Breakout Play Read online

  I chuckled.

  Roger pulled two mugs down from the cupboard beside the stove and held one up. “Coffee?”

  “Yes please.”

  We skirted around each other in the kitchen as he prepared coffee and I made eggs and toast. I offered to cook for him, but he declined the eggs and opted for a piece of white toast and peanut butter. “Don’t tell Liz I’m eating this. She gives me grief all the time over the white carbs.”

  “Your secret is safe with me,” I promised as I fluffed up my scrambling eggs with a spatula.

  Roger poured our coffee when it was ready and moved to stand on the opposite side of the kitchen island to sip it while I finished cooking. He watched me for a moment. “You have practice this morning, then?”

  “Yeah. Nine o’clock. Have to be there at eight though.”

  “It’ll be easier to manage once you live closer to the arena.”

  I nodded. “Definitely. Still. There’s something bittersweet about leaving this place. I know I can’t stay forever. But I have to admit, it’s been really nice being back here. Thank you again for letting me stay.”

  Roger chuckled. “Beats the hell out of me why you’d subject yourself to staying in this house. It’s a decent place, don’t get me wrong, and Liz has made it quite homey with her good taste. But I figured you’d rather be in one of those glamorous penthouses with equally glamorous women on your arm.”

  “Roger,” I scolded. “Don’t go putting any ideas in my head.”

  “Ideas that aren’t already there?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve been away a long time. I’ve done all that. It’s nice to come back to basics.”

  And to Kim.

  I didn’t say that last part out loud. Our evening together last night had been really nice. I’d enjoyed her company and her laugh, and when we got back to the house and parted to go into our own rooms I ended up lying in bed staring at my ceiling thinking about her and wishing I’d had the balls to kiss her.

  But that urge was insane.

  We were friends. We could only be friends. There was no room for something to start between us. We lived completely different lives and Keith… well. He’d have my head if he knew I legitimately was crushing on his baby sister. And I couldn’t blame him. He had every reason to want to protect her from someone like me.

  Nothing I could say to him would convince him that I would never hurt Kim. Ever.

  Roger pushed up from the island as I put my eggs on my plate. “Well,” he said, “for the record, it’s been a pleasure having you again. Like old times. Liz has loved every second of it, too. She feels like one of her babies has come back to the nest. It was hard on her when Kim moved out.”

  “She must be happy to have her back.”

  Roger nodded. “Yes and no. She knows Kim isn’t happy. But Liz is secretly happy to have her daughter around. So am I.”

  “She’s an impressive woman.”

  “She is. That’s why I married her.”

  I hid my smile. “I meant Kim. But Liz, too. Without a doubt. That’s probably where Kim gets her guts from.”

  “Oh. Undoubtedly.” Roger flashed me a smile. “You’re one of the good ones, Will. I’ll meet you in the living room. My chair is calling my name.”

  “Sounds good. Hey, Roger?”

  He paused in the doorway and turned back to me as he ran his thumb along the top of the handle of his coffee mug. “Hm?”

  “I don’t know what would have happened to me if not for you and Liz.”

  Roger studied me. His expression softened. “You’d have been just fine, son. You’ve always had a good head on your shoulders. And you made Keith’s school experience a hell of a lot better than it could have been. The bullying was bad for awhile.” He got a far-off look in his eyes like he was reliving the torment Keith went through in school before we became friends. Then he cleared his throat and smiled at me. “We’ll always be here for you, William. Always.”

  Roger left me in the kitchen to sit in his favorite chair by the living room window. I heard him flipping through the newspaper as I buttered a piece of toast and drowned my eggs in avocado. Once my plate was ready I pulled the cooled pan off the stove and ran it under hot water to chase away the burnt-on eggs. I plucked the dish scrubby from the ledge of the sink and scrubbed the pan with soap so Roger wouldn’t beat me to it and clean up after me. He had a bad habit of doing that.

  I turned off the tap and shook the pan off.

