Chasing Leah (Journey Series) (21 page)

But he doesn’t know that, we
don’t know that, no one knows that. I don’t pray often, mom was never religious
but I’m praying right now. Please let Leah be okay I NEED her to be okay she’ll
be okay, she’ll be okay.

Leah

“Leah, Leah? Please wake up,
please wake up.” I hear a shaking voice say over and over but can’t tell who it
is through the fog in my head. “Miss, you need to step back please,” I hear an
authoritive
sounding voice demand. “But she doesn’t have
anyone here! Please, please,” they beg again as I drift back into unconsciousness.
I can feel my body being moved and jostled around but I can’t seem to break
through the fog that’s holding me down. I hear the sound of a siren and wonder
where that noise is coming from.
Can’t someone please shut that thing
up,
my head is seriously killing me.

“Chase is already on his way.” I
hear someone say who sounds like their sitting behind my head. I try to raise
my hand to reach out to them but my body is not cooperating. What’s wrong with
me? I struggle to remember what happened as I see the blackness fade in again
before I think that I just need to talk to Chase, just to hear his voice. At
least he’s on his way.

I slowly wake up again to the
beep
beep
of machines and a low murmur of voices. I
hear
Allys
voice right away and think she’s talking
to Remy. “I can’t believe this happened to Leah. Life just keeps shitting on
her over and over. I don’t know what she’s going to do….” She breaks off as I
hear her words turn into sobs. Where’s Caleb, she was supposed to be with
Caleb. I want to reach out and tell her I’ll be okay to reassure and also to
demand she tells me where Caleb is but my eyes won’t open, they feel like there
being weighed down by 1000 pound sand bags and I’m forced back into the
blackness.

The next time I manage to come
around I feel a light tickling sensation running across my cheek and over my
eye lids. “How long has she been like this?” My heart swells as I hear the
familiar soothing voice. Chase. He’s here, I remember trying to reach for my
phone the night before and I try to call out his name again but my throat
doesn’t want to respond and I feel something foreign pushed into it.

“She’s been out of it since
about 12:30 last night. She hasn’t been responsive since they pulled her out of
the jeep. They had to pry her out when they found her. That
drunk
asshole didn’t even see the light, just plowed right through her and the snow
didn’t help with the slickness of the roads.” I hear Remy answer back through
sniffles. I feel the slight sensation running across my face again and smell
the scent of
Chases
soap that I love. A wetness
trickles down my cheek and someone’s finger brushes it away.

“I should have been here,” he
whispers out.

“Chase
don’t
blame yourself. You wouldn’t have been able to stop the accident even if you
were here,” I hear another voice add as I identify it belonging to Ally.

“Yeah but it would have been me
instead of her. I can handle
more,
she’s just so
small, I’m sure there wouldn’t have been as much damage to my body. I can’t
stand to see her like this, she looks so frail.” He pauses and I hear a breath
huff out. “And to think what I was doing when it happened.”

My heart skips a beat as I think
back to that night. He had been at the after party with the guys. An after
party where there were plenty of women throwing themselves at him. One in
particular as I recall her high pitched whine. I fight to stay awake and hear
the rest before the darkness pulls me under again. This time isn’t all black
though.

I dream of Chase. Chase
surrounded by women as I stand in the corner watching with wide eyes as he
turns to each of them with that glittering look in his green eyes that I
thought was only meant for me. He leans in kissing each one while they run
their hands all over his body, while I try to scream at him to stop but no
words will come out. Chase doesn’t even glance my way once.

I wake up again and this time
I’m able to slowly open my eyes. The room is dark and it takes a minute for my
eyes to adjust as I look around and take in the hospital bed that I’m
laying
in. No one else seems to be around as my eyes scan
the room and I listen to the steady thrum of my heart monitor. I inspect my
body as I lay there and realize my left leg has a cast around it extending all
the way up to just above my knee. I realize I must have a breathing tube down
my throat as I claw at my neck feeling the
uncomfortableness
.

