🥊 Hate or Fate 💕 {Enemies to Lovers}

.6.

The entire ride over to the hospital in Bart's car I felt numb. Despite being wrapped in a woolen blanket (for reasons I can't entirely remember), I was frozen on his front passenger seat and staring out at the city as it rolled by.

I'd managed to send texts to Elijah's mom and Bart. Then, my panic took over and I'd slumped onto the kitchen tiles to try and keep breathing.

Noises swelled and echoed. My chest was so tight, I couldn't fill my lungs all the way, as if a massive snake were slowly closing around my ribs to suffocate me to death. All I could do was worry and cry, then, worry some more.

Chilling memories seeped into my veins and wrapped their poisonous tendrils around my bones, rattling my frame like the bars of a cage. This couldn't be happening. Not again.

"Grady and Gray are meeting us at the hospital," Bart reported through gritted teeth. "Fucking grandpa! Move your damn car!"

I looked up to find a massive boat of a vehicle blocking the green light in front of us. Bart laid on his horn way too long, prompting the geezer to painstakingly lift his kinked middle finger before rambling off.

"I should have offered to go hiking," I mumbled.

"What?" Bart cried. "No! You shouldn't have."

"I could have driven us," I told him, not really listening to what he was saying.

"Isla, there's no way you could have known this was going to happen. And, there's not a chance in hell you would have been able to stop it or avoid that accident, even if you were driving. You know that, right?" Bart ground his teeth. "Don't worry, we're almost there."

Bart was such a good friend. Not just to me, but to anyone lucky enough to meet him. He'd dropped everything at work to hop in his car and come get me. I was nearly comatose and in no shape to drive when he arrived, so he gave me a fireman's lift to his front seat.

The nurse couldn't tell me anything over the phone except that there had been an accident, and that Elijah Wagner had been admitted for emergency surgery. My heart was slamming into my ribs so hard it felt as if it were bruising my insides.

My worst fears and a multitude of possibly terrible outcomes threatened to overwhelm me.

I'd been here before, in almost this exact situation. I've suffered through the endless ambiguity of being pulled apart and put back together all wrong. There is no physical therapy, or specialist, or surgery to heal the broken or missing pieces you have forever lost. There is no way to make you whole again.

I wasn't sure if I could survive it again. If I could sit by, helpless.

We parked in an above-ground structure, and Bart valiantly led me through a pair of automatic glass doors. People milled around the sterile reception area while doctors and nurses bustled in and out of the room.

Bart helped me to the tempered glass partition and we sluggishly produced our IDs to gain admittance.

"Ms. Brodeur?" A rotund woman in a blue paper mask approached us.

It was hard to hear her over the buzz of voices and machines filling the crowded room. As if waking up from a bad dream, I jerked my head in the direction of her paisley scrubs to nod.

"This way," the nurse beckoned for us to follow.

I leaned against Bart for support and we breezed through a pair of double doors into a long hallway filled with even more medical personnel.

I tried my best to ignore the horrifying memories this place brought up as I shrank into Bart's comforting bulk. Erratic beeps fired off little flares in my mind, spiking my pulse like I'd been jolted by a defibrillator.

I hated hospitals. Elijah was one of the only people to know why.

The nurse led us to another waiting area, this one much smaller than the last. An antiquated television hung in the corner of the room blaring some terrible soap opera while a few depressed-looking individuals occupied the reserve of pleather chairs. Bart and I took the only two seats left.

"I'll be back with Mr. Wagner's surgeon," she informed us.

"We'll be here," Bart promised her back as she turned to go.

I crumpled against Bart's chest to dampen his gym shirt with my tears. It was sweat-wicking material, so I'm sure he didn't mind. We didn't know the extent of Elijah's injuries or even what to expect.

They always brought you back to the teeny tiny waiting rooms before giving you the really terrible news. I'm pretty sure hospitals do that so the general population couldn't hear the agonized wails of people's loved ones.

A small commotion of feet forced me to focus. When I managed to look up, I found Grady and Gray jogging after the same nurse. Their apprehensive expressions matched everyone else.

"Did someone call his family?" Gray was the first to ask, rubbing his eyes to hide the fact that he'd obviously been crying.

"His parents are driving down with his little sister and brother from Mercer Island," I repeated what Elijah's mom had told Bart through gut-wrenching tears over the phone.

"They're waiting for the ferry," Bart mumbled, nodding absentmindedly to my update.

"Shit!" Grady exploded, craning his neck to look down the hallway. "Where's his doctor?"

"Still in surgery," Bart answered.

"Isla, are you OK?" Gray knelt down by my knees to catch my drifting gaze.

"Nope," I said, studying the worry lines of his pursed expression.

His eyes were lined red and puffy, making him look like a frightened boy rather than the tattooed badass he usually tried to project. It would be jarring if I weren't already waiting to find out whether my boyfriend would survive whatever had happened to him.

Gray's lower lip quivered as he sucked in a shaky breath.

"Does anybody know where he was when it happened?" Grady asked, still completely bewildered and growing visibly agitated.

"Probably driving home from your hike?" I suggested wearily.

"What hike?" Grady snapped, taking his frustrations out on the wrong person.

"Elijah went hiking this morning," I stared at Grady, perplexed. "With you."

"What? No, he didn't," Grady argued. "I've been driving rides all morning."