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Chapter 13

Unawaken

Boone

“ W hat is wrong with you people?” I ask the Bellemonts, who are standing around Lindsey’s bed after a failed attempt to remove her ventilator successfully.

“We have talked to several medical professionals, and they tell us that keeping her alive with the breathing machine is cruel and inhumane. She could be suffering severely, and you’re allowing it!” Madeline cries, and I swear to fuck, it’s so fake it should be watermarked.

I look at the doctor. “Can you please repeat what you said so that these people might get it through their thick skulls the third time.”

“Yes, of course, Mr. Boone. Lindsey is having a hard time breathing on her own due to damage to her throat caused by the accident. She is not brain-dead. There are several studies that show patients who have healed completely after an injury like this. She may have to be on a ventilator for another week or even longer. There’s also a possibility the injuries to her brain may heal enough for her to wake up before she’s ready to breathe on her own, and we might need to keep her slightly sedated so she doesn’t fight that. She’s showing progress; today was more a test than a setback.”

“Can you assure us that she’s not in pain?” Lindsey’s father asks.

“I can assure you she’s getting pain medication, that her vitals do not appear to show signs of struggle like they did when we removed the vent, so I can assume she is, in fact, right there on the verge of coming back.”

“Can you assure us that if we leave to head back to Georgia to take care of some business, you will call us if there is a change?” her brother, Junior, asks.

Dr. Davis looks at me. “As her healthcare proxy, what do you say?”

“Well, then I say that these people don’t get to pull the plug on a woman who has been in a coma for two days after a major accident, a woman who’s lucky enough to be alive, and who is no doubt fighting to get back to her daughter and the people who love her. I want a big fucking warning sign, stickers of their faces on her charts with a big X across them saying they don’t get to make choices for her. I want to make sure every person on the staff on this floor—hell, the whole hospital, or a nationwide medical database if there’s such a thing—know they can’t have anything to do with Lindsey’s care. These people do not make decisions for my daughter’s mother, for one of my best friends, for my family. Them returning to Georgia to take care of business, that can’t happen fast enough. You have my number, if you have a question, feel free to ask; if something major comes up, I will shoot you a text.” If I feel like it.

“We will be taking her home with us, sooner or later, and we will also be taking Lily.”

“Over my dead body,” I whisper under my breath.

I stand when Max and Mila Steel walk into the ICU waiting room, and we all hug, and we cry for the girl fighting for her life, one we all love.

When we finally break apart, I tell them everything that went on today, this time in person and not over text message, which is how I’ve kept them and my mom updated for the past … three days? That’s all this has been—three days?

Wiping under my eyes with the hem of my shirt, I sit down.

“What can we do to help?” Max asks, sitting beside me.

“You two being here is more than enough.” I yawn.

“You need sleep,” Mila tells me.

“They brought me in a reclining chair last night after Lily finally woke up, and she and Syd called so she could do prayers with her mom. I slept okay.”

“What is something you really want right now?” Mila asks.

“To hug my daughter.”

“Then go hug your daughter. Mila and I are here; we can take turns making sure she won’t wake up alone.”

“Added a couple of other people to the list. Liam and Phoebe Ross both want to visit.”

“Heard my name,” Liam says, stepping into the waiting room and handing me a coffee.

“Appreciate it, Liam.” I yawn again and set it down on the table.

He lifts his chin. “I can fill in whenever, I’m single with no children, so the night shift isn’t inconvenient.”

“He is, however, busy most Sundays. Max and Mila, this is Dr. Liam Ross, a veterinarian and a member of the legacy group. You never know who owns the field in the facilities or the actual team. Liam, this is Max and Mila Steel. Lindsey and Mila were roommates at New Jersey University, and Max and I were also roommates. Mila and Max have a little girl, Saylor, and a son, Jonathon, who is the same age as Lily.”

Mila shakes his hand, “so you’re Riley’s …?”

