a couple of voicemails as well, but Noah never answered and never called back.
By ten o’clock, Alex wasn’t sure if he should call the police or start packing his stuff. The absolute worst part was that he had no way of knowing where Noah was, and he had no one to call. He didn’t know any of Noah’s friends, except for Hannah, and he didn’t have Hannah’s phone number. Alex cursed. He hated technology more than anything else at that moment. Once upon a time, people had had notebooks where they’d mark down phone numbers, but who did that shit anymore? Nobody, that was who.
Alex had always prided himself in keeping a cool head, but as the night wore on, he found it increasingly difficult not to panic. It took him entirely too long to remember about Sean. He might not have Hannah’s contact info, but he sure as fuck could track down Sean. After all, how many homicide detectives named Sean could there be in Seattle? Calmer and more determined now that he had at least some kind of a plan, Alex figured it was time to find out.
It took another hour or so to track down Sean. Unsurprisingly, SPD wasn’t too keen to give out personal contact info of their detectives, but once he’d found out which station Sean worked at and showed up there in person, one of the detectives took pity on him and promised to call Sean.
Alex sat on a plastic chair, leaning his head against the wall, waiting. It took forever for Sean to show up and another forever for them to drive to Hannah’s place and wake her up enough for her to understand what Alex was saying.
By the time Hannah got ahold of Noah’s mother, it was already nearing dawn. Alex never found out what Hannah said to persuade Helen, but after a lengthy argument, part of which was spent on Hannah’s balcony while Hannah gesticulated wildly while talking to Helen, at seven o’clock, the three of them walked through the doors of Virginia Mason Seattle Medical Center.
Helen met them in the waiting area. She barely looked at Alex as she watched them approach. She could have been a statue if it hadn’t been for the redness and swelling around her eyes. And the fact that her hair was a complete mess and her clothes were wrinkled to all hell. Her hand was trembling as she adjusted a lock of hair, pushing it behind her ear.
“What happened?” Alex asked, voice breaking, itching to run down the hall and start tearing open doors just to get to Noah. He crossed his arms over his chest and stuffed his hands under his armpits to stop himself from fidgeting.
“There was an accident,” Helen said in a shaky voice, barely above a whisper. She added no extra details, just kept staring at a point on the wall somewhere above Alex’s shoulder. “He has a clavicle fracture, a concussion, and he’s bruised pretty badly.”
“But… he’ll be all right?” Alex took an involuntary step forward, earning himself a startled look from Helen.
“All signs so far point to the fact that he’ll most likely make a full recovery,” she said, her voice breaking at the end.
Alex almost slumped to his knees from intense relief.
“An accident,” Hannah interrupted. “What happened?”
Helen swallowed visibly time and time again as if it was hard to push the words out, and when she started speaking, she sounded like one of those computers that hadn’t learned all the aspects of human speech—like the importance of intonation and pitch—yet.
“We left the restaurant. Noah was upset with me. I’d said some things he hadn’t wanted to hear.” Helen didn’t look at Alex when she said it, but Alex knew perfectly well what, or rather whom, their argument had been about.
“We were walking across the street, arguing, not paying any attention to our surroundings. People started yelling. A motorcycle. It was coming out of nowhere. It was… it was just there, all of a sudden. Noah pushed me out of the way, but the motorcycle came right at him. It just hit him. He flew into the air and…” Helen stopped speaking. She just stood there, clenching her teeth in an apparent bid not to break down. She lost that battle in a moment as she whirled around and wrapped her arms around herself, clutching her forearms so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Her shoulders started shaking, and Hannah hurried forward, wrapping her arm around her. Helen