  Then the world blew apart with an explosion of sound. The house shook all around me. I dropped the pan; it clattered at my feet and I gripped the counter as confusion broke over me. At first I was convinced it was an earthquake. My heart hammered wildly in my chest as I waited for the ground to heave beneath me, but everything was still.

  “Roger?” I called.

  No answer.

  I abandoned the kitchen and raced into the living room. And suddenly everything made horrible, horrible sense.

  Right smack in the middle of the living room was a black sedan. The headlights were on. They lit up the far wall with glaring light, shining upon Kim and Keith’s graduation photos on the mantle. The airbag had gone off in the driver’s seat and I couldn’t see who was behind the wheel. Steam rose from beneath the hood and the windshield wipers swept haphazardly across a broken windshield.

  “What the fuck?” I breathed.

  My brain was piecing together the information I was seeing. There was a car in the living room. They’d crashed right through the house. The person inside was likely unconscious. It smelled like oil and exhaust and something else. Something coppery.

  Blood.

  I searched frantically for Roger.

  His chair was nowhere to be seen. Had it been blown out of the way by the car? Was it under the car?

  Was Roger under the car?

  It felt like I couldn’t get any air into my lungs as I pushed through the rubble and debris surrounding the front of the SUV. Upstairs I heard Kim calling out and asking if everyone was okay. Liz’s worried voice called back.

  I couldn’t think about them right now. I had to find Roger.

  I dropped to my knees in front of the vehicle. I pressed my hands flat to the floor and leaned down, my cheek going flush to my knuckles, and there, beneath the car, I saw Roger.

  “Roger!” I yelled his name. He didn’t answer. Didn’t move. The person behind the wheel of the car groaned. I pushed my shoulder under the car and wedged myself under until I could reach the shoulder of Roger’s robe. I curled my fingers in the flannel, tightened my grip, and pulled. My shoulder protested. Debris wedged up under Roger and made him even heavier, but damn it all, I had to get him out.

  Once I had him a few feet forward I straightened up and braced myself with a foot against the bumper. Then I hauled as hard as I could until I pulled Roger free.

  He slid across the debris; drywall and wood studs and insulation and glass. I leaned over him and pressed a finger to his throat to check his pulse as I tore the sash of his robe open. He was wearing blue sweatpants and a black T-shirt underneath, and the shirt was soaking through with blood on his right side.

  A pulse fluttered beneath my finger. It was weak. Incredibly weak.

  I heard a car door open. It creaked on its hinges as I rolled up Roger’s shirt and found the injury causing the bleeding. He had a splintered piece of wood sticking out of his abdomen on the right side. Blood poured out of him in clumps and soaked my hands as I tried to apply pressure without shifting the wood.

  The internal injuries could be bad. Really bad.

  The driver stumbled around the hood of the car. It was a young woman. She had a bloody nose and was dressed in business clothes. Her hands shook as she lifted them to cover her mouth. “Oh my God. What have I done?”

  Now was not the time to scream at her or pass blame. Now was the time for action. So I asked her if she had a phone.

  She nodded. “Y-yes. In the car.”

  “Call nine one one. We’re on Docks
on Street. Check the house number on the panel near the garage.”

  She didn’t need to be told twice. She hurried to fetch her phone.

  I lost track of what she was doing after that. Roger’s pulse went still beneath my touch.

  “No,” I breathed. “No!”

  I abandoned the task of trying to stop the breathing and shifted priorities to CPR. My hands were shaking and coated in blood as I pressed them to his chest. I afforded myself one steadying breath before I began.

  His ribs cracked beneath my palms.

  Somebody screamed.

  Kim.

  I glanced up as I worked on her father. She was picking her way through the rubble to get to us while Liz stood at the bottom of the stairs looking shell shocked. Her complexion was pale and she reached back to grab the banister to steady herself.

  Kim fell to her knees beside her father. “Daddy! Daddy!”