“Cousin.” He smiles as he shakes her hand. “I believe she’s working at the Brewery today, and Hudson will more than likely be there after practice. You two should stop in while you’re in the area.”

Witnessing what I did today was emotionally draining. Time seemed to slow down, and every sound in the room—the soft hum of machines, the measured beeps of the monitor—suddenly became almost overwhelming. Watching Lindsey’s medical team remove what was a lifeline, keeping her suspended between vulnerability and survival, the silence screamed uncertainty. It was dread and hope in the same strangled breath. Hearing her like that … I will never forget it, and watching them work to reinsert the tubing made me physically ill.

I hit the key fob as I head to my vehicle. Then I see someone step around it. Mitchell Bellemont.

“A little cold for a Georgian to be just hanging outside waiting for me, isn’t it?” I ask as I approach suspiciously.

“The things we must do for the people we love,” he says with that air of conceit I despise. He pulls an envelope from his inside jacket pocket and hands it to me. “There are two other times Lindsey has been hospitalized before this one. The first in her sophomore year of high school when she threatened to take her own life when my father suspected she had an eating disorder and confronted her. The second was about a year ago. Because I did not live at the family home then, I am unsure what was going on, but I was told she made the same threat.”

I try to remain calm when asking, “How long was she in the hospital?”

“Last time, thirty days.”

“So your parents?—”

“Had legal temporary physical custody of Lily, and they are going back to Georgia to make sure they legally still do before they return and take Lily back with them.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Madeline Bellemont is an accomplished and respected woman; she’s been a great mother to my brother and me, but with Lindsey, it always seemed like she was competing against her. I do not want my niece to have the same type of life.” He clears his throat. “And I do love them both.”

“But you won’t fight for her?”

“You did not once hear me mention unplugging a machine helping her stay alive.”

“If we go to court?—”

“If this goes to court, you aren’t going to want me at odds with them; you’ll want me there for Lily.”

“She’s not going back there.”

“Then you do what needs to be done to make it so a judge agrees with you.”

When Sydney, who’s obviously a bit shocked I’m here, opens the door, a million pounds of pressure lifts from my shoulders.

“Hey.” She places her hand on the side of my face, and I lean into that touch like it’s a lifeline and close my eyes. “How did it go?”

“Not like we wanted, but there’s still hope. They had to re-intubate her, and that …” I shake my head. “My stomach isn’t as strong as I thought.”

Her bottom lip pops out. “I’m so sorry.” She steps back. “You sure you wanna chance getting sick?”

“I need my girls more now than ever.” I lean down and catch her eyes. “I need you in a fucked-up rom-commy-reality-show kind of way. You with me?”

She wraps her arms around herself. “Oh boy.” Then she exhales her sweet breath against my face, and I hold steady even though I’d throw just about anything away just to kiss those lips again, but this is too important. “Okay, yeah, sure, I’m with you.”

I grab her up in a hug and twirl her around, and she squeals damn near silently.

“You won’t regret it.” I set her on her feet then look around. “I’ve never seen someones home scream their name as loudly as this place screams Sydney Sparks. It’s perfect.” I look back at her standing there, face red, eyes wide, and a smile creeping up on her lips. “You’re fucking perfect.” I adjust my semi. “We’ll ignore that for now.”

Her eyes grow comically large as they stay glued to mine.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone more committed to not checking out my … situation than you, Cupcake.” I chuckle. “Now, would you show me to the little flower?”

She shakes her head like she’s erasing a thought then moves around her island, and now I see the flowers I sent in vases.

“They’re beautiful. Lily loved them.”

“How about Sydney?” I ask as she rims a margarita glass with an orange.

“I couldn’t agree more,” she says as she pours orange liquid from the mason jar she filled last night. “Would you like orange or lemon?”

“Will mine come with tequila?”

Her lips twitch up. “Is it a tequila-at-noon kind of day?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I admit. “I’ll go with orange.”

