A Perfect Ten

  I gave him a watery smile. “I think I have to, because I really need my big brother right now.”

  “You have me,” he promised. When he hugged me again, I held him tight, grateful for him for about the millionth time in the past couple hours. I probably should’ve tried to hold on to my anger longer, but I just couldn’t, because I really did need my big brother.

  At some point, I must’ve exhausted myself because Noel nudged me awake.

  I looked up to find Oren’s parents in the waiting room, looking a little lost as they glanced around as if looking for help. When I pulled out of Noel’s arms and sat up, Brenda finally focused on me.

  “Caroline.” She gasped and hurried forward. “You look awful. What happened? Were you with him?”

  “Yes. I...” When I stood, she grasped my wrists and spread my arms to see me better. I glanced down, and it was the first time I got a real look at myself. My shirt was grass-stained with flecks of blood soaking through from where I’d scraped my stomach along the ground. And now that I was seeing that, I realized my abdomen and elbows were sore. Then there were my palms, my palms that hadn’t been able to keep hold of Oren and stop him from falling. They were scratched and coated with dried mud.

  Tears filled my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I sobbed.

  Brenda cooed out a sound of understanding and enfolded me into a huge, comforting hug. I told her everything, about the picnic, and that we took my little brother to the waterfall to show it to him, how Colton fell in, and then how Oren saved both our lives. When I got to the part where Oren told me he loved me right before he let go of my hand to keep me from falling in with him, Noel cursed fluently and buried his face in one hand.

  Oren’s parents glanced at him. “I don’t believe we’ve met yet,” Phil finally said.

  Noel looked up, and then straightened. He blew out a breath before holding out his hand. “Sorry, sir. I’m Noel Gamble. I’m the one who called you.”

  I blinked, startled. I hadn’t even thought to contact anyone, let alone Oren’s parents. Grateful that my big brother had had the forethought to get a hold of them, I found a smile for him somewhere in my grief, thankful he was here with me, to help me through this.

  Oren’s parents seemed startled by the introduction. “Noel Gamble?” Brenda repeated. “The Noel Gamble who lived with our son for nearly three years and we never met?”

  Phil shrugged. “We saw him play ball when we went to Oren’s games.”

  “But we still never—”

  “He’s my brother,” I spoke up, feeling the need to defend him. “Noel’s my big brother.”

  “Oh.” Brenda shook her head as if confused. “Well, that explains how you met Oren, then.”

  She patted my hands in a motherly fashion, and I smiled uneasily. I don’t know why I felt so uncomfortable. Brenda’s hands trembled as if it was taking everything she had to hold herself together. It seemed like I was deceiving her somehow, maybe because I’d lied to her about Oren seeing a therapist the last time I’d seen her. Or maybe I was so strained because it was all my fault he was here and she forgave me so easily. No wonder Oren had so much trouble being around them after his sister died. He’d felt responsible and they’d pinned no blame on him. It’d probably made him blame himself even more.

  “So, have we heard any updates at all?” Phil asked.

  I shook my head, and the Tennings seemed to wilt with more worry.

  Just then, the nurse who’d had me fill out all Oren’s paperwork popped her head into the room. “Mrs. Tenning?”

  Brenda looked up. “Yes?”

  A moment of awkward confusion crossed the nurse’s face before she pointed at me. “I...was actually talking to this Mrs. Tenning.”

  She darted to me, holding out another clipboard. “Sorry. There was one more form I needed you to fill out.”

  I froze as both of Oren’s parents whirled to gape at me. I sank closer to Noel, who wrapped a supportive arm around my shoulders. “O…okay.” I reached out and snagged the clipboard from her and sat in the nearest chair where I began to write with a trembling hand.

  The Tennings kept staring. Finally, Brenda said, “You’re married?”

  “I, uh…” I cleared my throat and pressed the pen flat against the clipboard. “Yeah. We…uh, we are. Oren and I are...married.”

  The strap of Brenda’s purse slid off her shoulder and the entire thing plopped to the floor, completely unnoticed by her.