  “Kim.” I spoke her name firmly. Her tear-filled eyes swept up to meet me. “Your dad will be okay, but he needs our help. I need you to stay calm. I need you to take care of your mother and make sure the police are on the way. Can you do that right now?”

  Her eyes flicked back and forth between mine. Tears streamed down her cheeks and dripped onto her shirt. Then she nodded. “Yes.”

  “Good,” I said. And that was all I could afford. My attention was consumed by Roger, who still wasn’t breathing beneath me. I didn’t know if I’d just lied to his daughter or not. He very well might not be okay.

  As of this moment, he was very not okay.

  As of this moment he was dead.

  Kim rose on shaky legs. “Please save him,” she pleaded. And then she went to her mother, who had crumpled to the ground and was weeping into her hands.

  15

  Kimberly

  I’d never noticed how many lines cut through my palms until I was staring at my hands in the back of my mother’s car behind the ambulance my father was in. His blood had settled into the cracks and for some reason all I could think about was the way red lipstick bled if you didn’t use lip liner.

  What the fuck is wrong with me?

  The car lurched forward as William pulled around a slow driver to keep up with the ambulance. We’d left the house not even five minutes ago and were en route to the hospital, where they were already prepping to move my father into emergency surgery.

  He’d been breathing when the paramedics arrived. As I watched, paralyzed with my mother’s vise-like grip around me, I saw a paramedic pull William away from the car and look him over, thinking he’d been hurt too because there was so much blood on him.

  William had practically screamed at the medic that he was fine and that my father needed all the help he could get.

  I couldn’t get that sound of my head. The way he’d screamed. Like someone was torturing him.

  The sound matched the panic and the fear in my own heart.

  And now everything felt so surreal. The panic at the house was over. Professionals were working on my father. He was hooked up to a mask and they were breathing for him and we were riding along in the back of the blue hatchback as if we were making a routine early morning coffee run.

  Aside from all the blood, of course.

  I took a few shaky breaths and leaned forward to put a hand on my mother’s shoulder. She was sitting in the passenger seat while William drove, and she was wringing her hands as she watched the back of the ambulance.

  I didn’t say anything and neither did she, but she put her hand over mine and squeezed.

  I stared into the rear view mirror. William didn’t look up at me. He was too focused on the road and following the ambulance. And I was glad for that. But I couldn’t help but stare at the creases in his forehead and the flecks of blood on his skin; at the pain in his eyes and the darkness in his stare.

  I put a hand on his shoulder, too.

  Nobody spoke a word for the entire eleven-minute drive to the hospital. The ambulance pulled up to the emergency doors and my mother raced out of the car to the stretcher that held my father. William got out and took my hand, and we followed.

  “Is he breathing?” my mother asked a paramedic.

  “Yes ma’am. Please. I know this is hard right now. We need to get him into surgery. A doctor will be out to talk to you shortly.” The medic, a short man with short, curly hair, steered the stretcher away and wheeled my father through a set of doors. We couldn’t follow.

  My mother swallowed hard and fresh tears swelled in her eyes. “He didn’t even look like himself. Did you see him? He was so white. And yellow. William. Why is he yellow?” She turned to William.

  He opened his mouth. No words came out. Then he shook his head.

  I bit my bottom lip. “Mom. I’m going to find out what operating room he’s in so we can wait outside for him. Sit here.” I led her to a chair in the emergency waiting room. There were over a dozen eyes on us as she sank into the mint-colored plastic chair and wept into her hands. “William? Will you wait with her while I find out?”

  William nodded and sat down beside my mother.

  I moved to the check-in desk at emergency and spoke with one of the nurses there. How I kept my cool I had no idea. She flipped through papers and looked at the computer and told me my father would be in surgery on the third floor in the north tower. She pointed me in the direction to go and told me I had time. Surgery would be awhile.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  I returned to my mother and William, both of whom looked up expectantly.

  “Third floor. North tower ER,” I said.