With a glass in each hand, I follow Sydney Sparks through her sweet little place and up the stairs where my daughter is sitting on the cloud that is Sydney’s bed, surrounded by sparkles and wearing a crown.

“Look, Daddy, I’s Mommy’s prayer warrior princess.”

“It’s impossible not to fall ass over tea kettle for you, Cupcake,” I say quietly as I set the glasses down and grab up my girl.

“Is Mommy better, Daddy?” Lily asks, hugging me tight.

“She’s doing okay, Lily. We gotta have faith, you with me?”

“I’m always with you, Daddy, even when I gotta go with Mommy.”

“And your mommy knows you’re always with her, too.”

She pulls back and grabs my face. “Your whiskers got bigger.”

I smile. “We’re in playoffs, little flower; they’re gonna keep getting bigger.”

She steps back and plops down on her ass, and rhinestones go flying. “We been so busy making all the things. We made Mommy a crown, too. You gotta take her it.”

I look at Sydney. “She tweaking, or am I imagining shit?”

“This is Lily as her fever starts to rise.”

When she pouts out her lower lip like that, I wanna bite it, but also … “Shouldn’t we give her something?”

“Fevers are the body’s way of fighting a virus, so unless it gets into a high range, we try to let it do its job. And, in Lily’s case, it comes with high energy and adorable entertainment.” She smiles as she turns and looks at me. “Which is way better than the shits or vomiting.”

“Is it happy hours again?” Lily asks, pointing to the glasses.

“It sure is.” Sydney smiles as she grabs one of the cups and hands it to her.

“Syd, your bedding is white. If you want it to stay that way, I should grab one of the sippy cups from the bag I brought by last night. Want me to grab a sippy cup?” I ask.

“Daddy, sippy cups are for babies. Happy hour glasses are for big girls like me.”

“Sippies are for nap and nighttime, too, right?” Syd asks her.

“Oh yeah, Syd has big girl sippiess, Daddy.”

When Lily falls asleep, I tell Sydney everything that went down today, and when tears slide down her face, I wipe them away.

“My fucking heart breaks for her, but?—”

She sniffs. “No butts. You love her.”

“The day I was coming back from the Combine, I’d met both Links men, Tessa and London, Trucker and Mitch, José … I was on cloud nine. Nah, higher than that—cloud ten. And I decided to call; wanted to share in that joy and what that meant for us if that dream came true. She was halfway to Georgia, and I had no idea she was even unhappy. She had giving up on school and giving up on our little family. I thought I was doing it all right. Lindsey and I weren’t fucking around anymore, and I wasn’t fucking around with anyone else. Me, Beau Boone, the biggest player at Jersey U, reformed. I was acing my classes in case football didn’t come through and working my ass off. Hell, I was selling blood so we didn’t have to depend on anyone else, and she left.”

“Beau, I am so sorry.”

I roll to my side, prop my head up on my hand, and look across my sleeping little girl to Sydney. “I told her I loved her, and I’d never told a girl that in my life. She told me I loved Lily’s mom and the idea of us. She told me she wanted Lily to see real love and we would never have it.”

“That had to hurt.”

“Hurt? Cupcake, it tore me up. I never wanted to be anything except not my father, and I thought it was ripped away from me. My heart broke for this little one, knowing what it would be like to have parents who fought and disappeared.”

“And now you think there’s a chance they can take them from you?”

“I can’t let that happen. I have to show the courts I have a solid foundation here, which I clearly do, but Syd, they’d look a hell of a lot more favorably on this if she had not just a stepmom but the one all others will aspire to be like.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You adore my girl and me, admit it.”

“I do.”

“Will you say those two words before a minister of your choice?”

“How about a judge? That way, when you have Lily securely in your custody, and we get divorced, I won’t feel like I’ve broken a vow.”

I reach across Lily, push a perfect wave behind her ear, then immediately sit up.

“What are you doing?” she asks as I turn and grab the thermometer she had on the nightstand of the room that’s vibe is Sydney Sparks.

“Let’s take that temp.”