Page 122 of Chasing the Sun

“Broken. But trying.” I exhaled toward the ceiling. “He blames himself.”

He nodded once, looking down at his hands.

“What about you?” I asked. “How are you holding up?”

His eyes lifted to mine, and something inside me twisted.

“I keep thinking about the last time I saw Wes,” he said, voice hoarse. “We were at the inn. He was teasing Levi. Calm, quiet. Typical Wes.”

He paused, then rubbed his hands over his face. “I know people say this shit happens in an instant, but it doesn’t hit until it’s someone you know. Someone solid. Someone who’s been through hell already.”

I reached for his hand and held it.

Cal stared at our joined hands, then back at me.

“I can’t lose him,” he said, the words barely audible.

“You won’t.” I swallowed hard. “He’s still fighting.”

He nodded but didn’t speak again. Just pulled me into his arms and held me like the world was slipping sideways.

And I let him. I held on with everything I had.

When we returned to the waiting room, the nurse was there. “Family of Wesley Vaughn?”

Every head lifted.

“He’s out of surgery. Stable. We’ll know more when he wakes, but the amputation went as planned.”

The room fell silent.

Amputation.

Kit choked back a sob. Brody stepped forward to steady her. My parents clung to each other. Austin sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands.

Cal just stood there, still as stone.

I felt the bottom drop out of the world.

The doctor’s words barely registered. Wes’s amputation was above the knee. It would change everything for Wes, but he was alive.

And that was something.

The next forty-eight hours blurred.

Kit organized meal drop-offs, Selene collected clean blankets and comfort items, and I found myself flitting between hospital rooms and hardware stores, trying to keep busy. Cal wouldn’t leave Wes. Helen and I assured him that we could look after Levi while he sat by his best friend’s bedside.

I took Levi to the arcade, then dropped him off with friends. I helped clean Hayes’s kitchen, even though no one had asked.

I didn’t sleep.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Wes’s leg, saw Hayes’s guilt, saw the look on Cal’s face when he’d carried me back to the cottage just days ago. Everything felt broken. Like someone had knocked over the world’s most delicate mosaic and we were all scrambling to find the right pieces to glue it back together.

And then, on a warm, sunny morning that felt impossibly normal, I sat on my front porch, legs curled beneath me, journal in my lap and a mug of stale coffee clutched in both hands. The air smelled like fresh soil and blooming lilacs. It should have been comforting.

Instead, it felt like a lull before a storm.

I tried to write, but the words wouldn’t come. My mind spun with rejection letters, invoices, what-ifs, and a thousand unanswered prayers. The Post-it Notes in my living room had started to feel like a mockery, like all my dreams had been written in invisible ink.