Chased Dreams (17 page)

“How long is that going to take?” I
asked.

“Probably several weeks, at the very least.
We want to make sure you can function well on your own before we
release you. I’ll also be requesting that you see the psychiatrist.
You’ve been through a large shock, and it might take some time to
deal with the repercussion of everything.” He glanced around the
room. “But your family and friends are encouraged to visit often
and to even participate in your recovery process, if that’s what
you would like. This is a long term care facility and it’s open to
family at all hours of the day and night.”

“Okay.” My gaze kept gravitating toward
Nikki. I still wasn’t sure I believed any of this, but I couldn’t
stop staring, drinking her in like she was the only water on the
planet. As happy as I was to see her, my heart seemed equally as
heavy every time I looked at Brittney. I stared at her baby bump,
realizing that with this turn of events, I’d lost the family I
thought I had. I felt like I was in mourning for her and my
baby.

“I’ll leave you to spend some time with your
family now,” Dr. Kennish said, glancing around the room at the
others. “Try not to overwhelm him too much.”

“I’m so confused right now,” I said to
Nikki.

“That’s okay, Chase,” she replied, flashing
me a beautiful smile of encouragement, as she gripped my hand in
both of hers. “We’re going to get through all this together—one
step at a time.”

Chapter Nineteen

They left us alone—blessedly alone. Not that
I wasn’t excited to see all my family, but Nikki and I
. . . .

Nikki. I still couldn’t believe she was
here, really here—at least she was, if
I
was, really here.
I’d never been so confused in all my life.

She still held my hand in a death grip. It
made me feel weak when I didn’t have the strength to squeeze back.
I pushed that aside for a moment, knowing we had a lot to talk
about.

“I don’t know where to start,” I said
honestly, my eyes never leaving the beautiful features of her face,
captivated by every part of her. It was like I was seeing her all
over again, for the first time.

“How about we start at the beginning? When
all this happened.”

I nodded. “Okay, but I have one
request.”

“Anything,” she said, flashing me a soft
smile.

“You’re going to have to lighten up on my
hand. You’re about to pop my fingers off.”

Gasping, she glanced down, immediately
relaxing. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Lifting her
eyes to mine, I noticed they were watering, as if she was about to
cry. “I think I’m so scared you’re going to slip away again. I’m
trying to hang on tight to keep it from happening.” She shook her
head. “I know what you’ve been through is horrible too, Chase, but
I’ve been slowly dying with every day that’s passed and you didn’t
wake up. I thought I’d lost you forever. I felt so guilty, like it
was all my fault—like if I hadn’t tried to meet you that night this
would’ve never happened.”

My heart beat rapidly with her confession. I
knew exactly how she felt. I’d lived the terror myself. Giving a
wry chuckle, I stroked the back of her hand with my thumb. It was
funny how it felt both familiar and foreign to me at the same time.
I’d been holding Brittney’s for so long. I pushed that thought
away, wanting to be in the here and now, with Nikki. “Don’t feel
guilty. I know exactly what you mean. I’ve been suffering from the
same horror in my own mind.”

“What happened that night? Do you remember
anything?” she asked.

I shook my head. “All I remember is going to
your house and waiting for you. After about fifteen minutes without
you showing up, I decided to drive toward Tana’s house. I was
worried that you might have changed your mind. I just wanted to
make sure you were okay. This cop flew passed me and I was
terrified, so I hurried after him.” I swallowed hard, the memories
threatening to overwhelm me. “I saw your car smashed to pieces.
There was a dead elk on the road and bunches of people were trying
to cut you out of the vehicle. I lost it. It felt like my whole
world had slipped right through my fingers.” Tears rolled down my
cheeks, the trauma of that night still so real in my mind.

“Chase. It’s okay.” She lifted my hand to
her lips and kissed the back of it. “It wasn’t me. I’m okay,
really, especially now that you’re here. All I want is to help you
find your way back.”

“Then tell me, what the hell happened? I
feel like I’m swimming through two alternate universes. Nothing is
making any sense to me.”

