Bayleigh Adams.
That"s going to be me in a just a few weeks. I blink back tears that can only be explained as crazy Pregnant Person Emotions and go back to being excited about the cupcakes. Carol has been talking this whole time, but I hadn"t heard a word of it. Also, there"s two plates in front of Becca and me, along with a fork. I hadn"t noticed those arrive, either.
I tear my eyes away from my name on the paper and look for the cupcakes.
"Have you decided on a color yet?" Carol asks as she pulls two cupcakes from the box. "Becca and I discussed purple and turquoise but she wasn"t sure if you"d like light colors or dark, so I made both."
Becca and I practically start drooling as Carol gives us each a cupcake with lavender icing swirled high. Next, she gives us its pastel blue equivalent. They"re both wrapped in silver foil cupcake papers and have a light sparkly sheen on the icing.
"Beautiful," I say, picking up my fork but feeling like there"s no way I"ll be able to stab it into such an elegant creation.
Next, Carol takes out two more cupcakes for Becca and me. Only these have a deep rich coloring to the icing. A turquoise-blue and purple that is so stunningly beautiful that I instantly say, "This one! This color. Oh my G.o.d, it"s perfect."
Carol and Becca laugh at my reaction but I don"t care. I sit back in my chair and clap my hands in front of my mouth. "They are so perfect! So beautiful."
Instantly I can imagine my entire weddingthe flowers, the decorations, the invitations. Turquoise and purple. Weeks of being indecisive and unsure about everything now fold into one perfect moment where I feel that this wedding will be a breeze. It will be turquoise and purple and it"ll be beautiful and wonderful.
"Bayleigh!" I look up to see Becca leap off her chair and come to my side of the table. "You"re crying!"
Carol hands me a napkin, which is also purple, and I take it and dab my eyes and start doing this laugh-cry thing because I"m so emotional I can"t help it. "I"m fine," I say after a moment. "It"s just all so perfect."
"I"m flattered, darling," Carol says, sliding the plate closer to me. "But you haven"t even tried them yet!"
Despite my natural instinct to keep something so beautiful intact, Becca and I dive into our cupcakes and it is immediately evident that we should have both double chocolate and French vanilla flavors at my wedding. We make it easy by requesting the chocolate ones to have turquoise icing and the vanilla to have the purple icing.
It becomes very clear that Becca and I only halfway know what we"re doing when we decide we want to reserve these cupcakes for the wedding and Carol asks a question we hadn"t even thought of.
"How many cupcakes will you be needing?" Her pen hovers over the order slip and my lips squish to the side of my mouth.
"Um," I say, looking at Becca. "We don"t exactly know yet."
"A general rule of thumb is to order as many servings as people you are inviting, plus a dozen just in case. It"s always better to have leftovers than to come up short."
"Yeah, that"s a good idea," I say, feeling my cheeks turn red because I am a total idiot who doesn"t deserve to plan a wedding if I am this stupid about it. "But I"m not even sure how many people we"re inviting." I lower my forehead into my palm and stare at the floor. "I can"t believe we didn"t think of this," I mutter, so embarra.s.sed that I never want to look up and meet Carol"s eyes again.
Becca shuffles through her oversized purse and produces a small pink notebook. The one she calls her Bridesmaid Planner. I know I"ve made fun of that thing, but I am so glad she has it now. "We"re inviting forty-three people. So I guess we should order about five dozen?"
"Perfect," Carol says, penning the number onto the order sheet. "Would you like these picked up or delivered?"
"Delivered, please," I say, grateful for a question that I can actually answer. Well, sort of. "Becca will have to give you the address because it"s some huge secret from me."
"Really?" Carol asks, intrigue dancing across her eyes. "The wedding location is a secret from the bride? That"s a first."
I nod. "It"s kind of a long story."
Carol relaxes in her chair. "I have plenty of time."
I glance at Becca and she nods encouragingly. Tiny b.u.t.terflies fill my stomach as I prepare to tell them the story about my wedding location. It"s not that I"m nervous or anything, it"s just that every time I think about that night I get b.u.t.terflies. I take a deep breath. "It was the day after Jace proposed and we were both super excited about the engagement, so we spent all day talking about the wedding. We knew we wanted it to happen as soon as possible because," I pause, not wanting to say the real reason. I"m not sure if Carol knows I am pregnant or not, and just in case she doesn"t, I"d rather her not know. I swallow and continue, choosing my words carefully. "Because we"ve already been together for a long time and most of that time was long distance and we just really want to be married. We didn"t want to wait. So, that was in May, and we choose August ninth to get married just because it felt like the quickest time we could get married while still having enough time to plan a wedding. Then, it was like two in the morning and I had spent all night searching online for the perfect place for the wedding. I wanted somewhere beautiful but it couldn"t be far away because my family and friends can"t exactly afford plane tickets and hotel expenses just to come to the wedding, so it had to be in Texas. There are like no pretty places in Texas, by the way."
