“These sexy thangs are riding with us in the van.” Blaze smacked both girls with him on the ass, and then laughed as they squirmed and giggled from the contact.
Okay, so maybe I had been wrong about the majority of the group, but not him. I’d been dead on with him.
Sadie and I started across the parking lot toward her car.
“So, you and Johnny, huh?” She wasted no time grilling me.
“Don’t look too deeply into it.” I laughed.
“Oh, I am. I’ve never known you to kiss someone after meeting him.”
“That’s because I haven’t before,” I admitted.
“What’s so different about him, then?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer her, because I didn’t know the answer.
“Speechless?” Sadie razzed me. “Charlotte Montgomery is speechless when it comes to a guy. Never thought I would see the day.”
Her car came into view, and I rounded toward the passenger side. “I’m not speechless, I just don’t have an answer for your question at the moment.”
“Honey, that sounds like your speechless to me.” She grinned. “So, was he a good kisser?”
“Oh yeah.” I gushed without hesitation.
“I’ve always wanted to kiss someone with a lip piercing. Did it feel cold?” She swung the driver’s side door to her car open.
“No. I thought it would be too.” I grinned. “Then again he had been playing with it the entire night, pulling it into his mouth. Maybe it warmed it.” I lit the screen on my cell to check the time and realized I had four missed calls. All of them from Emma.
My heart dropped to my toes. Emma would never call me so many times unless something had happened.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Emma. She’s called me four times tonight.” There was a tremor vibrating through my words.
“Did she leave a message?” Sadie cranked her car.
I pressed a few things on my cell to see. There was a message for each missed call. My stomach knotted with worry. “Yeah.” My cell rang before I could press play and listen to the first message. It was Emma again.
“Is that her?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, answer it,” Sadie insisted as she started backing out of our parking space.
I held my breath as I hit the answer button. “Hey, Emma. Sorry, I wasn’t able to hear my cell ringing.”
“Charlotte, umm.” It wasn’t Emma. It was Dawson. “Something happened. It’s Emma.” His words were thick with emotion, confirming my fear something bad had happened.
“What happened?” My voice didn’t sound like my own. Fear had twisted it into someone else’s. A scared little girl’s that in no way resembled my own.
At the tone of my voice, Sadie hit the brakes. “Is everything okay?”
My heart palpitated in my throat. “It’s Dawson. Something happened to Emma.”
“WHAT HAPPENED?” SADIE ASKED. I shook my head, because I didn’t know. I’d asked, but Dawson hadn’t given me an answer.
“Dawson. What happened?” I tried again. My throat was closing up. It was hard for me to get words out, but I needed an answer. “Dawson? Is Emma okay?” Icicles of panic stabbed through me.
“She…her car…I can’t believe this is happening.” His voice was muffled, but I could still hear his heartache. It made the fear weighing my thoughts down spread. “She hydroplaned and hit a guardrail on highway twenty-eight.”
My hand flew to my mouth as my mind jumped to the worst-case scenario. “But she’s okay, right? Dawson, tell me she’s okay!” I was losing it. I needed answers. I needed him to stop being so damn cryptic, and spit it all out. Now!
“No. I mean yes, but not really. They flew her to Easton.” He sighed, but it caught in his throat and twisted into something agonizing. My heart stopped while I waited for him to clarify. “She’s alive, but in a medically induced coma. They said the pain would be too much right now. There are things they have to fix first before they bring her out.”
“A coma.” My vision blurred and became distorted, causing me to feel as though I was in a tunnel.
“She’s in a coma? Oh my God, Charlotte. I’m so sorry.” Sadie jerked her car into park and threw her arms around me.
“But she’s going to be okay, right?” I somehow managed to ask Dawson. Sadie let go of me, and I fell back against the seat, my body limp as I waited for his answer.
“They don’t know. I don’t know.” He sniffled, and I wondered why I wasn’t crying yet. I should be. My sister had been in a horrible car accident. I should be crying, but I wasn’t. “They said they won’t know for sure until she wakes.”
Until she wakes. When would that be? My mind formed the words, but they never made it to my lips. Instead, something else came rushing out. “I have to go home. I have to see her.” I didn’t know who I was talking to—myself, Sadie, Dawson. I only knew I needed to be there.
“Not tonight.” Sadie’s voice was firm. “You’ve been drinking. You can leave in the morning.”
I heard Sadie, but a frantic sensation coursed through me as another thought hit me. “Was Mom in the car with her?”
“No. She was home with me. Emma had run to the store real quick.”
Relief flooded me. “Thank God.”
“I didn’t mean to call so many times. I just thought you should know,” Dawson choked out. “I’m really glad she forgot to take her phone. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had a way to get a hold of you.”
“Thanks for letting me know.” The words came out automatically. “I’ll be there first thing in the morning.”
“Okay. I’ll let you know if the doctors tell me anything more.”
“Okay.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.” I hung up. My heart started back, but my lungs still refused to pull in air. I couldn’t breathe. How could Emma have been in a car accident? I’d just talked to her a few hours ago. She had been fine, and now she wasn’t. She was lying in a hospital bed, locked in a deep sleep controlled by doctors.
How was any of this real?
“Are you okay?” Sadie’s voice was small.
I shook my head, and tears fell from my eyes. I wasn’t okay, and if my sister didn’t make it through this, I never would be again.
A light tapping on the driver’s side window startled us both. It was Thresh. Sadie rolled down her window.
“Hey, what’s going on? Are you two still coming? I noticed you sort of moved your car, but not all the way.” There was concern in his words.
“No. Not tonight. Umm.” Sadie paused. I wondered if it was because she didn’t want me to hear her explanation, or if she was unsure that she could word the reason why we weren’t coming without choking up.
“Okay. Is everything all right?” Thresh seemed confused.
“Hey, what’s the hold up?” I heard Johnny ask.
“They aren’t coming,” Thresh replied.
“What? Why?”
I sank down into my seat and buried my face in my hands. The sound of Sadie’s door opening caught my attention. I felt her slip out of the car.
“Char just found out her sister was in a really bad car accident. I think I’m going to take her home, and sit with her tonight.” Her words crushed me with their weight. “Rain check?”
“Absolutely.” Thresh was quick to say.
“Sure, yeah. No problem,” Johnny added. “Is there anything we can do?” I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or still directing his words to Sadie. Either way, I didn’t look up. Emotions were pulling me in all different directions as scary questions about the future pelted me.
“I don’t think so,” Sadie answered. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
She climbed back into the car, and drove us back to the dorms. I sobbed the entire ride.