  Her eyes narrowed with accusation, right before she repeated, “You’re married?”

  I cringed lower into my seat. “Yes.” Noel sat beside me and took my hand. “W-we got married in Lake Tahoe.”

  “Lake Tahoe?” Brenda looked like she might claw my eyes out, so I pressed harder against my brother.

  Phil hissed a curse under his breath and shook his head. “I guess now we know why he turned down that job.”

  “What?” I shook my head. “No. No, he didn’t get that job. He told me…” My voice trailed off as I realized Oren might’ve lied to me.

  “Oh, he got the job.” Brenda scowled hard. “He said there were reasons why he couldn’t take it right now. He forgot to mention it was because he was married.”

  “I…I…” I looked up at Noel, confused. “He got the job?”

  Sympathy filled his gaze as he squeezed my hand.

  “Why didn’t he tell me he got the job?”

  Noel opened his mouth, but Brenda was the one who answered. “Probably because he didn’t want to distress his precious little eighteen-year-old bride into thinking he’d leave her.”

  The truth pummeled me in the chest. Oren had stayed…for me. I wanted to cry all over again. He hadn’t even told me what he’d given up for me.

  Instead of defending myself, all I could say was, “I’m nineteen now,” in a stupid, hollow voice.

  “Eighteen, nineteen. Do I look like I care?” Brenda snarled. “My son is way too young to be getting married, and now because of it—because of you—he’s fighting for his very life as we speak.”

  I flinched and pressed my hands to my chest as it shuddered. Pain rippled through me. The truth had never hurt so much. “I…I’m sorry,” I croaked, unable to look her in the eye.

  She didn’t forgive me. “He could be safely tucked away in Lake Tahoe right now. But no, he stayed behind for you, and ended up saving you and your family. Now, I may lose my one and only child.”

  She pressed a hand to her heart and tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’ve already lost one baby. I can’t lose the other. No. I just…I can’t.” Grabbing her husband’s arm, she glared at me, her chest heaving. “This is your fault. How could you do this to me?”

  “Hey,” Noel started in my defense, but Phil held up his hand.

  “Leave her be. She’s distraught.” But he seemed to agree with her because as he wrapped his arms around his wife in comfort, he sent me an accusing glare.

  I shuddered, tears filling my eyes.

  “Come on.” Noel took my hand and led me out of the waiting room and into the hall.

  We collapsed onto a nearby bench, where he rocked me in his arms while I sobbed.

  “She was right. It’s my fault. If I hadn’t suggested we go to that stupid waterfall. If I’d kept a better eye on Colton. If I hadn’t stopped Oren from going to Lake Tahoe.”

  “Shh,” Noel commanded softly. “This was not your fault. You did nothing wrong.”

  “I should’ve held on to his hand longer. I should’ve—”

  “No. Look at me. You did nothing wrong. And if Ten were here right now he’d say the same thing. He made the decision to stay in Ellamore with you. He made the decision to come today. And he made the decision to let go of your hand to save you.”

  When I sobbed harder, he stroked my hair and kissed my temple.

  “And I’m sure he would’ve done everything the exact same way again if given a second chance. Because he loved you.”

  It was the way he said loved in past
tense that broke me.

  Dissolving into grief, I wilted against him and wept myself to sleep.

  When I woke, I was lying on something hard, but my legs were slung over the side with my feet on the floor and my cheek was propped against a leg. It didn’t feel like Noel’s leg.

  I sat up, wincing against the pain in my temples. After shoving my hair out of my face, I focused on Asher. Not expecting him at all, I just blinked.

  “Hey, there,” he murmured, sympathy ruling his green gaze. “How’re you feeling?”

  I glanced away and around the hospital’s waiting room to find everyone else had arrived while I was sleeping. Zoey lay tucked into Quinn’s lap fast asleep. Reese and Eva stood from where they’d been sitting with Pick and Mason. When they started toward me, I held up my hands, warding them away. I couldn’t handle anyone else consoling me right now. I only wanted Noel.

  Or Oren.

  But I couldn’t have Oren.

  Pain slashed through me.