This makes Carol laugh. Maybe she thinks I"m joking, but I"m not. "So anyway, I was freaking out about trying to find a place that"s both small and beautiful and not too commercial and a place that kind of feels like home. Like the perfect place to marry someone. And Jace, meanwhile, hadn"t been helping me at all. He was playing Xbox all night and just nodding when I"d show him stuff online. Then, when I was really discouraged about it, he suddenly sits up and drops the Xbox controller and is like Oh my G.o.d, I"ve got it. I know the perfect place!" So I asked him where and he just shook his head like a big jerk and said it was so perfect that it would have to be a secret. He said it"ll be better that way."
Carol"s eyes light up and Becca smiles devilishly because she already knows the answer to Carol"s next question. "Well, where is it?" Carol asks her in a fake whisper. Becca pretends to zip her lips closed. "I"ll write it down for you but I can"t say it in front of Bayleigh."
I roll my eyes and don"t even try to hide my goofy smile. I have to admit that not knowing the location of my own wedding until the day it happens is kind of awesome. Carol excuses herself to the back so she can put in the details of our order and Becca and I dive into the rest of our cupcakes.
My phone vibrates and I take it out of my pocket to find a text from Jace.
Jace: Still doing stuff with Becca?
Me: Yup!
Jace: Mind if I hang out at the track and ride a bit?
Me: Of course not. Have fun, babe. I love you.
Jace: ILY more!!
When I look up from my phone, Becca is staring at me. "What?" I say, shoving it back into my pocket. She just shakes her head. "What?" I say again, only this time it"s not a question but more of an annoyed remark.
"You always get that goofy smile when you"re texting Jace," she says. I can tell instantly if you"re talking to him or someone else by the way you look at the phone."
"So what? I can tell when your mom texts you because you look p.i.s.sed off," I retort.
Becca groans. "Tell me about it. One of these days I"ll make enough money to move out and be on my own like you. That will probably take forever, though."
I lick the remaining icing off my plastic fork and then point it at her. "Or you could find yourself a rich boyfriend. Preferably a motocross guy like Jace." My eyes light up. "Ooh! Or his friend Park! He"s probably rich since he"s semi-pro. You need to meet him, marry him and then be my best friend-slash-motocross wife bestie forever!"
She sighs. "If only life were that easy..."
I sigh, too, but for a different reason. "You never know," I say. And it"s true. You really never know what life will bring you. Even when you think you"ve got it all figured out, you"re wrong. And then, months later, when you think you really do have control of your life, you"re even more wrong than you were the first time.
That"s not always a bad thing. There have been times in my life where I felt that every single decision I had made was wrong and detrimentally stupid. But then somehow, everything works out. I"ve screwed up way more than Becca ever has, and yet here I am with Jace and a happy life and a future family. I can"t imagine what kind of great things will happen to Becca when it"s her time to find true love.
While we"re saying our goodbyes to Carol, she takes my hand and squeezes it. "I love that you aren"t doing everything strictly by the book," she says, smiling. "I can"t think of a better way to start a marriage than by doing things your own way."
For some reasonokay, it"s probably the hormonesI feel myself tearing up at her kind words. "Thank you." I turn away quickly so I won"t have time to let the fresh tears fall down my face. Today is a good day, I remind myself. There"s no reason to let crazy hormones jump in and ruin it.
Becca lowers the volume of her car stereo at exactly the wrong moment. Taylor Swift just belted out the loudest part of the song, and unfortunately, so did I. I slap my hand over my mouth and slump lower into the pa.s.senger seat. "You can warn a girl next time you"re going to do that," I mutter, but I doubt she hears it over her maniacal laughter.
"Okay, okay," she says, after laughing so hard she almost started crying. "I actually turned off the song for a reason. We need to plan your wedding announcement photo before I go home. That way I have time to edit the photos and have some printed so we can design the invitations."