I hear someone enter the room as
I turn towards the door and I can tell its Chase from the outline of his body.
He bends down to place a light kiss on my forehead and I turn away from him as
I remember the last words I heard from his lips. “Leah, baby?” He whispers as
he brushes my hair back. “Are you awake?”

His startling green eyes are
filled with tears as he looks back into mine, unblinking. The tears begin to
run down his cheeks as a wide smile breaks across his face. He leans back down
to swipe a kiss over my lips and I shake him off with my head. I see him
grimace as he steps back. “Um I’m going to get a doctor. I’ll be right back
baby, I promise.”

Chase comes back a few minutes later
followed by a doctor and Ally and Remy who both push past the doctor to come
and give me hugs. “Oh Leah,” Ally cries out.
“Don’t ever do
that to me again.
We were so worried you would never wake up. Chase has
been here every minute with you since he rushed back,” she whispers in my ear.

I flick my eyes over and quickly
take in
Chases
appearance. He’s dressed in a pair of
black pants and an
untucked
white dress shirt that
looks disheveled and I’m sure it’s the outfit he wore to the wedding they
performed at, there’s a thick growth of stubble on his face and he has his
black baseball cap pulled on backwards. I notice the dark purple circles under
his eyes as he moves closer to stand next to me while the doctor examines me
and he keeps his eyes trained on mine through the whole process.

“Well Leah everything checks out
good. We were all just waiting for you to wake up from your little nap here,”
he says with a wink. “Doesn’t look like there’s any serious damage besides this
here,” he points down at the cast. “That’s definitely going to take some
getting used to. Now I bet you’re ready to get this out,” he says as he leans
down to pull at the end of the plastic tubing. “There will be just a slight
pull that you’ll feel. It will be awkward more than anything,” he says gently
as he guides the tubing out.

I gasp and lean forward to bark
out a cough as he presses a stethoscope to my chest. “Everything sounds
good,
you’ll probably be set to go home sometime tomorrow.
We’ll just want to monitor you for the night.” He picks up a clipboard to write
out a few notes and nods to me before leaving the room.

My bed is instantly surrounded
by everyone and I notice
Skylar
had joined the group
while the doctor was examining me. “Oh Leah,” Remy says as she leans in for
another hug. “I was so scared when I came up to the accident and realized it
was
Chases
jeep. Then they wouldn’t let me be with
you,” she broke off into a quiet sob and covered her mouth with a slender hand.
“I’m sorry
Leah,
I don’t want to upset you.”

Ally and
Skylar
both come over to give me quick pecks on the cheek. “We’re
gonna
head out sweetie and check on Caleb. He’s doing fine by the way,
Marys
been helping out with him,” Ally says with a pointed
look at Chase. “I think he needs sometime alone with you,” she whispers into my
ear. I nod my head and try to steady my heartbeat as I can feel it begin to
race. I’m not sure I’m ready to be alone with Chase but by the time I find the
voice to tell anyone everyone is being shuffled out the door and Chase closes
it quietly behind them.

He
scootches
a chair closer to my bedside and reaches over to grab my hand which instantly
warms mine but I let it hang loosely. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here baby. As soon
as Remy called I grabbed
Teddys
keys. I think I broke every speed limit and traffic law to get here.” I cover
my mouth as I feel another cough coming on and Chase leans me forward and
brings a cup of water to my lips. I feel the cool liquid trickle down my throat
and it soothes some of the rawness.

“Chase,” I croak out at barely a
whisper. “Please get out.”

His jaw drops and the hurt look
on his face squeezes at my heart. “Baby what’s wrong, do you need me to get the
doctor. Are you okay, are you in pain? What…”

I interrupt him holding up a
hand, “Just stop, please. I don’t want to fight with you, I don’t have the
energy.”

He
purses
his lips and rubs at the bridge of his nose like he’s trying to erase my words.
“No Leah I’m not leaving. I promised I wouldn’t leave you and I’m not letting
you push me away.”

“I think you owe it to me,
considering.”

“Considering, what?” he says
with a puzzled look on his face. I try to contain the tears I feel are on the
brink but they begin to slowly stream down my cheeks. Chase tries to rub them
away with his thumb but I push his hand away. He slowly drops it back down to
his side and clenches it into a fist.

