Page 13 of A Summer Thing

Chapter Eight

Declan

The impact is sudden, loud.

Grinding metal, screeching and screaming against asphalt. Glass shattering and raining down on the inside of our car—on my skin, and in my hair, a thousand pieces of hail pelting against my body.

There’s so much sound.

The hissing of engines; a horn blaring non-stop, long and drawn out and never-ending; distant crying; someone whimpering.

I think the last one might be me, but I pass out before I can be sure.

When I come to, I wake to the chattering of people—panicking, trying to help, and a terrified voice that rises above the others, shouting for someone to come fast. “Please, hurry,” the voice says. “I—I don’t think they’re going to make it. The cars—it’s so bad. Please. Please, hurry!”

I think time might have sped up in the moments before the crash, everything happening so fast, but now it feels as if time has slowed down, crawling before ceasing to move at all.

My breaths are hard to take, hard to find, locked somewhere behind my lungs.

My limbs are stuck—curled under me, or under the weight on top of me.

I can’t feel them at all anymore. I can’t really remember anything now, but the sound of vehicles slamming into each other and becoming one in the middle of an intersection.

The weight on my chest intensifies, and I don’t know where my breaths are hiding anymore. I think they’ve fled from my body, feeding life into someone who isn’t me.

Maybe it’s because I’m scared, or maybe it’s because I’m in a state of shock, but I have the distant thought that I might be dying.

A slow, ragged breath seeps through my lips and into my lungs, defying the thought.

And then somewhere beyond that, a pain races up through my consciousness to meet me, lashing through my body in a flash that’s so painful it doesn’t feel real.

It’s the kind of pain, I think, in a jarring moment of clarity, that no one is meant to feel.

And then everything goes black once more.

______

I wake from my nightmare with a loud gasp, and that’s exactly where my breaths get stuck. Frozen in my inhale, until the emotional pain of reliving those buried memories crashes into me, splitting my heart in two and forcing my breath from my lungs with a loud whoosh.

The agony of it knocks every ounce of air from my body, leaving tears stinging at the back of my eyes, my heart racing behind my ribcage and strangling me with its ache, making it impossible to breathe.

Five, four, three, two, one. Five, four, three, two, one, I repeat, but I can’t find the mental space to follow through with the steps.

So I repeat them instead since it’s all I can do.

Five things I can see. Four things I can feel.

Three things I can hear. Two things I can smell. One thing I can taste.

Again. And again. And again.

I try, slowly, to drag myself back down and focus on the execution of the five steps, attempting to push the haunting images from my mind one by one, but the effort is useless. I’m too far gone, drowning in an ocean of images that keep crashing back into me.

A soft knock sounds at my door, and I let out a shuddering breath . Addy. Thank God. I desperately grasp onto the hope that she can help me.

But when the door cracks open, it isn’t Addy I see. It’s a pair of stormy gray eyes, dripping with concern.

“Hey,” Jude says. His voice is quiet and rough with sleep.

His rumpled hair falls into his face, and he pushes it back with his hand.

“You okay?” he asks with a frown. “I thought I heard— shit, I’m not sure what I heard, but it didn’t sound good.

” He looks me over, raking his gaze over every inch of my skin.

I try to take a deep breath. Try to swallow back my emotions.

But with the careful way he’s looking at me, his features pinched with worry and his eyes brimming with unwavering concern, my anguish floods forward beyond my control.

Tears spill down my cheeks in rivulets and land in my lap, Quinn’s face still so fresh in my mind I can’t tell the difference between nightmare and reality anymore.

I choke back a sob as Jude strides forward, and my gaze stays glued to his feet as they pad across the wooden floor, stopping at the edge of my bed.

He grasps my chin and lifts my gaze to his, and his entire body tenses with the realization that I’m crying.

“Fuck, Declan. What’s going on? You want me to get someone? I can go get Addy. I can—”

I shake my head, focusing on my breaths. Focusing on pulling myself together enough to tell him it was just a nightmare, and that I’ll be okay. At least I think I’ll be okay.

“Just a nightmare,” I manage the three seemingly simple words.

Except, it wasn’t just a nightmare. Because I lived through every moment of that pain five years ago, and I live through it again and again when it haunts me in my dreams, buried memories twisting with the haunting images of my nightmares until I can no longer tell them apart.