  I glanced around again, but Noel wasn’t in the room. Neither were Brenda or Phil.

  I sniffed and wiped at my dry, crusty face. “Where’s Noel? Have they brought out any news about Oren? How long have I been asleep?”

  “Why don’t you lie back down?” Asher’s voice coaxed as he reached for me, but I recoiled from him.

  Oren wouldn’t like me touching Asher.

  “Where’s Noel?” I demanded, feeling a panic attack coming on.

  No Oren. No Noel. I couldn’t handle this.

  Reese clutched her hands to her heart. “He just stepped out to make a phone call home and check in. And no, there’s been no news about Ten. We’ve been here less than an hour. Noel said you’d just fallen asleep when we arrived.”

  I nodded my thanks, ducked my face and hurried from the room to find my brother.

  I heard his voice as I neared an intersection in the hall.

  “No, there’s no news yet. He must…shit. He must be bad off if they haven’t come out to say anything yet. I just called to check in. No, actually, I had to hear your voice. I wish you were here with me.”

  His own voice was choked and raw, and it stopped me in my tracks. He sounded about as heartbroken as I felt. It bruised my already tender feelings. Here, I’d been worried about nothing and no one but myself, and Noel was on the verge of losing his best friend.

  As I clutched my stomach, Noel said, “No, don’t come. You said Colton’s still upset. He needs you. I’ll be okay. Just talking to you helps. Hearing your voice.”

  After pausing to listen to a question, he sighed wearily. “She’s a complete mess. She’s hurting and blames herself, and fuck…I don’t know what to do for her. What if she ends up a nineteen-year-old widow because of this? I just hold her as she cries herself to sleep, and I try not to lose it myself in front of her. But God, Aspen. He was my best friend. What if he dies and the last things I said to him were—”

  He hissed out a breath. “I know, but I still feel like shit. I was such a dick. I treated him awful, and he might die from saving both my brother and my sister’s lives. He truly fucking loved her, and I was too mad and felt too betrayed to even see that. I can’t…I just—”

  When his voice broke, tears spilled down my cheeks. I hurried around the corner. His red wet eyes widened when they saw me.

  “I’m sorry.” I rushed to him and hugged him. His arms immediately went around me. “I’m sorry, I was only thinking about me.”

  He buried his face in my hair. “No. I’m sorry I was so fucking stubborn.”

  We hugged and cried, and he finally ended his call with his wife. Time passed, I have no idea how much. Seconds, hours, minutes. It all seemed to be sucked into some surreal vacuum where none of this was really happening. It was just a crazy, awful dream, and I was going to wake up any time now. I’d open my eyes and be back in Oren’s bed with our legs tangled and his palm cupping my breast. Light would stream in through the windows and he’d crack open his eyes to send me one of his lazy, sexy morning grins.

  “Morning,” he’d say. “I guess you decided to stick around another day, huh?”

  But then Noel pulled away from me, wiping his face, and I was still in a hospital, where I hadn’t seen Oren in six hours, not since he’d looked up from where he was dangling and told me he loved me before letting go of my hand.

  A shudder of horror passed through me, wondering if I’d ever look into those vivacious hazel eyes again.

  Noel sent me a tremulous smile that was full of grief. “I totally didn’t mean to fall apart on you like that.”

  I squeezed his arm. “It’s okay. Just do me a favor and stop talking about him in the past tense. He’s going to be okay. He’s going to make it.”

  Pain passed over Noel’s face, but he washed it away with another sad smile and nodded. “You got it.”

  With that agreement made, we wrapped our arms around each other and started back to the waiting room, where we realized a doctor in surgical scrubs had arrived. Oren’s parents had reappeared, too.

  “Here she is.” Pick motioned to me when I entered the room.

  The doctor turned, took me in from head to toe and then nodded before saying, “Mrs. Tenning, I’m Dr. Wolfowitz, the trauma surgeon who worked on your husband. When Oren came in, he was unconscious and in shock. There was significant damage to the left frontal and parietal bone, which probably occurred when he crashed into the log and boulder he was trapped against until they found him. Though that probably saved him from drowning to death, it’s also what caused the most damage. There was so much trauma to the head and spinal cord...”

