Page 79 of Unearthed Dreams
“She died two years ago. In a motorcycle accident.”
Chase muttered a curse, closing his eyes and turning his face toward the fluorescent lights of his room. I knew he was listening, though, and I was actually grateful not to have his eyes on me as I spilled my truths.
“A year before that, she got pregnant, but we were both too drunk and too high to do anything right. She had a miscarriage and it just… it did something to me, shook something loose inside me and I knew right then and there that I was done. Found myself a facility and checked in. Twelve weeks later, I was all dried out and had my head on relatively straight—or as straight as it can get for a guy who grew up in foster care with no real family other than the only woman he had ever loved.
“When I got back, Kelsey—my wife—she was so far gone, more strung out than I’d ever seen her. I tried—fuck, I tried—but nothing I said or did got through to her. When I wouldn’t join in on her ‘fun’ or give her drug money, she called meboring. Started fucking around, banging sleazeballs in the bathrooms of bars just to do a line off the toilet seat.
“It got so fuckin’ ugly, man. But she was my wife, ya know? What was I supposed to do? She was the only person I had. She’dbeenthe only person I had for decades. I wanted so badly to help her, to save her from herself, but I just couldn’t get through to her.
“Then, two summers ago, she got on the back of some dude’s motorcycle. They were both drunk as fuck and high as kites. The driver blew through a red light, and they were t-boned by an oncoming car. He died on impact. A wife and three kids at home with another on the way. Kelsey was life-flighted to the hospital but by the time they got there, there just wasn’t anything else they could do. She died a few hours later.
“And that’s how I ended up in Sable Point. Billy was Kelsey’s dad. They hardly knew each other, but I’d met him once before, and knew I needed to come tell him in person. I came, and I never left. When I realized his memory was failing him, I decided then and there that I wouldn’t fail him, too.”
I cleared my throat, bracing myself for this next part.
“Your sister is everything Kelsey wasn’t. She is kind and selfless, quiet and sweet. She brings me a peace I didn’t know existed, and I love her more than life itself. I know it from theoutside it looks all wrong, but nothing haseverbeen more right. She is it for me.”
By the time I finished, Chase met my eyes again. We were both crying, two grown-ass men weeping in a hospital over all the shitty things in the world.
Movement from the doorway caught my eye. Elliot stood there, wiping his eyes.
“I didn’t know,” was all he said. I wasn’t sure which part he was referring to—maybe all of it. He took a few steps into the room, sitting on the opposite side of Chase’s bed.
The brothers’ eyes met, but when Elliot spoke, it was to me. “Where was this facility you checked into?”
“Petoskey,” I said. “Harbor Hall.”
“As soon as you’re discharged.”
Chase nodded at his brother, who clasped a hand around the back of his neck and brought their foreheads together.
I took that as my cue to leave, giving them some time to do their twin thing, whatever that was.
When I made my way back to the waiting room, the entire Everton clan was huddled close together, with a few additions to the crew.
Marie Choi, Natalie’s mom. Andy, Elliot’s best friend and a local cop. Rosie.
This town showed up for its people.
It’d been weeks,and nothing.
Five weeks since I’d seen those blue eyes sparkle with mischief. Thirty-seven days since I’d heard her voice whispermy name. Eight hundred and ninety-two hours of sitting beside her hospital bed, watching machines breathe for her while doctors talked about intracranial pressure and traumatic brain injuries.
The induced coma was necessary. Giving her brain time to heal. But each day stretched longer than the last, marked only by shift changes and Emma’s quiet updates about Charlie’s vital signs.
I’d memorized every freckle scattered across her nose, traced the curve of her cheek with my eyes so many times I could draw it from memory. The steady beep of monitors had become my heartbeat, my only reassurance that somewhere inside that still form, my Charlie was fighting to come back to me.
The ICU doctor’s footsteps were nearly silent on the polished floor, but I’d learned to recognize the specific rhythm of her approach over these endless weeks. Dr. Ware—not Elena, who was back in the ER where she was needed—paused in the doorway, her expression carefully neutral as she took in our assembled group.
Emma’s hand squeezed my shoulder where I sat in my usual spot beside Charlie’s bed.Jay had his arm around his wife while, across from us, Jasper and Natalie huddled near the window. Elliotsat in the chair that doubled as a bed, with Tessa in his lap.
“Her intracranial pressure has stabilized,” Dr. Ware said, flipping through Charlie’s chart. “And the latest scan shows significant improvement. We think it’s time to begin reducing the sedation.”
I sucked in a breath and held it there, afraid to breathe tooeasily until my girl was finally awake. Five weeks of waiting, of watching machines breathe for her, of memorizing every freckle scattered across her nose... and now...
“How long?” Emma’s voice wavered slightly.
“It varies for each patient. Could be hours, could be days. But”—Dr. Ware smiled for the first time since I’d met her—“all her indicators are very positive.”