“I was in and out of
consciousness for awhile Chase. I heard brief conversations in the small amount
of times I was awake,” I narrow my eyes at him. “Is there anything I SHOULDN’T
have heard Chase?”

“Of course not
Leah.
Why would you think that? I just felt so guilty I wasn’t here with
you when it happened. You were stuck in that car and in so much pain while I
was at some dumbass party. I should have been here with you,” he growls out.
“I’m sorry. I just….seeing you laying here so frail…just took my breath away. I
needed to be here for you and I wasn’t.”

I raise an eyebrow at him, “And
is
that all?” He runs a hand over his face, “Of course Leah.
What else would there be baby?” I struggle to get the right words out and
swallow over the rawness of my throat. “I just remember talking to you right
before it happened Chase and I heard all of those girls with you. I just
couldn’t keep my mind off of what could be happening. And then one of the times
I was awake I heard you saying something about what you had been doing when the
accident had happened. My mind right away went to you being with another girl.”

“Leah how could you…I would
never…” his voice trails off as he looks like he’s trying to compose himself.
He takes both of my hands in his and kisses each of my fingers slowly. “You’re
the only girl for me Leah.
Ever.
I see myself spending
the rest of my life with you. I don’t even look at other girls Leah. I just
felt so bad that I wasn’t here for you when it happened. I told you to depend
on me and you couldn’t.”

Well obviously I jumped to
conclusions. I couldn’t see Chase doing something like that to me
anyways,
he just wasn’t that type of guy. “’Kay Chase, I
believe you. But you have to understand you can’t be with me all the time. I
wish you were but I know that’s not possible. This wasn’t your fault,” I
whisper as I rub light circles across his palms.

He stands up and leans down to
place a soft kiss on my lips. I feel his warm full lips move slowly against
mine before he pulls away. “I should get going babe. You need your rest.”

“No Chase please
stay
. I need you to be here.”

He grins at me before sitting
back down and grabbing onto my hand, “I was hoping you would say that. I just
didn’t want to push you. I was just
gonna
go down to
the waiting room and try to catch a quick nap anyways.”

“Come here,” I gently tug on his
hand. “You look like you haven’t slept in days,” I pat the small spot beside
me.
“You sure Leah?
I don’t want to bump your leg.”

“Just be gentle.”
He slides down the guard rail and in next to me, lying on his side as he curls
his arms gently around me. I turn and bury my head in his chest breathing in
his scent and relax in the comfort of Chase.

“Go to sleep baby, you need the
rest,” he says as he kisses the top of my head. I feel the rise and fall of his
chest and can hear the sound of his light snoring within minutes of his head
hitting the pillow. My eyelids feel heavy too after only being awake for a
short amount of time. I drift off to sleep feeling safe wrapped in
Chases
warmth.

I wake up the next morning when
a nurse comes into the
room,
her nametag reads Molly
as she checks over me. “Hi sweetie, glad to see you up,” she says in a quiet
voice. “You gave everyone quite a scare, especially this one,” she gestures
towards the still sleeping Chase who’s wrapped around me, clinging to me like
he’s afraid I’ll disappear.

“Well everything looks good.
Think you could try eating something this morning?” My stomach loudly growls at
the question and I instantly feel how starving I am. “Yeah I think I can start
with something small.”

“’Kay sweetie, I’ll call down to
the kitchen and have something sent up to you. As long as you can keep that
down, you should be out of here around noon. I’ll bring a wheel chair up and
help this handsome
fella
get you situated.”

“Thank you,” I whisper trying to
keep my voice down so I won’t wake Chase.
A wheelchair?
After seeing the cast on my leg I didn’t even stop to think how much it would
affect my life. How was I going to work? I don’t think Gino will find much use
for his waitress with a broken leg. My final exams for the semester were coming
up too. Wait they said I had been here for….four days. I count out on my
fingers and
flop
my head back on the pillow with a
groan. I’ve already missed half of the school week.
And
Caleb.
Who could take care of a three year old with a cast on? That one
seemed most impossible.