Page 5 of Free Heart
“What did Rye tell you?”
“That he’s unconscious…” My eyes fill with tears again. “They don’t know if he’s…if he’s…really okay. Rye said his leg is…well, it’s definitelynotokay. I don’t know why I keep saying the word okay. I just…I just really want to believe that Dan’s…that he’s…”
“Gonna be okay.”
“Yeah.”
Lowell reaches out and pats my leg. “I want that too.”
Tears slip down my cheeks, and I remember how they sometimes overflow when Dan fucks me. I wipe at them with the backs of my hands and try to hold down a sob. Lowell pats my leg again and says nothing.
“How about some music?” he finally murmurs and turns on his stereo. Thick, strummy guitar fills the cab, and a country-twang rumbles out of the speakers. I don’t recognize the song or the band, but I recognize the heartbreak in the man’s voice.
I let the tears slide out and keep my gaze on the road ahead. We pass a sign.
Fresno 320 miles.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Dan
The sky isa deep blue, and I gaze up at it, wondering how it could possibly be such a vibrant hue. It’s stunning.
Sejin giggles next to me.
I roll over on the carpet of grass—it’s soft and bright green like a golf course mid-summer—and I take hold of his hand, raise it to my lips, and kiss his fingers.
He’s got that smile on his face. The one I live to see.
“Hey, Doc. Wanna marry me?”
Sejin laughs again. “Sure. As soon as you wake up.”
“Am I sleeping?”
“Of course.”
I frown. What’s he talking about? It’s a beautiful day. I’m wide awake. I squeeze his hand and roll onto my back, considering the question of what it means to be asleep or awake. What it means to bealive.
I blink up at the cloudless depths. I’m happy. I’m with Sejin. The grass is soft. The sky is deep. I’m awake.
And the sky is so fucking blue…
Flashing blue and red and blue and red.
Huh.
Weird.
*
Sejin
Rye is waitingfor us outside the entrance to the emergency roomwhen Lowell and I arrive. When he sees us hustling in from the parking lot, he smiles widely, and I almost burst into tears again as relief rushes over me.
As soon as I’m close enough, Rye embraces me.
“He’s good; he’s gonna be all right,” he says all in a rush, while still clinging to me and patting my back. “They’ve got him sedated. But they were able to get scans and, miraculously, there’s no head trauma, which is huge, huge,huge.” He lets go of me and meets Lowell’s eye. There’s an odd tension between the two of them that I don’t entirely understand, but then it breaks, and Rye keeps on talking. “They still have him in the ER while they get a room ready upstairs, but once they move him, we can visit.”
