don’t understand why this question is so damn important to me. But why isn’t she answering it?
“I’m sorry, Nicole. He was with me before. He’s hurt bad. You need to get here.”
Zack was with Rachel? That can’t be true. He promised me he wouldn’t see her. A mix of pure terror and doubt instantly flood me. She warned me he’d come back to her. He had promised to stay away, and he didn’t. And he was in an accident.
Not Zack, too. It’s all I can think. Please, not Zack, too.
I take a deep breath.
“I see.” What did I see? That he was with her? I could see that he was okay? My own sentence made no sense to me as it left my mouth. “Where is he?”
“Olympia Medical Center in L.A.,” she responds solemnly. “I’m sorry.”
I hang up the phone before I faint. I need Mia.
My fingers shake so badly I can barely hold the phone as I call her number. Fortunately she answers immediately. I am gasping for breath and barely hanging on when her perky voice comes on the line.
“Mia….” It’s all I can get out. My voice is raspy and barely audible even to my own ears. Before I can even ask for help I hear the sound of her keys jiggling.
“I’m on my way, now. I’ll be there in ten minutes. What’s going on?”
“Zack. Rachel called. Something about a car accident. I have to get L.A.” I’m surprised she can even understand me through the ragged breathing.
A curse flies threw her lips. “How bad?”
“I don’t know. She just said he was at the hospital and in bad shape. He was with Rachel, Mia.” She understands my fear. My pain. I love her for it.
“We’ll get it figured out. There has to be an explanation and it can’t be what you’re imagining right now.”
“You have no idea what I’m imagining.” If I could think hard enough to feel bad for snapping at my best friend, I would have, but I just can’t.
She takes a deep breath. Her voice is instantly calming and helps my own breathing slow down some. “Yeah, I do, Nic. He wouldn’t do anything with her. It’s Zack, the man who loves you, it will be okay. Pack a bag. I’ll come get you and we can get on a flight. I’ll call right now and see what we can do.”
“Call Chase.”
“I will. Hang in there, I’ll be to your place soon.”
Not even ten minutes later, Mia busts through the door to my condo and throws her arms around me. I drop the bag I somehow managed to pack, thankful I left most of my clothes out in L.A.
I fall to my knees once in her embrace and sob. I cry for fear of Zack, for my own personal hell being thrown back in my face all over again, and I cry out of terror that I had already lost Zack, to Rachel of all people. He was with her. I can’t stop the thought from flying across my mind like a ticker on the bottom of the television during a natural disaster. Mia says nothing. She just holds me and lets me sob until I am able to think and breathe again. I wipe my tears minutes or hours later and slowly pull back, still sitting on the floor.
“Did you talk to Chase?” I ask quietly.
She nods and gives the slightest possible smile. “He’s in bad shape, but they think he’ll make it okay. He has a broken leg, some broken ribs, and some head trauma. They’ve put him in a medical induced coma until the swelling goes down and they’ll slowly bring him out of it.”
I stop hearing anything she said after the word ‘coma.’ I don’t even think I nod in response or look at her, or do anything, really.
“Did he know about Rachel?”
Mia’s sigh doesn’t help. “He had no clue, except that she was with him at the hospital. She left when Chase and Jake got there. Garrett and Chloe are on their way, too. There has to be an explanation, and we’ll figure it out, but we have to get going.”
I shrug my shoulders but still can’t look at her. I want to believe it too, but still, he lied. And why would he lie if he didn’t have anything to hide? We just talked a few hours earlier and he never said anything about seeing her. Was this the first time? Was it all an act when we