Page 59 of All It Takes

Once I was there, it felt like I had entered a time warp. The hospital was aprocess, and you had to abandon all control once you were there. The emergency room was busy. I could hear a jumble of noise around me before a doctor arrived, announcing, “We’re taking you into the OR. We need to clean the burn wound.”

The last thing I recalled was Holly Blake coming in to check on me. Beyond growing up in Willow Brook together, Holly’s husband was the very guy who’d flown me out in a helicopter after the injury. Her concerned blue eyes held mine. “Wes, you’re going to be fine. I promise.”

“I need you to do me a favor.” Whatever medication they had just given me was making me a little woozy, but my brain was focused on two people: Ross and Tiffany. “Call Tiffany and let her know what happened. Make sure she and Ross know I’ll be okay. Tell her I love her.”

ChapterForty

TIFFANY

“Who?” I said into my phone.

“Holly.”

“Oh, hey, Holly. How are you?”

I was a little confused by Holly calling me. Of course, we were friends. Holly was friends with pretty much everybody around our age in town.

“I’m at the hospital. I’m calling about Wes. Before I say anything else, he’s going to be fine.”

The moment she said Wes’s name, my stomach plummeted. I felt as if I was in an elevator shaft dropping dramatically at an unexpected speed.

Holly was an ER nurse, and she was calling about Wes. That had to mean Wes was at the hospital.

“What happened?” I barked into the phone.

“A burn. Honestly, it looks ugly, but he’s in surgery so the doctor can clean it up. If it weren’t for the debris in the wound, he probably wouldn’t need surgery. He asked me to call you and let you and Ross know he would be okay.”

It felt as if my heart had stumbled and was racing downhill. Each beat felt reckless and out of control. I tried to take a calming breath, but it did nothing to slow my heartbeat or quell the anxiety rising swiftly inside.

“What happened? When did he go into surgery? How long is he going to be in there? And how do you know he’s actually going to be okay? Things can happen with anesthesia.”

Holly’s tone was soothing. “I don’t know exactly what happened. All I know is that he fell and collided with a charred tree that was still smoldering from the fire. The burn is on his side. Why don’t you come down to the hospital so you can be here when he gets out of surgery? You’ll tell Ross that he’s going to be okay?” she prompted.

“Of course, of course,” I said quickly. “I’ll come to the hospital.”

I looked around my office, relieved it was close to the end of the day. Ross was at my father’s this afternoon, so I’d need to call over there. Thoughts bounced around my brain like a pinball game.

“One more thing,” Holly said.

“What’s that?”

“Wes said to tell you that he loves you.”

I had no idea if I even said anything else. A moment later, Alice found me sitting in the chair at my desk on the verge of hyperventilating. I felt her palm land between my shoulder blades.

“Lean over, rest your elbows on your knees, and breathe,” she said, her tone perfectly calm even though she didn’t know what was happening.

I did as she instructed, listening to my breath as it gradually slowed. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but the tingly feeling that had radiated throughout my body started to recede, and I felt like I could get air into my lungs.

“I think you can sit up now.”

I slowly straightened, not even realizing I’d been crying until Alice reached for the box of tissues on my desk and handed me one. “What happened?” she asked.

“Wes got hurt. He’s at the hospital. Holly said he got burned by a tree, and he’s going into surgery to clean the wound.”

Alice’s eyes widened, but she stayed calm, unlike me. “So he’ll be okay?”

“She said so, but—”