Boys South of the Mason Dixon
Page 44

Asher Sutton
BRAY WAS DRIVING. I didn’t remember much about getting in the truck. I heard the EMTs say her heart had stopped and that they didn’t know why. That was all I knew. Nothing more. Then they drove off, leaving me only with the name of the hospital to which they took her.
This didn’t seem real. It was as if I’d been stuck in a nightmare unable to wake up. The horror and fear on her parents’ faces said all I needed to know.
I had to get to that hospital. She wasn’t leaving me. She was too young. Healthy eighteen-year-old girls didn’t need Life Flight. They’d fix this. She’d be fine. She had to be fine.
“Breathe, Ash, Breathe,” Brent said as his hand touched my back. I inhaled sharply and my lungs burned. Similar to the way they did when we were kids and would compete against each other to see who could hold their breath the longest under water. I hadn’t even realized I’d stopped breathing. That was the second time Brent had to remind me.
“Not much further,” Bray said glancing up at me through the rearview mirror. I couldn’t respond. Speaking required too much. I was doing all I could to keep it together. My cheeks were wet from silent tears. Fear, disbelief, pain, all mixed inside me, reminding me I couldn’t live without Dixie.
My brothers weren’t talking either. Not much, anyway. Dixie was special to all of us. She’d been in our lives as long as we could remember. Momma was on her way, too. Dallas was driving her. She was getting the people in the local churches to pray and she also packed me some things because she knew I’d stay there with Dixie. I wouldn’t leave until she could. And Dixie would leave. She’d come back home with me.
“Think they’d tell us anything if we called the hospital?” Steel asked.
“Doubt it. Family only,” Brent said.
I just stared out the window. We had to get there. She needed me there.
“Did the EMT say anything more, Bray?” Brent asked. Bray had talked to them more than any of us. I’d been out of my mind. I still was. I wouldn’t okay until I saw her. Talked to her.
“No,” he said glancing up in the rearview mirror again with a concerned look. He knew more, he just wasn’t telling us.
“If you know something, then I want to know,” I told him, speaking for the first time.
Bray didn’t look at me this time. He remained silent.
“If you know something,” I started and Steel looked at me.
“Don’t. None of us know any facts. Let’s just get there.”
He was right. I needed facts.
It had been a helicopter. Motherfucking Life Flight. I’d only ever seen one after a car accident. When someone had almost died from the injuries. Not at someone’s house. And not there to collect an eighteen-year-old.
“Get out here,” Bray said pulling in front of a building. A large red sign in front of us said Emergency. We were here. “I’ll park and meet y’all inside.”
I didn’t wait. I was out of the car and inside within seconds. I ran to the lady at the sign in sheet. “Dixie Monroe. She was brought in by Life Flight. Do you have information on her? “
The lady casually looked at her computer smacking her gum like I hadn’t just said the words Life Flight. This was no big deal to her. She’d been desensitized by other people’s nightmares.
“She’s not in the ER,” the woman said frowning. “She’s admitted, though. She’s in the Intensive Cardiac Care Unit.”
I had no fucking idea what that meant other than she was alive. Right now, that was enough. “Where is that?”
“Go left around the large turn, then take the elevators on your right to the fifth floor. Take a left then and go straight until you see the waiting room.“
Bray was inside now. The four of us headed in the direction we were told. I knew that, even without telling them to do it, that one would text Dallas and give him directions. I was always the one who keept them together, stood with them, ready to face anything and anyone. Making sure everyone was taken care of. Not now. Now, they were standing with me. By my side. Because they all knew that if something were to happen to her, I’d fall apart. She was my center.
Walking toward the waiting room, I could see Luke pacing in front of it. He ran his hand over his balding head and the tense lines of his face were obvious even from afar. Charlotte saw us first. She stood up and walked toward me, pulling me into a hug. “She’s alive,” she whispered in both relief and desperation. Because that didn’t mean she was okay.
“What happened?”
“She just . . . collapsed. Her heart stopped. There’s the doctor,” she said letting me go and hurrying over to Luke who was already there in front of the man dressed in white.
“Would you like to go somewhere private?” the doctor asked.
Luke looked back at us, at me standing there. “No. This is her family,” he said.
The doctor nodded. “Dixie has a rare congenital heart condition called Long QT Syndrome. Many people have no signs or symptoms until the moment their heart stops, thus ending their life. It almost always goes undetected until it’s too late. Dixie was lucky. Her mother was there with her and you kept her heart pumping until the paramedics could revive her. Most aren’t that lucky. I want you to understand the severity of what she’s been through and that she isn’t in the clear just yet. We have put her in a drug induced coma and packed her in ice to bring her temperature down. In two days, we will warm her back up and bring her out of the coma. She will be in it for about four days total. I have done this before and it’s been successful. And I’ve done it and it hasn’t been. But we will do our absolute best to bring her through this. She’s a fighter. Once she’s brought out of the coma, we will then fit her for an implantable cardioverter defibrillator that will regulate her heartbeat.”
Her heart had stopped. Dear God, she could have died. Today. I’d have never gotten to hold her again. We wouldn’t grow old together. She’d have never grown old. The idea of it rocked me. I sank down onto the closest chair and buried my head in my hands. She didn’t die. She was alive. The coma they had put her in scared the fuck out of me. She had to open her eyes and look at me. She had to let me tell her we were forever. She had to let me give her everything she ever wanted, everything she deserved. It wasn’t over yet. We still had a lifetime to live first.
Asher Sutton
I OPENED MY eyes squinting against the sun now coming through the waiting room window. I saw Scarlet sitting across from me. She had her knees pulled up under her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs. She had no makeup and her hair was in a messy knot on top of her head, but she was still the same striking redhead that had almost torn my brothers apart. She was Dixie’s best friend and I was happy she was here. I just hoped Brent and Bray weren’t back anytime soon.
Sitting up, I yawned and stretched. She dropped her knees and straightened. She looked like she was ready to be told to leave, or worse.
“Someone must have known where to contact you. Dixie will be happy you’re here.”
My words seemed to ease her some.
“Charlotte called last night,” she said.
“Good.”
She was quiet for a few minutes staring down at her hands. “I must have missed some things since it isn’t Steel sleeping on those chairs.”