Page 74 of Make Your Shot
My heart constricts. “Not right now, babe. The doctors said I’ll be able to leave in a few hours.”
“But you get to come home?”
“Where did your father go?” Caleb asks, his voice low and hoarse as he interjects before I get the chance to answer Tella.
“He had to step out to make a phone call. Did you need him for something?”
Caleb shakes his head, the muscle in his jaw tightening. “Is he taking you home?”
He still refuses to look at me. A heaviness settles on my chest, anxiety rolling in the pit of my stomach. Why won’t he just look at me?
“Yes,” I say, my voice barely audible. “I’m sorry for what happened.”
Caleb’s eyes flicker to mine. His eyebrows momentarily relax, his nostrils widening as he shakes his head. “It wasn’t your fault,” he says softly. “I don’t blame you.” His eyes are filled with so many emotions, I can’t decipher a single one.
His forehead creases again and in a haste, he pulls his gaze away from mine, glancing back down at Tella.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Tella.”
Tella looks at me, a tender smile drifting across her lips. “I’m glad you’re okay, too. Even though your head hurts.”
I return her smile, although mine barely lifts my cheeks. “I’ll be okay.”
“We should let Mia rest, okay?” Caleb murmurs to his daughter.
“I don’t want to leave her,” Tella says to him. My throat constricts as emotion stacks on my chest.
“We’ll see her after she’s all better.”
Caleb releases Tella’s hand and she strides across the roomtoward me. She pauses at the side of my bed, her hands reaching for mine as she gives me a gentle squeeze.
“Feel better soon, Mia. I love you.”
My vision blurs as tears fill my eyes. My heart easily grows three sizes as I squeeze her hands back.
“I love you too, T.”
She releases her grip on me and I bend down, ignoring the pounding in my head as I open my arms wide to her. She steps into them, wrapping herself around my torso as I hug her tightly.
Lifting my eyes, I find Caleb standing even closer by the door, almost as if he has one foot through the doorway as he watches the two of us. His gaze is cold and distant as it meets mine and it feels like miles stretch between us.
His throat bobs, that muscle ticking again as he drops his eyes down to Tella’s back. “Come on, T,” he calls to her. “Get some rest, Mia.”
Tella untangles herself from me, smiling at me once more before she walks back to her father. Caleb doesn’t look at me again as he reaches for Tella’s hand and the two of them step out into the hallway, leaving me by myself.
It felt like they were stepping out of my life when they walked out of the hospital room and I think I knew it at the time, I just didn’t want it to be true.
He said I wasn’t to blame for the accident, although for some reason, it feels like maybe he does blame me. I was the one driving, I was the one who had his daughter in my care. Thankfully, she was perfectly fine, although that still doesn’t change the fact that she could have been injured.
If I would have just looked to the left a little sooner, Iwould have seen the car coming and we could have avoided the entire situation.
It’s been almost a week since he sent me those messages and I still haven’t said a single thing back to him. His words were bullshit. He’s putting as much distance as humanly possible between the two of us and I can’t help it but I want to know why. I need to know why.
However, that need isn’t great enough to put my heart back on the line after he just handed it back to me, bloodied and bruised. My fear keeps me frozen in place, glued to the couch at our house at Sugar Hill Lake. My father took me home from the hospital after the doctors cleared me with a concussion. I asked him to bring me here instead and he agreed, but only on one condition.
I wasn’t to be here alone until I was healed.
A ragged breath escapes me. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully be healed...
