Page 51 of Acquiring Ainsley
The crash lasted only an instant, but the damage proved profound, and when the moment cleared, I saw Olivia slumped across the front seat. I had broken glass in my hair, and dust all over my dress; she’d missed me by only a few inches.
But worse than that was what I saw when I looked across the car, at the place where we’d been standing only a few moments ago. Trevor hadn’t been as lucky as me. He lay on the small grass lawn behind the sign.
The impact must have thrown him there…
“Trevor!” I shouted his name several times as I ran to his side. “Are you okay? Trevor, please, talk to me.”
He didn’t move. He just lay there with his eyes closed and blood all over his suit. He was hurt, but I couldn’t tell where. I couldn’t tell how. I just screamed for him again, and again, and again.
“Trevor, wake up!” I shook him a few times, and as I did, the Palm Beach police officer working security at the museum that night arrived next to us.
“Miss Ross, I’ve already called 911. An ambulance is on the way. Let me see if I can get him to wake up.”
He took me by the shoulder and helped me move out of his way so that he could help to revive Trevor. Only then did my attention turn to Olivia, who still slumped over the steering wheel. I rushed over to her.
“Olivia…” I reached through the broken window and touched her body. Her limp arm fell to her side, and she didn’t make a sound. Sirens wailed in the distance, coming closer with each breath. “Olivia, can you wake up?”
I touched her again. Nothing.
“Please,” I begged. “You didn’t have to do this. You didn’t have to act out this way. If you could just—” The faint crooning of Elton John still played on the car stereo, and that gave me a sense of dread. She was dead. I knew it. I felt it in every cell of my body.
“Miss, I think he’s waking up,” the police officer called out to me.
I yanked my arm from the window and rushed over to him. “Trevor! Please, honey.” I knelt beside him again, and he groaned. “Trevor, can you please let me know if you are okay?”
He moaned.
“There was a bad accident,” I said over the deafening sound of two ambulances from the Palm Beach fire department as they parked in front of the museum. “And you’re hurt, but it’s going to be okay, if you can please just say something.”
“Ugghhh.” He struggled to open his swollen eyes. A large gash marred his forehead. “Mef… I…”
The EMTs got out of their ambulances and ran over to us. The first group headed to Olivia and began working on her. The second arrived at my side just as I placed a hand on Trevor’s jaw. “I’m here. I’m not leaving your side. Just stay with us, please.”
His eyes struggled open. “Ainsley?”
“I’m right here. You’re hurt, but we’re working on it. I think you’re going to be okay.” I was trying to sound optimistic, so I said this even though I didn’t believe it myself. “I just need you to hang on. It’s going to hurt for a while, but…”
“Miss, has he been out since the accident?”
I stood. “She raced toward us with the car.” I wiped a few tears from my face. “She’d been angry, and she was threatening us. I managed to get out of the way, but he…” I looked down at Trevor. “I don’t know.”
“That’s fine.” The EMT gave me a reassuring smile and patted me on the shoulder. He had gray hair, dark circles under his eyes, and a burly frame. “You’re doing great. You’re upset, but we can take over from here. Just please, give us some space.”
I moved out of the way and returned to the police officer’s side. Adrenaline coursed through my body, and I felt like I was going to jump out of my own skin with every move that I made. “I can’t believe this happened,” I said in between ragged breaths.
“I know.” He wrote something on a white sheet attached to a metal clipboard. “I feel a little like it’s my fault. She was unstable when she left the property, but I didn’t expect her to take it this far.”
“Ainsley!” My mother’s voice clipped through the air. She and a group of partygoers had just walked up to the accident scene. “What happened? How did—” She stopped short of the main accident area. “I don’t…”
“Crazy ex-girlfriend,” I said, my gaze still focused on Trevor. The EMTs were loading him onto a backboard, so I guessed he’d be headed to the hospital. “I knew she had a lot of anger and hostility about him, but she took it out on him tonight.” I exhaled. “And I can’t believe it.”
Mom’s gaze searched my face. “This is too much, Ainsley. You’ve been through too much. If you want to call this off, you can. I don’t think anyone would blame you if you did. It’s okay to say no to this.”
“No,” I said, and turned my full attention to Trevor. “I don’t want to end this at all. I want to keep it going. For the first time ever, I’ve realized something about my life. I love him, and that’s it. I love Trevor McNamara, and I’m going to make sure that he knows it.”
When I opened my eyes, I saw one thing—Ainsley. Furrowed brow, face inches from mine, her index finger in her mouth, chewing on her nail. I didn’t know where I was, but I wasn’t outside the Flagler Museum any longer.
“Trevor, can you understand me?” she murmured. “You’ve been asleep for a little while.”