Sighing heavily, she looked as if she were
preparing herself to face something very difficult. And if she’d
experienced even half the emotions I had at losing her, I could
understand why.

“That night . . . you never made
it to my house.” To me, what she was saying seemed impossible; I
remembered it so clearly. “I was there early, excited to meet you;
but after an hour, I knew you weren’t going to show, so I decided
to go back to Tana’s. But when I got to the highway, there was this
terrible accident with police, fire, and ambulance crews there. An
officer raised his hand to stop me several yards away and I rolled
down the window to talk to him. He told me to find an alternate
route through town because the accident was bad and it was going to
take a while to clear the road.”

Goose bumps trailed over my skin, but she
didn’t notice, lost in the retelling of her story. I didn’t
interrupt.

“I couldn’t see the accident itself very
well, because of all the emergency vehicles, but I got this super
sick feeling and I asked what had happened. The officer told me
that some guy rolled his truck and it smashed into the new tall
brick building with the clock tower just down the road.”

A tremor shot through her and she gripped my
hand tighter. It was easy to see she was reliving that night
. . . just like I had for so long. “It’s all right,” I
whispered, but she still seemed so sad.

“I asked the officer what color the truck
was.” Tears fell freely from her eyes. “He said, ‘It’s white,’ and
then I knew. I knew it was you.” A single sob escaped her, and I
pulled my hand away, lifting it unsteadily to cup the side of her
face, brushing away the tears with my thumb.

“It’s okay, Nikki.” It killed me to see her
so upset, so hurt by all of this.

She continued. “The officer let me through
the barricade to see if I could identify your truck . . .
or what was left of it anyway. It was really bad. They had a sheet
draped over you and they were working to cut you out.”

Unable to hold my arm up anymore, I let it
fall to my side. She wiped at her face and took a deep breath
before resting her hand on mine again. “They called a helicopter
for you. You had this giant knot on your forehead, plus several
gashes that were bleeding badly. They were worried you had a brain
injury because they couldn’t get you to wake up, at all. When they
finally reached you, they found out your leg was broken, too.” She
sighed again, staring at me as she ran her hand slowly up and down
my arm in a comforting gesture. “You were all bloodied and bruised.
They let me talk to you while they were trying to get you out, to
see if you’d respond to my voice. But there was nothing. It was
like you were gone—poof—just like that, you, that part inside you,
simply disappeared.”

“Come here,” I said, lifting my arm. She
didn’t hesitate for a second, crawling into bed beside me. She
wrapped her arm over my stomach, laying her head against my chest,
and I could feel her trembling as she continued to shed her
tears.

“Forgive me,” she said.

“For what?” I asked, draping both my arms
around her shoulders.

“For giving up . . . for losing
hope. I didn’t think I would ever get the chance to look in your
eyes again.
This
. . . this is the miracle I’ve
been praying for, for months. The one I dreamed about every night.
The one I was sure would never happen. Where did you go?”

Squeezing her as tight as I could manage, I
placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head. “You have done nothing
that needs forgiving,” I replied softly, loving the feel of her in
my arms once again. “As far as where I went—I went to Hell and
back, Nikki. I thought you were dead and I felt like I died with
you, but we were separated. It was .  .  . agonizing, the
purest form of Hell I could ever imagine. No fire and brimstone
could ever hurt me the way I felt when I thought I’d lost you.”

“Chase?” she snuggled closer against me.

“Yeah?”

“I know you’re confused and trying to sort
things out right now, but can we not talk about the accident right
now? I’ve been sad for so long; and while the memories of these
months will always be painful, I don’t want them to cloud this
moment. You’re here, awake, and I’m in your arms. I want to just
take a few minutes to enjoy that.”

“Whatever you want,” I replied, kissing the
top of her head. “You know I never could resist giving in to what
you want.”

She gave a small laugh. “Remember the days
we spent cuddled up like this by the creek?”

