Page 104 of Second Chance Fate

Her pager went off, and she looked down at it. “I have to go deal with this, but wait in here and I’ll come find you.” She motioned to a smaller waiting area with a TV in the corner.

Not knowing what else to do, Caleb was left alone with the antiseptic tang in his nose, the blare of a child’s cartoon on the television, and silent terror rattling his bones. He dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone, thumbing the button with a blind religious hope, but the screen remained black. Why hadn’t there been a miracle? Why couldn’t it, just for once, flicker back to life and give him some kind of update?

He paced the waiting area, carving a path along the row of plastic bucket seats, unable to sit, unable to breathe. Every few seconds, he looked at the double doors that he was ninety percent sure Taylor was on the other side of. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed.

Caleb’s mind spun in desperate reels, imagining every scenario, each one worse than the last. He tried to piece together the voicemail from memory since he’d only been able to play the static-laden message once, but it was useless. Then he remembered Owen’s voice when he talked about Martin finding his mom: scared, but almost resigned to it as if it was a foregone eventuality.

Anger swelled in Caleb that his family had been put through this. That his son was terrified. He needed to find Owen and make sure he was okay. He needed to be with his son.

The longer he stood, the less the room made sense. The ceiling lights flickered, the clock ticked backwards, and the TV’s sound muted itself and then returned, louder than before. Caleb pressed his palms together, tried to pray, but all the words evaporated before he could grab hold.

He was suffocating. He could taste the fear, metallic and raw, at the back of his throat. He pulled out his phone once more and stared at his black screen again. Prayer hadn’t brought it back to life, so he tried sheer willpower to force it to charge. His hands shook as he held it.

A sound of someone clearing their throat echoed in the small room. Caleb lifted his head.

The blonde buzzcut smiled. “Follow me, I’ll take you back.”

Relief overwhelmed him. “Thank you, I’m Cale?—”

“I know,” she smiled as if it were obvious who he was.

“Oh.” Caleb wasn’t sure if he’d met her before, and he felt bad that he didn’t remember.

“Don’t worry, you don’t know me. It’s just the Hot Pastor thing. It was sort of all over the hospital.”

“Oh.” Caleb hadn’t thought about that since Taylor. Which was nice. “Right. Is my wife, is Taylor, okay?”

“I don’t know. I just found out where she was, so I could bring you to her, but she’s not in critical condition."

Well, that was something. “Well, thanks…”

“Keeley.”

“Thanks, Keeley.”

He followed Keeley through a chilly corridor scented with floor wax and the ghost of bleach, passing curtained bays where the rise and fall of urgent voices blurred into a low, collective hum. At the end of the hallway, she gestured to a glass-walled treatment room with a heavy sliding door. Caleb barely registered the motion; he was already moving.

There, under too-bright lights and a cocoon of thin hospital blankets, was Taylor.

She looked so small. That was the first and only thing that registered in his brain: she was impossibly, frighteningly small. An IV dangled from her arm, taped down with comic overkill. Yet she was awake, her eyes open and alert, flicking between Caleb and Owen—because Owen was there too, in the hard-backed visitor chair, knees tucked up and chin resting on his arms.

He didn’t see any blood or any bandages, but they could be under her gown. Her color was good. The moment Taylor saw Caleb, a range of emotions danced over her face: relief, worry, and then a kind of shy happiness. She sat up a little straighter, or tried to, only to wince when the motion pulled at her bandage.

He was at her side in two seconds, dropping to his knees and gathering her in as much of a hug as the monitors and tubes would allow. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and let out a shaky breath.

“I’m okay,” she whispered, again and again, as if trying to convince both of them. “I promise, I’m okay.”

Caleb looked over at Owen. “Are you okay? I tried to call you. My phone was dead.”

Owen nodded. “Grandma and Grandpa got me. They’re here; they just went to visit a friend.”

All his life, Caleb’s parents have always known a few people in the hospital at any given time. He guessed it was just because his dad had been a pastor for so long.

He kept his arms around Taylor, eyes darting over her as if he could memorize every hurt and will it away. “You scared me,” he said, not bothering to hide how close he was to tears. “I thought—” But he couldn’t finish, so he just put his forehead to hers and stayed there.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m fine, really. I’m not the one who got shot.”

Taylor motioned to the bed beside her.

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