what I really wanted. Even when I thought I wasn’t, I was. Unconsciously I had been putting my mother first in everything I did instead of myself. I never applied for college, never tried to move on, never tried to be something other than the orphan girl everyone thought I was.

Now here I was, back working at the same diner I had been for a year with no money, no life, nothing. Here I was, suffering silently, thinking that the best thing to do was to move on from Liam, who was, in fact, the best thing that had ever happened to me. I was here, letting his mother’s word affect me so deeply that I was practically forcing myself to be where I didn’t want to be.

All my life I had been the girl who never had things easy. The girl who had to work her ass off to make rent in a shitty apartment. The girl who didn’t even believe she could be loved until she met an amazing man. And now I was the girl who had what she had always wanted and was letting it slip right through her fingers.

I could either sit here wallowing in guilt, loneliness, and self-loathing, crying about how I would never be with Liam again while living on someone else’s couch. I could be the person who didn’t fight for what she wanted. Or I could get up to go and fight for what I wanted. To try and get my fairy tale ending, like I wanted. Right now both paths were open ahead of me; all I had to do was decide. I could choose what I had always been doing, or, for once, go with my heart.

“I’m going to…”

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