Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
I blinked. “I’m not sure that I can give you the crying, but the rest of it doesn’t sound impossible.”
She smiled but didn’t outright disagree with me any longer.
“All right,” I heard said from behind me. “You are free to go home, Ms. Sway. Here are your crutches, your release paperwork, and the doctor already called your prescription into the pharmacy. I highly suggest taking it because it has a muscle relaxer with it and it’ll seriously help with the pain in your ankle.”
Instructions were distributed, and long minutes later we were allowed to leave the hospital.
Sutton crutched her way out of the hospital.
The only thing that I was allowed to hold of hers was her brand-new running shoe that they’d taken off of her.
“Are y’all going to be staying here?” I asked as we headed toward my truck since it was the closest.
“No.” Ted, Sway’s dad, shook his head. “If you have this now, we’re gonna head back. I left the water hose on filling up the duck’s pool. Mathilda is fairly sure she left the chicken coop open. And we have no clothes. We will be back this weekend to check on her if that’s all right.”
“It’s perfectly all right.” I held out my hand. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
He winked. “You got here as soon as you could. Don’t think that we didn’t notice you speeding at the sound of light on your way here.”
I’d shared with them my location on Life 360 when they’d given me a call and let me know that they were with Sutton, and that she was banged up, but not too badly.
They’d also given me hourly updates on how she was doing and kept me apprised of every test that they’d run since she’d arrived at the hospital.
“Let us know if you need anything before we’re back this weekend,” Mathilda urged. “Take care of my little girl.”
I pulled her into a hug while whispering, “Always.”
Twenty-Four
I might be laid back, but I can lean forward real quick.
—Sutton’s secret thoughts
SUTTON
Gunner was treating me like I was spun glass.
He’d carried me into the house.
He’d carried me into the bedroom.
He’d then carried me into the shower.
Washed my hair.
When he’d reached for my razor, I slapped his hand away. “I got it, Gunner.”
He blew out a breath. “When I got that call, I thought that it was happening again.”
I frowned up at him. “Thought what was happening again?”
The way his eyes looked made my chest hurt.
“That I was losing someone else that I loved.”
I wilted. “Oh, Gunner.”
“I’m scared,” he breathed. “Every second of every day. The more people that enter my life that I love, the worse it gets. Sometimes, when I let my mind focus on the what-ifs too long, I want to run away. I want to escape and hide in the woods with no cell phone service so that I’ll never know if something happens to y’all.”
I buried my face in his neck. “I’m okay. I won’t leave you like that, Gunner. And no one else will, either.”
He shook his head. “You can’t know that.”
“No,” I agreed. “I can’t. But I can promise you that you’ll only live half a life if you let this consume you.”
He looked away, causing the water that’d been pounding his back to spray me directly in the face.
I sputtered, and he looked back with a sheepish grin. “Sorry.”
I reached for the bar of soap. “Make sure that I don’t fall over while I do this.”
He made sure that I was steady as could be, and I spent the next five minutes shaving and telling him about what had happened.
“Even worse, they took out my new car. I haven’t even made the first payment on it,” I grumbled.
“Do you remember anything about the car? Did you see a face?” he asked.
“Nope. Nothing.” I groaned. “Her boots!”
He squeezed my hip and said, “I’m sure they were picked up. Don’t worry about the boots.”
“They were so cute, though,” I whined.
“I imagine that we can buy more,” he pointed out.
“Logic and I don’t work well together,” I teased.
After shaving had commenced and I was fresh as a daisy, Gunner carried me out of the shower and sat me on the counter with a towel wrapped around my body.
He bent down on one knee so he could get a better look at my ankle, which was already starting to turn black and blue.
“Gonna hurt like a bitch tomorrow,” he mused as he ran the pads of his thumbs up the length of my ankle. “Want to fix it faster?”
I hesitated. “I don’t like how you just asked me that.”
His lips curved up at one corner as he replied. “It’s going to hurt like a bitch. But I had this trainer teach me how to work on my own ankle. I was prone to turning them when I was playing ball. She taught me how to work on it because we shared a trainer with another school, and sometimes she couldn’t get to me super fast.”