Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Her whole body shakes as she takes me in, and I reach for the wound on her head. But a stabbing pain shoots through my stomach, pulling me up short.
“Clay!” she cries out, fear etching every line of her face. “You’re bleeding!”
I look down and see that a large piece of glass has lodged itself in my stomach, just below my ribs on the left side. Every time I move, it pulls, so I reach down and pull the fucker right out.
Blood gushes from the wound, and my head spins immediately with the loss. I groan as the foggy realization that I really shouldn’t have done that sets in.
Pain radiates from my abdomen, shoots like a rocket on its way to the moon, and lands on every single nerve ending in my body.
“Oh my God, Clay!” Josie screams. “There’s so much blood!”
I feel like I should pass out, but I don’t. Instead, I feel like I’m floating above my own body, watching Josie as she reaches out to apply pressure to my stomach with two shaky hands.
“Clay, can you hear me?” she questions, and emotion makes her voice quaver and shake. “Clay, stay with me! Stay with me. Open your eyes. Please, open your eyes!”
Her desperation crushes my fucking soul, and I try with everything I have to keep my eyes open. To tell her I’m okay. To make sure she’s okay. Her head was bleeding.
Her head was bleeding.
Josie, are you okay? Tell me you’re okay. I love you. I love you so fucking much. You have to be okay. I don’t know what I’d do without you.
The words cycle in my mind, over and over, but they never find their way to my lips.
Everything around me grows blurry and, eventually, black, until conscious Clay Harris has officially left the building.
45
Josie
Thursday, November 24th
My bloodstained hands look foreign to my own eyes as I clutch Clay’s severed flannel shirt within them and look over at the two paramedics working feverishly over his body.
His eyes are still closed, his normal exuberance completely dimmed, and my stomach cramps with anxiety and worry.
“I love you,” I whisper into the air, praying he can hear me. “Please wake up. I need you. I need you so much.”
His skin is pale and ashen in a way I’ve never seen, and with the extent of his injuries, the paramedics are too busy for me to even hold his hand.
My breath gets tangled up in my lungs. Clay is a big, strong guy, but he looks so small on the stretcher as a paramedic shoves an IV into his veins and lets a bag of fluids run into his body as fast as it can.
Another paramedic puts an oxygen mask on his face and slaps a heart monitor to his chest.
“What kind of rhythm do we have?” the one who put in Clay’s IV asks.
“We’re still sinus, but it’s brady. In the forties.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, raising my voice so they can hear me. It sounds gritty and jarring to my own ears. “Is he going to be okay? He has to be okay.”
“He’s lost a lot of blood, but we’re only a few minutes from the hospital, okay? We’re going to do everything we can, Josie. I promise you. I’m not going to let anything happen to Clay.”
It’s only then that I realize I know both paramedics. Tommy Martin and Doug Stone are Friday night regulars at Clay’s bar. Tommy is Eileen Martin’s nephew, and Doug Stone’s mom teaches at Red Bridge Elementary. She stops in the diner every Friday after school for a slice of pie.
I still have no idea what happened on the road or how we ended up in a wreck, but I know that I should’ve been paying closer attention. I shouldn’t have been arguing with Clay about planning our wedding or telling everyone at dinner tonight that we’re married.
I shouldn’t have been mad at him. I love him and he loves me, and he was right to tell all the people we love, because when you least expect it, you get in car accidents and don’t get another chance! A sob racks my ailing body, but I smother it down, choking on the taste of my tears.
I can’t believe he doesn’t even know I’m pregnant.
Nothing can happen to him. I can’t lose another person in my life. I can’t lose him.
Doug stays with Clay while Tommy shifts to the side of the ambulance with me. The sound of the siren blares on repeat as we cross the railroad tracks on the east side of town. “Josie, I see you’ve got a bit of a gash on your forehead. Let me clean it up and take a look.”
I nod woodenly, staring at Clay and Doug.
He pokes and prods at the top of my head, using an antiseptic and gauze and tweezers to pull at a piece of glass. We’re nearing the entrance of the hospital when he finishes taping a bandage over it and squeezes me on the forearm. “It’s a superficial wound. You won’t need stitches. Just make sure you keep an eye out for infection.”