The Truth About Air & Water (Truth in Lies #2) (9 page)

Maybe it’s the suddenness of it all. Maybe it’s the profound understanding of loss and instantly knowing how it feels that rocks you all over again. Whatever it is, I wish it didn’t hurt so damn much. I wish the experience didn’t feel so achingly familiar. I wish the heartbreak didn’t remind me so much of its permanence. Because the death of a loved one—that loss—is like a bacteria your body never really rids itself of. It’s always there, just waiting to re-ignite and burn through you all over again.

Oh yes, death and loss like to stay acquainted, to revisit, if only to remind you that these two are ultimately in charge. Death. Loss. Grief. Guilt. They all take turns tormenting you. Invariably, one or all manage to infiltrate through any happiness, joy, or peace you find.

Sure, you naively convince your outer self you’ve moved on, that you’ve survived the death of a loved one, but you really haven’t. You think you’ve outplayed them all, but these threats—death, grief, and guilt— will not be denied.

And yes, in moments like this one, you again realize that they just bide their time and pay a visit on a different day when you least expect. All four evoke irrevocable harm in new and different ways and extol pain in just enough notable measures in any way they can find. New or old. It’s hard to tell. All you know is that the pain feels exactly the same no matter how much time has gone by. It’s the exact same feeling. It makes me shudder.

“
Get out of your head, Tally.
Breathe.
He’s going to be okay.” Marla looks at me intently for a moment and forces herself to smile. Then, she’s whipping the SUV into the first open parking space she finds in the visitor’s lot for long term.

I glance at her sideways. “
Long term
parking?”

“We don’t know how long we’ll be here.” She gives me a reassuring look just as her cell phone buzzes and proceeds to read the text off of her phone. “Your mom just picked up Cara. She’s meeting up with Gina and then she’s coming here.”

“This is going to set her back,” I say with foreboding. My mom is really close to Linc. That’s happened over the last several months even before we got back together. I worry how she is going to do with all of this. Whatever
this
is.

“You don’t know that. Don’t even think that.”

“Always thinking it,” I murmur. “Thank God for Gina. And my mom too, I guess.” I’ve run out of words and I’m out of air again. I sigh deep again in an attempt to keep it together, but my entire body convulses as if I’m feeling everything Linc is right now. Somehow, I slide down from the passenger seat of Marla’s SUV even as my mind flails and begins to search for distractions.

I like Gina Masterson. I’m grateful she is taking care of Cara as well as Elliott. Cara loves being with Elliott. It’s amazing to me how children can bridge an almost two-year age difference and find ways to relate and entertain themselves. Cara will be okay. My mom will be here soon.

These jumbled thoughts console me, enough so that I manage to transport myself all the way into the hospital’s ER waiting area without really noticing, until I look up and discover the ordered chaos all around me. Copious amounts of angst and blood and a little gore greet me cocooned within the stark whiteness of the emergency room.

My ears hum. People are talking, but I can’t really hear what’s being said. I close my eyes to extinguish the scene.

I can do this. I have to do this.

I open them only to find the horror scene is still here.
It’s real. And I’m here.
Here to suffer like all these others waiting for news, good or bad, or closure, or an ending, or a beginning. A woman in labor. A guy with a chainsaw sticking out from his upper thigh. A child with a nasty cut across his forehead swathed in a bathroom towel. “From a swing,” his mother tells us even though we didn’t ask. All the injured wait, while dire emergencies are handled behind half-closed curtains and the medical staff clothed in blue scrubs that race around like soldiers re-spawning in a video game. All of these victims experienced line drives in their own way. Line drives shattering their lives or beginning them in an instant.

Life and death in the ER. Episodic or not. It’s here. I’m here. The last place I thought I’d ever be again.

I hate hospitals.
My experience with them has been less than stellar, especially this one. I spent time here after the accident, after Holly died at the scene, and after being there and watching it happen. I tremble again as the memory rears itself upward to the foremost part of my mind and recognize the familiar excruciating pain as it tries to take over.

It’s not the same.
It just feels the same.

It can’t happen again.
Can it?

I can’t lose anyone else
. I can’t.

Which is why you should never love them in the first place.

Marla hits my arm effectively bringing me back to the present. She saves me from drowning in the memories of the past and the ever fearful present. With purpose, she takes my hand and guides me along the hallway and right up to the outstretched arms of my dad.

Dr. Adam Landon. Daddy.
His wide arms engulf me, and I allow myself to feel safe for a few seconds, but then reality crashes back in on me; and I pull away. Dad looks a little disappointed by my actions.
What else is new?

“He’s awake,” Dad says to me gently. He holds my gaze for a few seconds and exudes reassurance for me with his very presence. “He’s asking for you, Tally.”

I unconsciously gasp air realizing I’ve been holding it again since we raced through the hospital parking lot all the way to here.

“Daddy? Is he okay? I saw it on TV as well as the replay over and over.” I swallow hard. “He was unconscious for a long time.”

My dad pauses for a few seconds, choosing his words carefully, always at the ready as the doctor—
the famed cardiologist
—that he is. I can practically see him put on his bedside manner, like a winter coat, when he finally answers. “Babe, he’s in the best place he can be. They’re going to do a CAT Scan to see how he’s doing. He may have a facial fracture to the right side of his face. They’ll want to rule out other stuff with the scan.”

“Other stuff?”

