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“Tara—”
“Parkview Memorial,” Tara whispered as if her tone was trying to soften the blow but failed. Cornell squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as his chest constricted.
“Put her on the phone,” he forced out, beginning to honk.
Tara sighed. “I’m not with her. I’m… she still had me as her emergency contact. The hospital called and just said she was hurt in a car accident. But… they won’t tell me anything, they want me to wait for the doctor—”
Cornell banged repeatedly on the horn, raising his head to try and see the exit. “I’m fucking stuck and—”
“Bobbi and John are on their way. Hurry, okay? I’ll call you back if they tell me anything.”
He nodded as if Tara could see him and hung up, dialing Ali again. “Come on, Ali.”
It went unanswered.
“Cornell,” his father spoke with concern lacing his tone from beside him. “What’s going on? Where is Ali?”
Ali…
The sound of her name made his ears ring. He gritted his teeth. “I…I can’t take you home. Can you order an Uber? I’m sorry, I just—”
Peter turned in his seat, placing a hand on his shoulder. Cornell could feel the weight of it pressed against him, but that’s all he felt. Not the grip of it, not the warmth. The only thing he could actually feel in his body was the crippling worry suffocating him from the inside out.
“Cornell? What happened?”
“Ali had a car accident.” He paused, hating how the words sounded coming from his mouth. “Will you be okay to get back to the hotel?” Peter said nothing. “Dad?”
Peter unclipped his seatbelt. “Get out. You shouldn’t be driving.”
* * *
It took Cornell and Peter nearly an hour to make it to the hospital. No one was picking up—not Tara, Bobbi, nor John. Waves of nausea hit him with every call that went unanswered, and Cornell found his tense legs shaking the entire ride from Dallas.
She’s fine, she’s fine, he chanted, she’ll be fine. Some bumps and bruises, maybe an airbag burn. Cornell’s brain could not—and would not—think of Ali hurt any more than that.
He closed his eyes, trying to picture Ali earlier. Cornell had been running late and merely dropped Mowgli off with a wave because she was on the phone. A wave. Did I fucking wave? He broke his own rule—there always had to be a kiss goodbye. She’ll remind me about that. As soon as I walk in. She’ll be in a bed, maybe with some bad bruises, and she’ll look at me and tell me I broke my own rule.
As soon as Peter slowed and turned into the lot, Cornell opened the door and sprinted to the entrance, not able to wait for him to park. The emergency room was eerily quiet, and even though it was still warm outside and Cornell’s chest heaved from his sprint, a chill brought goosebumps along his arms and legs.
“Can I help you?”
“Alison Whitaker, my girlfriend was brought here, I think it was an accident or—”
“Cornell,” John called, approaching him from down the hall.
“What happened? Where is she?” Cornell took quick strides toward John, frantically peeking around.
“She just came back from CT. It was clear.” There was relief in John’s voice, but with Ali out of sight, Cornell couldn’t let himself relish in that. “Bobbi is with Ali now. She’s agitated, shaken up. But she’s okay. She’ll be okay.”
Okay. Cornell didn’t want to hear the word okay. And nothing about John’s face—not his downturned mouth, his anxious, furrowed brow, or distant gaze—seemed okay.
John pressed his lips together in a frown, shaking his head. “She hit a telephone pole and must have been going pretty fast, according to the police. They checked her blood alcohol—”
“Ali wouldn’t—”
“I know she wouldn’t. There wasn’t anything in her system. I know. They have to check these things, Cornell. She’s in and out of it and flustered, but with her CT scan clear, I don’t really know. Must be a bad concussion.”
A concussion. She can handle a concussion, he told himself. I can handle her having a concussion.
