AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It takes me a second to realize where I am, and then it registers when I realize I’m slumped over the steering wheel.
I shouldn’t have been driving like that. I will never admit it, but he was right. It was dangerous, and my head throbs.
“I’m okay,” I murmur.
“Jolene?” he cries, batting the airbag out of the way. “You’re okay?”
I force myself to sit back against my seat. “My wrist and my head hurt, but I’m alive. I think.”
“You’re alive,” he says, and his voice sounds like he’s half-laughing and half-crying, but I close my eyes so I can’t see because the anger comes back with a vengeance.
The whole reason I was driving like that in the first place comes back.
And just because I nearly killed us both doesn’t take away that anger. Not even a fraction of it.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m okay. A few bumps and bruises, but I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry,” I cry.
“I’m sorry, too,” he says back, and I definitely hear the emotion in his voice. There’s a long pause of silence before he asks, “Can we just…wait for help and then put tonight behind us?”
Tears fall silently down my cheeks. “I wish we could, Lincoln. But I don’t know how to get past this. I don’t know how I move on from this lie. I don’t know how I could ever possibly trust you again.” I turn my head that’s still leaning back on the headrest to look at him.
Blood is starting to ooze down in a thin line from a fresh gash above his brow, and he’s staring out the front window.
He turns to look at me, and there’s determination on his face. “I will find a way, Jolene. I gave up without a fight last time. I won’t this time.”
“There’s nothing left to fight for,” I say softly. “It’s over, and the sooner you believe that, the sooner we can both move on.”
“I won’t move on from you. I never have, and I never will.”
“I didn’t mean you and me when I said both,” I whisper. “I meant Jonah and me.”
He’s silent, and that’s when we both hear the sirens coming to help us.
It’s a blur as we’re both helped out of the car and taken in separate ambulances to the same hospital. I cry the entire way there, and the paramedics keep asking me questions about what hurts.
My heart does, but not because of the accident. Those cuts and bruises will eventually heal, but what Lincoln did…that’ll leave a scar that will continue to burn for as long as I’m alive.
We arrive at the emergency room, and I’m taken back to a private room. A nurse asks me all sorts of questions as she examines me.
I hold up my wrist, which is already starting to swell, and I wince as she evaluates the extent of what happened to it.
“It doesn’t look broken, but we’ll get you back for an X-ray just to be sure. Any chance you could be pregnant?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Okay. It’s standard procedure to double check before we take you back for an X-ray. Are you okay to get me a urine sample?”
“Sure,” I say with a nod.
She points to the bathroom nearby, and she helps me stand to walk over toward the bathroom. I do my thing and return to my room, and it’s empty.
My mind races as I hold my wrist with my other hand. I start to cry, and I can’t seem to stop. It’s not from the pain in my wrist. It’s the pain in my heart. I’m losing Lincoln after we got so close, and I wish things could be different. But I can’t stop thinking that if he could hold onto a secret that big for twenty years, what else is he lying about?
Maybe my father was right all along. They’re a family of manipulators, and I’m better off staying away.