  William got to his feet. I watched him walk to the vending machine in the hallway, where he purchased two bottles of water and two energy bars. He brought them back to me and my mother and pushed them into our hands. “I’m going to go park the car. You two go ahead and find some place to wait closer to where your dad is. I’ll come find you.” He nodded down at the power bars and water. “Eat. Drink. It will make you feel better. And Roger will need you both alert and by his side when he wakes up.”

  I nodded. “Thank you. When did Keith say he’d be here?”

  “He’s coming,” William said. William had called Keith as soon as the paramedics took over and started working on my dad. I hadn’t heard the conversation he had with my brother, but it had been a short one, and Keith said he would meet us at the hospital. William tapped the water bottle in my hand. “Drink.”

  I watched William’s back as he turned and left. He disappeared out the doors and I reached down to help my mother stand with my hand around her upper arm. She was unsteady and I knew right away how wise William had been to get us food. “Come on, Mom. Let’s get closer to Dad.”

  I did my best to stay calm for my mother as we made our way through the hospital. The halls were quiet at this early hour and there wasn’t anything to distract us from our thoughts. My mind was racing as I considered what this might mean and what might happen.

  What if my dad didn’t make it out of surgery?

  What if the last time I saw him was yesterday morning before I went to work?

  What if I never got a chance to tell him how much he meant to me one more time?

  What if I had to call Keith and tell him Dad was dead?

  I shook my head to clear those thoughts. They weren’t serving me right now. What would serve me was water and food, so when my mother and I found new seats near the emergency room on the third floor, I unwrapped the power bar and took a bite.

  It was hard to swallow. My stomach swirled and my throat tightened, threatening to push the food back up. But I washed it down with water and by the time I was halfway through the bar my nausea had passed.

  “Mom. You should eat. William is right.”

  “I can’t eat.”

  I took the bar from my mother’s hands and unwrapped it. Then I gave it back to her. “Please, Mom?”

  She stared at the bar. Then she lifted her teary gaze to me. Finally, she took a bite, followed by another, and she
kept going until she’d eaten half of it. Then she set it aside. I was okay with that. It was better than nothing. I made sure she drank water as the minutes passed and I willed my brother to show up. I needed him. Mom needed him.

  We didn’t have to wait long. Keith arrived about five minutes after my mom and I sat down. He came hurtling around the corner and jogged over when he spotted us. My mother was on her feet and throwing her arms around his shoulders before I had a chance to stand up. He hugged me next and it felt good to have his big arms wrapped around me.

  “Kim. Are you all right?” He breathed into my ear. When he stood back, he held me at arm’s length and looked me over. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve been there. You shouldn’t have seen that. Is he in surgery? Is he going to be okay?”

  My chin trembled and I fought to stay in control of my emotions. Keith deserved answers, not tears. “He’s in surgery now. He has internal bleeding. He… he stopped breathing at the house. William gave him CPR until the paramedics arrived and took over for him.”

  Keith pressed a hand to his forehead. “Jesus.” Then he looked around. “Where is he? Where’s Will?”

  “Parking the car,” I said. “He should be here any minute.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Of course he’s not,” Keith breathed. He raked his fingers through his already wild dark hair. He looked like he’d just rolled out of bed—which of course he had. He was wearing jeans and a loose T-shirt with stains on it. Probably coffee or beer. His sweater was crooked on his shoulders and his socks didn’t match and his sneakers weren’t laced. “I wouldn’t be okay. Can’t expect Will to be. Fuck. I have to find him.”

  “He’ll come back,” I said. “Just give him a minute.”

  I pulled Keith toward the seats against the wall where my mother and I had been sitting. He sank into one and waited, one knee bouncing, his head sweeping from side to side as he watched for his best friend.

  When William stepped around the corner down the hall, Keith popped up to his feet.

  They met in the middle of the hall. Since it was so early and nobody else was around I could hear every word my brother said when Keith pulled William in for a hug. They didn’t part.