“Thomas, I –”
“My family is dying because you love me,” he says matter-of-factly, and I go speechless at the inferno bursting through his red-rimmed eyes.
Thomas is burning up. His thick fingers are going to leave a burn mark around my bicep. It wouldn’t be anything I don’t deserve. I’m bracing myself for it. I’m bracing myself for whatever punishment he wants to dole out. His gaze tells me that I disgust him.
But again, nothing comes.
The pressure of his grip eases as he whirls around, momentarily dazzling me. His dismissal is confusing. His restraint increases my urge for the punishment. I don’t want his control; I want his fury. All I can think about is that he’s hurting because of me and he needs this. He needs to hurt me back so he can get some closure. I’m both calm and frantic in my thinking.
I go to grab his shirt—to stop him? Tell him to hit me? Punch me in the face? Kick me to the ground for murdering his family? I don’t know—but he jars to a halt, and the impact of it makes my boots slip on the shiny floor of the stairwell. Suddenly, I’m airborne.
I’m flying.
Falling—literally.
My body is bounding down the stairs and as I hit the ground, all I think about is how fucking sorry I am, how fucking right it is that I’m going to die now because my love is so toxic.
And then the dark, sticky fingers pull me under, and I go to sleep.
________________
I come to, surrounded by the beep beep beep of machines and that clean but diseased smell of the hospital. Before I even open my bleary eyes, the bone-deep despair rises to the surface. The panic. The helplessness. It all stampedes on my chest and I gasp, trying to sit up.
“Hey. You’re awake.”
I focus on a sleep-ruffled Caleb. “Wh-What…” Oh God, the pain. I press my fingers to my throbbing head.
“Here.” Caleb produces a cup of water with a straw, urging me to take a sip. I obey, the water soothing the dryness in my throat.
He puts the cup away and faces me, shushing me when I try to speak. “Don’t. Your head’s gonna hurt for a while. Just give it a rest for now.”
“I…c-can’t.” I groan. Even that small whisper rattles inside my skull, tears prickling my eyes. I’ve got so many questions, so many, many things to ask him.
He strokes my hair. “Hey, it’s gonna be fine. Everything is going to be okay.”
Helpless, I lie there, crying with bitter irony. I can’t believe I said those very things not long ago. It’s gonna be okay. It’s all fine.
Nothing is fine. Not a single thing. I don’t even know how long I have been out.
“Th-Thomas?”
His face hardens. I have never seen him with that expression. “He’s gone.”
I shift on the bed, struggling to get up, but Caleb pushes me back down. Somehow, I manage to ask, “Why?”
“Are you fucking serious right now, Lay?” I sink into the hard pillow, horrified by his cursing. Caleb never uses bad words. Ever. It ratchets up my anxiety even more.
There’s some advantage to knowing a person for a lifetime, because Caleb can read the emotions on my face without me having to spell it out. “You fell down the stairs. It’s because of him, isn’t it? Do you remember that?”
Words scrape my throat as they struggle to come out. “N-No. He didn’t do anything. It was me. I was g-going after him.” And this is right on so many levels.
Caleb’s face hardens even more before going slack. “It’s not your fault.”
Tears are streaming down and my head is buzzing with the pain. “You don’t know. Hadley, she tried to kill herself because I went to their house.” Caleb shakes his head but I forge on, “She knew, Caleb. She could see I was in love with her h-husband. And Nicky… Is he...”
It’s getting harder and harder for me to talk. My head is going to explode and I can’t breathe with all the snot running down my nose. Caleb hands me a tissue. But I don’t care about the tissue. Please, please, please let him be okay. Please God.
“He’s fine. He made it.”
Caleb’s voice breaks through the mayhem in my head. He’s nodding, repeating what he just said. He made it. Nicky is fine.
“He is?” I whisper.
“Yeah. He, uh, he’s okay. He’s out of the critical care, and so is Hadley. Everything is okay now.”
I nod and nod again. I keep nodding, and my tears keep rolling down my cheeks.
Thank God. Thank God. Thank God.
I can’t form the words, the feeling of relief is huge inside me. So fucking huge. The pressure evaporates from my chest. Suddenly, I’ve become loose, flexible.
But it’s all wrong. isn’t it? I need to feel the pressure. None of this would’ve happened if not for me. I went to their house, their safe place and fucking destroyed everything.
“I almost killed him.” My words are thick and wet with my salty tears.
“Layla, listen to me.” He waits till I look at him. “What happened to Nicky is not your fault. If anything, it was Hadley’s. They’re talking about a psych eval for her.”
“What?”
“She tried to kill herself, Layla. That’s a serious thing. Not to mention, the kid almost died on her watch. She’ll probably get slapped with charges of neglect, or maybe more. None of that has to do with you. You couldn’t have brought it on by just being there.”
Caleb doesn’t know. He doesn’t know the extent of it.
My family is dying because you love me.
He didn’t see Thomas’ face. He didn’t see how I took everything from him when he’d just gotten it back.
“Do you know where Thomas is right now? Can you take me there? Please Caleb, I really need to see him.” I grab his hand, pleading.
“No. I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew. They flew Nicky out to a different hospital in the city, and they both left with him, Thomas and his wife. That’s all I know.”
Panicked, I try to scramble up. I need to see Thomas. I need to apologize. I need to do something. He might hate me, but I know he needs me.
Caleb overpowers me easily. He pushes me down on the bed and holds me there. “Jesus, Layla. Look at yourself. You need to take care of yourself. Shit.” His face crumples then, almost crying, but not yet. “When your mom called me, I-I was… God, I’ve never been so scared in my life. And to come here and find out the man responsible for your…accident is your professor? Is that the guy you love? Is that why you wanted to stay here instead of moving to the city?”
I never told Caleb who I’m in love with after dropping the bomb on him when he came to visit. I just ran out of there when I had the epiphany.
I struggle to get up once again. This time, however, Caleb doesn’t have to come stop me, because I collapse all on my own.
“He’s hurting, Caleb,” I cry, fisting the sheets covering my frail body. “I-I need to go to him.”
“What you need to do is rest. You’re gonna need your strength. Your mom’s here, and so is your dean, and they know, about…everything.” Again, I don’t have to ask. Caleb understands on his own. “Someone told them.”
“Who?”