Chapter 24
Present Day
Zack
“Zack...Zack...can you hear me Zack.”
The voice was blurry in my head.
There was flashes of light now streaming at my eyes as they flickered and cracked open. The world beyond was hazy and muddled, the walls white and bare.
My senses began to return to me. I could hear beeping, the sound growing louder. The voice came at me again. It was a woman's voice, soft and homely. “Zack, can you hear me Zack.”
My eyes opened wider, the sharp light causing me to blink heavily. I could see the shape of a woman leaning over me, looking straight into my eyes. She kept speaking, uttering the same words over and over.
“Where...where I am?” I mumbled groggily. “What's going on?”
“You're in hospital Zack. You've had an accident.”
An accident? My mind was acting slow, trying to catch up. I shut my eyes again, thoughts and memories slowly creeping back in.
Cade.
The fight.
I remembered him fighting me in the street. My memory was cloudy, only giving me glimpses of what happened. He hit me and I went down. My head hit the floor and then....nothing.
I opened my eyes again, my vision slowly returning. The woman above me was a nurse. I was in a hospital bed, wires and tubes attached to my body. The beeping was from some medical equipment next to the bed. A heart monitor maybe.
I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. A figure stepped forward from a chair by the wall, moving in close towards me and looking me straight in the eye.
“You're going to be fine Zack. We've been waiting for you to wake up, but you're going to be OK.”
I blinked as the man came into view.
“Crash...” I mumbled. “Where's Cade?”
Crash shook his lead lightly. “He's not here.”
“Please Mr Logan, if you'll just give me some room. I need to do a couple of tests and then Zack here needs some rest. You can come back tomorrow morning.”
Crash didn't say anything. He kept looking into my eyes, his face troubled, yet relieved. He reached forward and grabbed me by the arm, squeezing tightly and nodding.
“It's good to have you back Zack,” he said. “I'll be back early tomorrow morning, OK.” His voice was reassuring.
I nodded, my head still pounding.
“OK Mr Logan, we'll see you tomorrow.” The nurse moved Crash off towards the door. He kept his eyes on me the entire time, looking back as he walked away.
“He's a good brother,” the nurse said, turning back towards me after shutting the door behind him.
“Why do you say that?” I groaned, my voice wispy and cracked.
“He's been here the entire time. You were brought in early yesterday night. He stayed with you all night and all today. It's nice that you have support like that.”
“Has anyone else come?” I croaked again.
“There were two other young men who came in, yes. I didn't get their names. Your brother told them to go home not so long ago, told them he'd let them know when you woke up.”
“No one else? No girl?”
She had this consoling look in her eye. “Just the three men, I'm afraid. Now please, I need to do a few tests, just to make sure you're going to be OK.”
I nodded and shut my eyes again. Cade hadn't come, I knew that. I remembered him walking away from me as I lay slumped on the ground. He hadn't even looked back. I knew now that I was dead to him, that he'd never forgive me.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
….
I lay alone in the hospital room early the next morning. I couldn't sleep, not with the dull ache in my head, not with the turmoil raging inside it.
The light of the day was beginning to seep in through the cracks to the side of the curtains. It was a misty light, not bright but shallow and cold. It echoed my feelings, my life now descending into a void. This – lying in hospital, my head almost cracked open – was just the icing on the f*cked up cake that my life had become.
I hated hospitals, always had, ever since I'd spent days by my mothers bedside as she battled with death following her car accident. It was the worst time of my life, seeing her slowly pass away in front of me, hoping that she'd wake up, hoping that she'd recover. It was torture.
She'd lost that battle, of course, eventually passing at 4.33 PM on a Sunday afternoon. We were all there, waiting and hoping and praying. But none of it made any difference. She died all the same.
The smell of the place had been fused into me ever since: that horrible sour smell of disinfectant. I hated it. I felt sorry for Crash, and the others, sitting there with me, watching me lying there unconscious. It must have brought back terrible memories for them, an echo of what had happened with our mother.
The thought that Crash had stayed all night, however, warmed me. Despite what they thought I'd done, they'd come to watch over me. The nurse had told me that I was never in serious danger, that they were simply waiting for me to regain consciousness, and expected it to be within a day or so. But Crash – he wanted to be there when I woke, a friendly face among all of this shit. Maybe they didn't all hate me after all.
It was at about 9 AM in the morning that Crash walked back through the door. He looked like he'd hardly slept, his eyes deep and dark, but with a consoling edge to them.
“Morning Zack, how are you feeling?” he asked. His voice was low and mournful.
“OK,” I said with as much chirpiness as I could muster. “Head aches a bit, but the nurse says that'll pass in a couple of days.”
He walked in, dragging a chair from the wall and placing it beside my bed. “Good, that's good,” he said, sitting down gently.
He looked at me, his eyes still low. I felt like he had something heavy on his mind, something he wanted to tell me.
“Zack, have you seen the news at all?” he asked.
I shook my head, my eyes arching down in a frown.
“You and Cade have been all over it. Your fight was caught on film by several onlookers and it's gone viral. Everyone is wondering why you two were fighting.”
“They can think what they want,” I said bluntly. “Why should I care?”
Crash sighed deeply, wearily. “I think it's best that you leave town for a little while Zack, until all of this dies down. I don't want this sort of attention on the family, on Cade. He's got a real shot now, and I want him focused on that a hundred per cent.”
“Leave? And go where?” I asked quickly.
I thought about protesting my innocence again but didn't have the energy for it. Frankly, I'd given up caring. Maybe I should leave, turn my back on this whole f*cking mess.
“I'll leave that up to you Zack. Take some time away, do some traveling, I don't know. I just want you to keep your head down and stay low for a while.”
“But the club...I've got responsibilities here.”
“I've already taken care of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I've found a suitable replacement to run the club in your absence.”
I shook my head, a little taken aback by the abruptness of it all. I don't even know why I was protesting. I'd grown sick of that club, sick of this place, sick of everything. Maybe it would be better for me to just leave.
“And that's it, just leave, disappear?”
Crash looked directly at me, his weary exterior beginning to harden. “I'm giving you this as a way out Zack. Don't forget that. You've got yourself into this mess, and you should think yourself lucky that you're getting away this lightly.”
“Lucky?” I said, my voice growing louder. “You have no idea what really happened. This is all bullshit Crash.” My head began pounding as my voice raised.
Crash was shaking his head. “I saw the picture of you leaving Gemma's apartment on Saturday morning Zack, Cade showed it to me. Why do you keep lying? It's only making things worse.”
My anger continued to brew but I kept it locked down, growling through my teeth in an effort to keep my voice low. “Nothing happened...I slept on the sofa. I'd only gone over there to find out if she knew anything about this whole f*cking mess. I swear to you Crash, on dad's life, on mom's life, that nothing is going on between me and Gemma.” I was looking him straight in the eye, trying to get through to him.
His face began to contort slightly, his eyebrows arching down, his lips thinning. “Don't do that, Zack. Don't swear against our parents like that.”
“But it's true...”
“STOP....just stop. We're all happy you're OK Zack, but now you need to go. Take some time, let things settle. I'll be in touch.”
With that he stood up and turned away, pacing quickly towards the door, leaving me alone, once more, with nothing but my frustration to keep me company.