  Was? Why did he keep saying was like everything was all past tense? Like Oren was past tense.

  “Other than the brain injury, he has a dislocated shoulder, fractured leg, and significant, permanent scarring to the right side of the face, though we were able to save the damaged eye and ear.”

  I gulped and pressed my hand over my mouth. Permanent scarring meant nothing to me. No, actually it meant everything. It meant he was still alive. Saving an eye and ear, that meant they’d saved the rest of him too, right? His heart was still beating?

  “So he’s alive?” I rasped the words, almost afraid to voice them.

  The doctor hesitated. I have no idea why he hesitated. If Oren’s eye and ear had made it, then the rest of him had to have made it too.

  Finally, the doctor gave a small nod. But then he had to go and chase it with, “We had to put him into a medically induced coma to give the brain time to heal.”

  “Oh my God.” Brenda covered her mouth with her hands and turned to Phil, where he immediately gathered her into his arms.

  I stared at them a moment as the word coma echoed through my ears. But Oren was in a coma. It didn’t even seem possible. The most irritatingly, lively, foulmouthed, loving jerk I’d ever met, and they’d shut down his brain?

  A numb void filled me, as if my own brain decided to take a little break too. I studied everyone else in the waiting room—Oren’s parents clutching each other, Zoey sobbing against Quinn’s shoulder as he softly rubbed her abdomen and kissed her hair, Reese and Eva holding hands and looking pale while their men flanked them on either sides, Asher with his hands shoved deep in his pockets and his head bowed as he kicked at a piece of his other shoe, and Noel...Noel looking as if he might start bawling all over again—and I just watched them, feeling sad for them, while inside I was just too...too scared to feel anything at all.

  But then Noel grabbed me and hauled me into his arms, and that first painful bite of fear sank its teeth into my jugular. I went cold and started to shake.

  “You said medically induced,” Phil repeated as he stroked his wife’s arm and nodded to the doctor.

  When Dr. Wolfowitz confirmed it, Phil asked, “So that means you’ll bring him out of it too? How...how long will he be under?”

  “It depends. We’ll lighten the barbiturates as soon as the swelling begins to recede. If the level of function is good, we’l
l bring him out completely.”

  I shook my head, unable to believe most of this. Oren-not-functioning just wasn’t something I could configure in my thought process. He was always on the go, never stayed still, never really stopped talking. He always had a comeback for everything, always had some kind of reaction. Picturing him lying still and unconscious—reactionless—in a sterile white hospital bed just didn’t fit with the man I’d fallen in love with and married.

  But then I didn’t have to picture it in my head any longer. Two hours later, I got to see it for myself. Visitors were finally allowed into his intensive care unit, two at a time and only for ten-minute spans once an hour, but none of us waiting to see him cared about a few rules. We were willing to do anything—wait any length—for even the smallest amount of time with Oren.

  The nurse looked to me when she came out to allow the first two people in, but I stepped back and motioned toward his parents, letting them go first. I swear, they went over their time allotment, though. Every freaking second felt like a millennium. When they exited, both their faces were wet and they looked ten years older than when they had gone back. Brenda met my gaze briefly, then quickly looked away again.

  I turned to Noel for support. He took my hand and gave me a bolstering nod. “Just one more hour.”

  I nodded back because I couldn’t speak. When our time finally came, my fingers squeezed around my brother’s arm as fear squeezed around my heart. I hated the sight of blood and gore, and seeing Oren damaged because of what he’d done to save me made it all that much more distressing.

  He was in a coma with permanent scarring, a swollen brain, and broken bones because of me.

  But then there he was, and I forgot about all that. I was finally able to see my precious, precious man. With a gasp, I let go of Noel and raced forward. A cast covered his elevated leg, and they’d put one arm in a sling while half his head was wrapped in bandages. A tube fed into his mouth, giving him oxygen while IVs and heart monitors led various other hoses into him as well. The part of his face we could see was fairly swollen, but I could still tell it was him.