“Every second.” I let those memories wash
through me. How many times had I relived those moments in an
attempt to hang on to pieces of her? “While I was . . .
asleep, I dreamed, once, that you met me there. I didn’t want to
wake up. I didn’t want you to leave me, but you told me
. . . ,” I remember her telling me it was okay to let go
and go with Brittney, but how was I supposed to tell her that? I
didn’t want her to think I’d forgotten her or that I’d cheated on
her. That’s what it felt like. She’d been mourning for me all this
time and I’d been living a lie with someone else. What did that
mean? “You told me it was okay for me to leave. That it didn’t
matter, because wherever I went, you’d hold a piece of me—,”

“In my heart,” she interrupted, sitting up
and turning to look at me. “You
heard
that?”

I stared at her confused.

“I said that to you, Chase. Here, in
reality. When I let myself finally realize you might never wake up,
I came to visit you. I talked about how unfair it was to be torn
apart from each other, just when things were beginning for us. Even
though your body was healing, you weren’t waking up. I thought
maybe you were hanging around because of me, and I didn’t want you
to suffer; so I told you it was okay for you to go. It was one of
the hardest things I’ve ever done.”

I’d heard her, heard her talking to me.
Suddenly, I began to wonder if some of the other dreams and moments
when her voice came to me were a result of the same thing. Had I
been hearing her all along? The thought boggled my mind, but it
made so much sense now. She’d been trying to reach me—and she
had.

“I heard you,” I replied, at last. “At least
that time, I did. There were other times you, or your voice, would
come to me, but not always when I was sleeping. Sometimes I thought
I smelled your perfume and I’d turn to try and find you, but you
weren’t there.”

Smiling in amazement, she shook her head
slightly. “I still wear the same perfume. Occasionally, when I
couldn’t stand it because I missed you so badly, I’d lie on the bed
next to you, just so I could
feel
you next to me.” Reaching
out, she rubbed her hand over my whiskered face.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” I joked. “I need a
shave.”

“Your grandpa comes every few days to shave
your face and helps to give you sponge baths.”

I sighed, leaning into her palm. “Because
that’s not embarrassing at all.”

“Don’t be embarrassed. You needed help, and
we were more than willing to give it. We were all here for you,
Chase. None of us ever left. Brittney has been with you a lot,
everyday. She works here. And she’d even come to see you on her
days off. Brett would come with her whenever he could– your mom,
Greg, your grandma and grandpa, my family—we’ve all been here,
talking to you about things in our lives, trying to keep you
involved, in touch with us, just in case you might hear us and come
back.”

“Hmmm. I’m thinking maybe it worked.” Maybe
this really was where my false reality had come from. Simply my
mind twisting the things people were telling me into a story that
made sense to it at the time. Everything just seemed so bizarre, so
otherworldly.

Closing my eyes, I suddenly felt tired, but
I was afraid to sleep. Afraid—like her—that I’d go away, again, and
lose all of this.

“You need to rest,” she said, and my eyes
flickered open to look at her. “You’ve been through a lot
today.”

“I don’t want you to leave.” I didn’t care
if that was a greedy thing to ask. In my mind, I’d been without her
for
years
. I wanted her right here, beside me, now.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she replied and we
both chuckled. Her face grew serious. “Do you still love me, Chase?
I mean, like you used to?”

Sliding my hand around her neck, I pulled
her back to my chest. “I never stopped loving you, Nikki. Not for
one second.” I wrapped my arms tightly around her. “And I’m not
about to stop now.”

Chapter Twenty

Someone quietly entered the room. I cracked
my eyelids to find Brittney moving around, cleaning things up and
emptying the trash, as well as restocking some items. Apparently
she thought I was still sleeping. As tired as I was, I hadn’t
rested much through the night, awake when the morning light began
filtering through the cracks in the blinds at the window.

My mind was churning; full of a myriad of
thoughts after Nikki had left me in the wee hours of the morning.
She hadn’t wanted to leave, and it had taken quite a bit of coaxing
on my part to get her to go, relenting only when I gave her my word
I’d still be here when I woke up again. The fear in her eyes was
plain to see, not that I blamed her. I was afraid, too—afraid of
closing my eyes and waking up to find this all gone once more, like
everything about Nikki had been in my past.