It’s enough to leave me gasping for breath, losing control as Jude steps closer.

“Declan, look at me,” he says, his face inches from mine but a world away.

I stare up at him, into the torrent of his gaze. Rainclouds form in his eyes, brewing with intensity, and the chaos in them forces the chaos inside of me to falter.

It starts as a small pause, just a tiny blip of hesitation, before it truly begins to recede. It’s the slowest descent, but I can feel it happening, gently dragging me back down into reality. Back into my bedroom, with Jude standing so close I can feel his breaths.

I take a breath of my own, intentionally matching the rise and fall of his chest, feeding my lungs fully for the first time in too many minutes.

“That’s it,” he says. “Again.”

I nod, following his quiet order. I breathe, and I breathe, and I breathe, until time has ticked by and my heart is no longer racing.

“That’s better,” he says without a trace of judgment. “You want me to get Addy now?”

I shake my head and swallow past the ache in my throat.

“No,” I say, and the word sounds so loud in the quiet of my room, my voice scratched and raw .

How loud was I screaming? I should be embarrassed about waking him, about the fact that I was loud enough to pull him from his room and into mine, but there’s no space in my mind for embarrassment at the moment, so I let it go.

“She’s out with Boss tonight,” I remember, telling him quietly.

He frowns in response, and I wish I could read the thoughts working through his mind right now.

Leaning over, he picks my phone up from the nightstand and glances at the time.

I watch his features shift and relax the moment he makes whatever decision it is he’s made, the muscle in his jaw ticking once, and twice, before he releases a resigned breath and the tension in his body flees along with it.

“I have to be up soon anyway,” he finally says. “I’m going to stay with you, alright?”

His offer takes me by surprise, words catching in my throat before I finally manage to say, “No, you don’t have to do that. It’s fine. I—”

“I’m not leaving you alone, Declan.” He lifts me in his arms and places me at the center of the bed where my blankets and sheets are a tangled mess.

Without another word, he straightens them out and tucks me into them, shifting a pillow beneath my head and hesitating a short moment before moving to sit beside me.

The mattress dips with his weight, and I don’t know what to think, but I know I don’t want him to leave.

Still, I find myself saying, “Seriously, you don’t have to—”

“Shh,” he interrupts with a tut of his head. “I’m not fucking leaving. Get over it.”

And despite the weight of everything, despite the fog of blackness still lingering over my thoughts, the hint of a smile tugs at the corners of my lips.

It should be a shock, going from a crying mess to almost smiling in a matter of minutes, but somehow, it doesn’t surprise me.

Jude has a way of quieting the world around me, and it shouldn’t make sense, because when I look into his eyes, they’re full of a chaos I can’t explain, but his presence is calming.

I want to slip further into the feeling.

He sidles closer, a hand sinking into my hair in a soothing gesture. “Sleep, Little D,” he says, his voice gruff but his touch gentle.

And my eyes drift closed of their own volition.

I tell myself it’s more because of his steely, demanding tone and less because of the way it feels to be tucked inside his body. But I already know that’s a lie, as I’m lulled into a deep sleep, Jude’s arms forming a solid barrier between me and my nightmares.

______

When I wake again, Jude is gone.

I didn’t expect him to still be here, but I’m kind of glad he isn’t. I could use the time to pull myself back together in the light of day before having to explain myself—even if explaining myself is the last thing I want to do.

I kick the thick comforter from my body, and the sheet along with it, a thin sheen of sweat coating my skin.

The Masons are firm believers in using air conditioning, especially in the dead of summer, but right now, it feels as if it hasn’t been on in hours.

Warmth permeates all the layers of my body, and I reach over to the nightstand for my glass of water.

I swallow it down, wincing at the dusty, day-old aftertaste.

A shower. I need a shower, and then I need to find Addy.

I come to a stand, stretching out the kink in my neck before collecting my things and making my way into the bathroom. Locking the door behind me, I undress and step into the shower. Cold spray rains down on my face, slowly cooling me from the outside in.

As sweat washes away from my body, I find a momentary sense of peace in the coolness penetrating my skin. It’s enough to lift away some of the weight from last night.