Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
“Cromwell?” Her surprised, tired voice greeted me. She must have been in bed. It was late.
“It’s Easton,” I said, my voice raw. Mrs. Farraday went silent on the other end. “He’s in the hospital.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “I don’t know if he’s going to be okay. There was so much blood…” I didn’t know what the hell else to say. He’d gone white in the ambulance. He wouldn’t wake up.
“We’re on our way,” Mrs. Farraday said as her voice hushed out, panicked fear lacing her every word. Then my phone went silent.
I wandered back into the waiting room. I didn’t remember anything else until Mrs. Farraday came rushing through the door. She darted to the desk, and then her eyes fell on me. I got to my feet. Right now I was numb. But I knew what would come next. The emotions would come and smother me, making it impossible for me to breathe.
Mrs. Farraday grabbed my arms. Her eyes were huge and rimmed with red. “Cromwell, where is he?”
I swallowed and looked toward the closed doors. “They took him through there.” I followed her gaze as it fell to the blood on my hands.
“He slit his wrists,” I said, my voice coming out whether I wanted it to or not. “I found him in our room. He sliced them open with a knife.”
A choked sound came from behind Mrs. Farraday. When I lifted my head, Mr. Farraday was there…and in a wheelchair in front of him, oxygen mask on her face and IV in her arm, was Bonnie. My heart pounded in my chest, the numbness falling away as I laid eyes on her face. Tears dropped in freefall down her cheeks, and her brown eyes were wide, looking almost too big for her face. Her frail hands shook as they lay in her lap.
“Bonnie.” I stepped closer to her. With every step, more tears fell from Bonnie’s eyes. I stopped and looked down at myself. At the blood. Her twin’s blood. “Bonnie,” I whispered. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.
“Are the parents of Easton Farraday here?” a voice asked from behind us.
The Farradays rushed to the doctor. He led them through the doors I wasn’t able to go through. I watched the door close, keeping me out. And then I heard them. The sounds of doors closing, bringing orange to my mind. The sounds of pencils being scratched on paper. The dings of the speakers. The sniffles of crying friends and family members in the waiting room.
I started pacing, trying to push them from my mind. And the numbness that had begun to fall away when I saw Bonnie shed tears to the floor in strips of scarlet red. I sat down, hands on my head, as the rush of emotions I knew I’d feel came barreling at me like a freight train.
The sight of Easton on the floor, covered in blood, smashed into my head. I could smell his blood, the tinny scent of metal bursting on my tongue. Pain split into shards in my chest, the spiked fragments blistering my skin. Easton’s eyes. The blood pooled on the floor. The black paint. Easton’s eyes. Mrs. Farraday’s voice…then…
“Bonnie,” I whispered, the memory of her face as she looked at me, as she cowered away from me, was a hammer to my ribs.
I fidgeted on the seat, not knowing where to go or what to do. I didn’t know how much time had passed when someone sat beside me. I glanced over, raking my hands through my hair. Mr. Farraday was sitting next to me.
I froze, waiting for what he would say. Then his hand came down on my shoulder. “You saved my son’s life.” Relief like nothing I’d ever felt surged through me. But it only heightened the already elevated emotions. I needed to leave. I needed…needed…I needed music. I needed to get these emotions out of me in the only way I knew how. “You saved him, son,” Mr. Farraday repeated.
I choked on the lump in my throat. I nodded and looked at Mr. Farraday. He looked destroyed. He had two kids. One was dying of heart failure. The other had just tried to take his own life.
I couldn’t take being here. My heart felt like it was trying to rip from behind my ribs. My skin felt itchy. I needed to leave, but…
“Bonnie will be a while yet.” Behind the pain, there was a look of understanding in Mr. Farraday’s eyes.
“I can’t leave her,” I said softly. Because even though I felt like I was coming out of my skin, I wanted to see her. To be sure she didn’t blame me somehow. I wanted to hold her hand. It was always cold now. It only ever warmed when I held it.
“Go and get changed. Freshen up. She’ll see you soon enough.”