"Good idea." My phone buzzes and I notice Jace"s name flashing across the screen, but I let it ring so I"m not rudely interrupting my conversation with Becca. "Mr. Fisher won"t mind if we use the track and we still have a few hours of daylight. Think we could do it today? Jace is probably still in his gear so he"ll already be dressed. I need to do something about my hair and makeup though."
My phone stops ringing and then starts back up a moment later. I glance at the screen. It"s Jace again. "Go on," Becca says, taking one hand off the steering wheel to motion for me to answer the phone. "Don"t make your sweetie pie wait forever."
"h.e.l.loo-ooo," I sing into the phone. I hope Jace isn"t too worn out from riding to want to take photos with me this afternoon.
"Is this Bayleigh?"
My heart stops cold. The voice on the other end of the line is not my fiance. "h.e.l.lo?" he says. "Bayleigh?"
"This is Bayleigh." The words don"t even sound like they"re coming out of my mouth. "Who is this? Why are you on Jace"s phone?"
"Bayleigh, it"s Bobby. From the track."
Chills. Fear. I don"t know what comes first. Bobby isn"t just from the track. He"s the on staff as a full time paramedic. He"s the guy who"s always hanging out next to the ambulance, watching the races and diving into action when someone gets hurt.
"What"s going on? Where"s Jace? Why are you on Jace"s phone?" A million other panicked questions flow through my mind but I"m too choked up to get any of them out.
There"s shuffling on the line and I can hear road noise and movement on the other side. The next three seconds of silence are the longest of my life. Becca watches me with worry, her eyes flickering from me to the road and back.
He takes a deep breath. I can hear the sirens of an ambulance burst to life in the background. I"m going to throw up and this time it won"t be from the hormones.
Bobby"s words are slow and carefully chosen. "I"m taking Jace to St. Mary"s. You need to come quick."
All of the background noise disappears. "Is he okay?" I ask, knowing as I say the words that I won"t get an answer. Bobby has already ended the phone call.
Chapter 10.
After fifteen minutes of agony and begging my best friend to drive more than ten miles over the speed limit, Becca pulls into the u-shaped emergency room driveway. I throw open the pa.s.senger door before her car comes to a complete stop. "Meet me inside," I call out before slamming the door closed. My feet feel numb as I run through the automatic gla.s.s doors.
I"ve never been to St. Mary"s Hospital before and the overwhelming emotions flowing through me makes it hard to figure out where I"m going. A maze of beige chairs line both sides of the aisle, some with people and most of them empty. I wander through the chairs of the ma.s.sive room, looking around for a sign that will tell me where to go.
The triage desk is to my left, after three rows of chairs and two ma.s.sive potted plants. My heart thuds in my chest. By some miracle, I"m not crying. Shaking and stumbling over my own feet, yes. But not crying. I will not allow myself to cry.
I stop just short of crashing into the triage counter and the nurse on duty doesn"t even look up at me. "h.e.l.lo," I say loudly to get her attention. This is a freaking emergency room. People come here for emergencies and this b.i.t.c.h needs to do her job. My head could be hanging onto my spine by a thread for all she knows, but she doesn"t know because she"s not looking at me. "Hey! I need help."
She looks up from her computer screen, her expression unfazed by my yelling.
"Fill this out," she says, sliding a clipboard toward me. I shake my head. "I"m not here to check in. I"m here to see my fiance. He was just taken here by ambulance."
"What"s his name?"
"Jace Adams."
She types something into the computer. I peek over her shoulder at the area behind her that leads into the rest of the hospital, but I can"t see anything. My phone sits silently in my fist. I haven"t stopped looking at it, wishing and hoping that Jace would call me, tell me he"s fine and that he just broke his pinky or something. "You need to take a seat," the nurse tells me. "We"ll notify you when there"s information."
"What!" It is not a question. "What the h.e.l.l does that mean? I"m not going to take a seat. I need to know his status right now. I need to be back there with him."
"Have a seat please. We"ll be with you shortly."
"You"ve got to be f.u.c.king kidding me!" I kick the potted plant next to me but with its enormity, it just sits there, unaffected. "Jace could be dying right now and I need to be there. I need to be with him."
Her eyes narrow. "You will see him when the doctor approves it but if you continue to be disruptive, you"ll be escorted out of the building."
My back straightens. She might be glaring at me as if she"s won this round, but I have too much at stake to keep b.i.t.c.hing about it. "Fine," I mutter, turning around. I choose a chair closest to the wide double doors that lead into the emergency patient rooms and sit, only to stand back up two seconds later. I can"t sit at a time like this. I check my phone again. Pace. Try sitting and then stand back up. Pray. Look at my phone.
