Page 31 of Drawn To You

Shannon kept on calling me the whole drive to the hospital, killing my battery in the process. She called hundreds of times, but I didn’t pick up, knowing if it were important she would have left a message. She had most likely heard through the grapevine about Josh’s accident and probably just wanted details.

We parked by in the Hospital visitor lot and approached the receptionist asking for Josh Hernandez. She pointed us to where we needed to go and we went in search of our friends.

I was losing it, and it wasn’t pretty. We ran into Maddox on the elevator and he clasped the back of my neck, just about ready to pull me into an embrace. Fuck no. This wasn’t a daytime soap opera.”You look like hell.” He muttered. “Fucking coincidence, you ain’t center fold material yourself.” I cocked a brow and he laughed. The fucker actually laughed. Josh was probably fighting for his life right now, and we were shooting the shit and taking jabs at each other in the elevator.

“How is he?” Abby asked and suddenly his mirth died. “Not good,” he admitted. “He is in critical condition, and they had to rush him into emergency surgery. Doctors were tossing out words likesevere traumaandpossible brain injury.” Kill. Me. Now.

I cleared my throat so I wouldn’t choke when I tried to talk. “How is Lily holding up?” Maddox let out a long sigh. “She’s not. She’s losing her shit. I think she is in shock. Fuck we all are!” he finished as we rounded the corner and I caught sight of Lily myself. She was sitting there next to Josh’s parents and she looked like she was about to pass out. Abby and I went straight to her and we both embraced her at the same time. She had already been crying before we got there, but Abby was sobbing right along with her now and I could feel something wet on my face as well. We all just sat there with machines beeping lazily from the rooms around us and nurses in blue scrubs hurrying past us, as they flipped through their reports. We sat there waiting for the Doctors to come and update us on Josh’s condition. Abby sat next to me holding my hand. “I’m scared,” she admitted, biting on her lips. “So scared.” “Me, too,” I said and we hugged each other hard and long while I counted the seconds.

* * *

Finally, after what seemed like hours a Doctor finally approached Josh’s parents. With the exception of Lily, the rest of us all held back and watched on. But the agonized cries that left both Lily and Josh’s mother simultaneously had my heart plummeting in my chest.NO! NO! NO!

We watched on in horror as Lily collapsed to the floor. Whatever the doctors had said was obviously too much for her to withstand. Maddox rushed to her side and scooped her up into his arms and held her as she sobbed.

According to the Doctors, Josh had suffered severe brain damage due to the injury to his head. Life support was keeping his body alive but he had zero brain activity. Once they stopped life support, he would stop breathing and his vital organs would shut down completely. My best friend in the whole world was in a permanent vegetative state and they were going to pull the plug.

They let each of us into his room to say our goodbyes and I was so fucking numb as I looked down on him lying there in that hospital bed. I’d never seen him like this. So…not himself. I knew that I’d never get the image of him like this out of my head.

I couldn’t stomach being in the room when they did it. But I waited out in the hallway with Abby by my side and I heard the sounds on his monitor go off moments later and I knew that they had already unplugged his machine and my heart disintegrated. Piece. By piece. By fucking piece.

II

Part Two

Twenty Five

New Place, New Problems

Joshua - Six months later…

“That should be the last of the boxes,” Abby says as she sets the small box down in my new kitchen. “Should I order pizza for us and we can get started on unpacking? “Actually, Abby. I’m going to call it a night. I really appreciate all your help today. But I’m in a shit mood and not fit for company right now. Rain check?”

I can tell that my not-so-subtle hint that I want her to go, probably hurt her feelings and I feel like a bag of dicks. But I need to be alone right now, or at least not around her because I don’t want to take my pent-up rage out on her. “Um, sure. I’ll just take off then.” “Hey, I’ll call you tomorrow. I really do appreciate your help today.” “Yeah, of course.” She leans in and gives me a kiss before grabbing her purse and making her exit.

* * *

A few hours after Abby had gone home I found myself stewing and in need of a distraction so I called Maddox to see if I could stop by.

“Do you have any whiskey?” I asked, plopping myself down on the couch in Maddox’s living room. I propped my foot up against the ledge of the coffee table and leaned back against the couch cushion.

“How’d everything go with the move, did Shannon make shit difficult?” Maddox’s glare didn’t faze me, and if I were in better spirits, I would have joked with him. But I wasn’t in the mood for games this evening. “No, the move was fine. She kept almost everything anyways so there wasn’t that much for me to move.” “Then what’s got you in such a foul mood?” “I came to my senses, that’s what.” And as bitter as the words tasted, they were true. The only thing that kept replaying in my head was that things were getting too serious with Abby and the deeper things got between us the more we were both going to be hurt in the end.

Maddox walked towards his kitchen. He disappeared for a brief moment before popping back into the room with a bottle of Jameson in hand. Fuck yeah. Now we were talking. My eyebrow hitched, and I grinned. “You surprise me sometimes.” He scoffed. “This is mainly for me. Now tell me, what happened?” he said and poured two shots.

I paused for a moment, keeping my face steady. “So?” he prodded, picking his shot up and handing me mine. I clenched my teeth “Abby said she loved me, and it’s fucking with my head.” The shot glass slammed back to the coffee table, but I averted my gaze as I took my own shot. “Things got heated between us and she just said it and…” “Holy Crap.” I ignored his muttering.

“I didn’t know what to say to her. I care about her but I can’t give her what she wants, after everything with Shannon I just fucking can’t.” Silence jutted through the room like the crashing of a wave in the middle of a storm. It was thick and suffocating, and I had to force the next words out. “I have to make Abby think that she means nothing to me. I just hate the thought of her thinking that she was nothing more than a piece of ass to me and that I was just using her the whole time.”

When I glanced back at Maddox, I felt all the guilt creeping in, his eyes were shut as his nostrils flared. “And are you, Joshua?” he finally asked, pouring another shot for each of us. “Am I what?” I put both feet back on the ground and rested my elbows against my knees. He swallowed, twisting the cap back onto the whiskey bottle. “Are you in love with Abby?”

“No.” “No?” I fucking didn’t know anymore. I know I cared for her deeply. She made me feel things I never have, but love? I had thought I was in love once and that love turned out to be a grenade in my hands. I didn’t trust myself to love again. I don’t think I would even recognize it.

The anxiety that I wouldn’t allow to fester was beginning to cage me, so I quickly changed the subject. Part of me wanted to be done with Abby completely so my life could be a little bit easier. But I was having a hard time walking away from a girl who made me see nothing but her. I knew I needed to completely end things with her eventually, even if the thought made me feel sick.

“Joshua!” Maddox barked, and it snapped me to attention. “I don’t love her.” My teeth gritted, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if dust had coated the inside of my mouth.

“I have to end things with her before I hurt her more than I already have.” I hardly got the sentence out before he spoke. “It’s the right thing to do Bro.” My head tilted with surprise. “What?” “Abby’s not the kind of chick you do the casual thing with. You’re only doing her a favor by cutting her loose if you don’t love her. Besides there, are plenty of chicks out there that know the score. Don’t get hung up on the first pussy that comes along.” He paused and glared down at me.

---