He doesn’t answer for a long ten seconds and won’t quite meet my eyes when he does. “He got hit pretty hard, Tally.” My dad sighs ever so slightly. “Go talk to him. He’s asking for you. I’ll be right there.” He turns to Marla. “Let me show you where the waiting room is. His pitching coach is there too. I’m sure the rest of the team will be along as soon as the game finishes.”

“They’re still
playing
?” I call out to my dad incredulous that they continued the game.

The two of them have started to walk away from me, but my dad turns back. “Yeah.” His one word answer conveys his own frustration at this insanity.

God forbid the Giants would stop a game for their star pitcher’s injury.
I just nod at Marla and my dad, too helpless to form words and then slowly follow one of the nurses my doctor dad has assigned to take charge of me.

Ten minutes later, I’ve put on some blue paper gown and these ridiculous billowy covers for my shoes in the same nauseating shade of blue, and now I’m following ‘Linda’ the nurse into the trauma room, where no less than five people are working on Linc. I look around for a familiar face, but there are none. I can barely see Linc’s with so many people surrounding him.

No Davis Presley.
For some reason, this makes me uneasy that Linc’s dad isn’t here yet, and that feeling gets stronger when I finally get a look at Linc’s face. The left side is perfectly normal but the right side of his face is this dark, flaming red streaked with dried blood with the outer edges into his dark hairline turning a raging purple in color. His right eye is already swollen shut, while his open left one zeros in on me.

“Tally,” he whispers, reaching for me. “This my fiancée,” he says to the doctors and nurses crowding around. “Everyone, just back off,
please
, and give me a minute with her. We’re getting married tomorrow.”

Incongruent.
So incongruent with what I am seeing before me right now that I actually laugh and shake my head at him.

“Hi,” I say shyly and with a bit of wonder at the medical team. “I’m Tally Landon. Hi.” I smile at the sympathetic look of the doctors and nurses and catch their fleeting smiles. I turn to Linc again. “I thought we were going to keep that to ourselves?”

“No secrets anymore. Only the truth about us. In sickness and in health, remember? Soon enough anyway.” He tries to smile but I think it hurts him to move his face too much. “I love you, Tally Landon. Come here.”

I forgo thinking about what he looks like, which is rather frightening on a level I can’t even begin to comprehend yet, and rush straight into his open, waiting arms. We cling to each other for a few minutes not saying anything more, while I feel the presence of all the others in the room warily watching us.

I pull back and take a good look at him. Describing him as having been in a prized fist fight that he clearly didn’t win doesn’t begin to cover it. I reach for his left hand, where his wedding ring will soon be. My mind flashes that it’s at home in my lingerie drawer. I bring his fingers to my lips and kiss them one at a time. Although this group of doctors look a little disconcerted by my arrival, my presence seems to calm Linc. One of them tells me they’ll allow me to remain as long as I stay out of the way while they work on him.

“Deal,” I say to the growing crowd of doctors and nurses.

“Careful now,” one of them says to me as I hug Linc fiercely to me and stroke the back of his head, which appears to be the only uninjured part of him at the moment.

“A few more minutes,” Linc cajoles one of the nurses who tries to lead me further away.

“You forgot the signal,” I say softly to Linc.

“I did. I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. It all went black. All I remember is the ambulance ride, waking up and knowing all I wanted to do was get to you, to see you again.” He tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite work this time. Then, he winces in obvious pain.

I pull away and step back from him a few feet as the doctors start to move in on us. “I love you.” He doesn’t say anything in response and I stare at him hard trying to make sense as to what is going on with him. His breath goes shallow and he looks a little dazed now. “Yeah, well, you scared half the nation,” I say slowly. “At least, all the San Francisco Giants’ fans.”

He frowns at first at what I’ve just said and appears to try and laugh but it comes out more this guttural groan. The doctors seem to be watching him as closely as I am now. I step forward and kiss him lightly, embarrassed by the unintended scrutiny by everyone here, but determined to show him that I’m here, and I love him.

“Are you his wife?” One of the nearby nurses asks. She gives me a sympathetic but hopeful look.

I glance over at her with a faint smile. “No. I’m his fiancée. We’re getting married tomorrow. It’s supposed to be a secret for a while, but I guess that cover is blown.” My smile is erased by the sympathetic look that comes over her face. Tomorrow’s planned courthouse nuptials fade just as fast. I draw an unsteady breath when she immediately turns to Linc and quickly points to the places he should sign his name.

After about thirty seconds, Linc has signed all the forms and I watch as the nurse races out the ER doors with them. Then, I keep my eyes on Linc, smile wide, and effectively ignore the tragic parts to this scene.

“You look like hell, big guy. Good thing we’re getting married tomorrow, and that I love you so much because that baseball left a mark or two on your otherwise totally handsome face.” I gently kiss him but then he’s pulling back and looking at me funny. “Linc? Are you okay? Linc?” I ask again when he doesn’t answer.

His good eye kind of glazes over. He’s stares at me and doesn’t say anything else.

Then I notice his lips are turning blue just as panic begins to grip me. I trace his lips checking his air. “He’s…barely breathing. There’s something wrong. There’s something wrong!” I scream to anyone who will listen and frantically look around as the circle of doctors closes back in on us.

About that time, I hear one of the machines go off, and I’m unceremoniously pushed out of the way as more alarms begin to go off.