Becca appears at my side. It couldn"t have been more than a few minutes since she found a place to park and walked inside, but it feels like it"s been an eternity. I catch her up on what happened with the rude nurse and Becca snarls. "What a b.i.t.c.h."
"I can"t do this," I tell her. My voice cracks but I blink back the tears and force them to stay put behind a wall that I can"t possibly allow to break.
"Bayleigh!" I whirl around and find Ash Carter jogging across the emergency room, decked from head to toe in motocross riding gear. His boots drop dirt onto the shiny hospital floor. Ash is Mr. Fisher"s son-in-law and one of Jace"s good friends. His shoulder-length brown dreadlocks are pulled back in a ponytail.
"What happened to Jace?" I ask. Ash crashes into me, hugging me tightly. He smells like exhaust fumes and sweat. I appreciate the gesture, but I kind of just want to shove him off of me and demand that he tell me every detail right this freaking second. When he does pull away, his face is stricken with grief.
"He"s going to be okay," Ash says, squeezing my arms.
I sigh. "Please tell me what happened. I haven"t seen him. I don"t know anything and it"s driving me crazy."
Ash takes a deep breath. His eyebrows draw together, making me think for a terrifying second that he"s not going to tell me what happened. "We were s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around after practice because the track was closed so we were the only two people out there."
"And?" I fold my arms over my chest. He"s deliberately taking longer than necessary to tell me what happened.
"And, well...we were freestyling a bit?" I don"t know why it sounds like a question when he says it, but the guilt that falls over his tanned features tells me he"s embarra.s.sed to be admitting this to me.
"What exactly do you mean when you say freestyling?"
He stares at the floor. "We were doing tricks and stuff. Jumping over the ninety-foot finish line double."
"And he crashed?" I actually manage to say the words without bursting into tears. I"ve never seen Jace crash, exactly. I"ve seen him slide out in a shallow turn or b.u.mp into another bike at the starting line and lose his balance. He"s never crashed. "How bad was it? Where did he crash?" My questions fly out a mile a minute, faster and more detailed with each time Ash doesn"t answer. "Is he unconscious? Is his bike okay?"
The last one makes Ash laugh. He shakes his head. "His bike is toast. Probably needs a good three grand in repairs. Knowing Jace, he"ll ditch it and buy a new one. And yeah...he"s unconscious."
"Unconscious?!" My palms slam against Ash"s chest. "You should have said that first!"
Becca calls my name and says things that mean nothing to me because I"m not listening. Oh, and those tears I held back earlier? They burst through my tear ducts like water through a broken dam. Dropping to my knees into the chair in front of me, I lay my forehead against the backrest and curl in on myself, kneeling backwards in the chair. Someone"s hand pats my back while I cry ma.s.sive embarra.s.sing sobs.
I can"t stop picturing Jace, my Jace, lying unconscious on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance. Is he awake yet? Will he wake up? Does he miss me as much as I miss him?
"Bayleigh, I know you"re upset," Ash says, in what I a.s.sume is in the middle of a monologue he"s been saying for the last few moments that I haven"t been paying attention. "But getting knocked out on a dirt bike is pretty common. It"s happened to me a dozen times and it"s probably happened to Jace, too. He might have some broken bones, but he"ll be fine."
I sit up and wipe the wall of tears off my face with the back of my hand. "Broken bones? Did you see him up close? Was he hurt? Did you see blood?" Again, images manifest in my mind of Jace"s unconscious body, now covered in bodily trauma with severed bones sticking out of his arms and legs.
I catch the sounds of a whisper and turn toward Becca, who snaps her mouth shut and smiles at me. She was probably telling Ash to shut up and stop making things worse for my overactive imagination, but I glare at her anyway. h.e.l.l, I"ll glare at everyone and everything until I"m sure that Jace is going to be okay.
It really says a lot about the structural integrity of St. Mary"s flooring when, after half an hour of pacing the small area in front of the emergency room doors, I haven"t worn a hole through the tiles. My friend Hana is here now, snuggled next to Ash in one of the waiting room chairs. Becca has called her mom asking for prayers and I called my mom, but didn"t get very far into the call before bursting into hysterical sobs.
I"m rounding past the stupid overgrown fern in the corner when the emergency room doors swing open. A nurse in baby blue scrubs with her hair in a severely tight bun on top of her head steps out and surveys the room. "Adams?"
"Me!" I shout, running over to her. "Is he okay?"