LATCH (23 page)

“Abby!?” I shout through a cloud of smoke. I wave my arm to clear the air as it fills the car. “Abby!?” I can barely breathe as the wind has been knocked out of me. My chest hurts like there is a ton of bricks on it and I reach next to me for her, but I don’t feel her. Looking outside as the smoke clears a bit, I see someone’s feet walking towards us. I realize then that we’re upside down, “Abbbbyyyy!?” I scream, scared when she doesn’t respond and I can’t feel her.

My eyes are heavy. I need to find her. “Are you okay?” a man asks, kneeling next to my shattered window. I reach for him and look into his wise eyes. “It’s okay, son, I called 911.”

“My girlfriend.” I’m breathless, everything inside of me hurts. “She’s pregnant.”

He stands up, and I reach for him screaming at the top of my lungs. Then I press the release button on the seatbelt. My body falls hard to the ceiling and I smash my head. Grabbing the back of it as pain spreads through my skull, he comes back to me and says, “Is she wearing a pink dress?”

“Yes!”

“My wife is with her.” I start to crawl from the car and he stops me. “Just stay still, son.”

I push him away and get out on my hands and knees between the barrier and my car. My eyes are heavy, but I have to get to Abby. I have to.

Searching the scene as I stand, I am wobbly and my vision is blurry. The man helps me keep my balance and I ask him, “Where is she?” He points to Abby’s bloody and lifeless body lying on the pavement of the highway.

Bile rises to the back of my throat.

Fuck!

I run the best that I can, fearing for what I might find and fall next to her. Looking down at her, there is so much blood everywhere I cannot tell where it’s coming from. I panic, tears stream down my face and I’m afraid to touch her. “Baby,” I whisper and put my face close to hers. “You’re going to be okay, you hear me?” I’m so fucking scared that I’m going to lose her.

In the distance, there is an explosion and I look to see a car in flames. It’s wrapped around a light pole and I hope it’s Darrell ’cause that motherfucker did this to her.

Sirens are in the distance and I run my hands over her hair. “Abby, can you hear me?” I ask her, sobbing so hard. My hand trembles and I can barely breathe. There is no response from her and I’m scared to touch her, so I lie next to her on the pavement, with one hand on her hair and the other I gently place on her stomach. I’ve never prayed before, but right now, that is exactly what I am going to do.

I’m not even sure if God is real or not, or if he can answer prayers, but seeing Abby like this, I need a miracle.

“Sir! You need to back away from the patient.” A female says and then I am dragged from Abby as she is surrounded by EMTs.

“She’s pregnant,” I tell them.

“How long?” one of them asks me.

“Sixteen weeks.”

They work feverishly on her using chest compressions and then installing tubes and hoses. All the scary shit from the movies is my reality and I stand terrified. Then in the blink of an eye, she’s gone and they are carrying her away to a helicopter. The blades twist slowly and I know that it’s not good. “Where are you taking her?” I shout following them, but a police officer stops me. “Is she going to be okay?” I plead with one of them to answer me.

“Let them do their job, son.”

“Would everyone stop calling me ‘son’!” I shout, freaking out that she is being taken away from me like this and flown to God only knows where.

“Calm down, I’ll drive you to the hospital,” the officer says and I ask him, “Is she going to be okay?” He doesn’t answer me as my eyes are still on Abby while they load her up. She looks like she is asleep and I place my hand over my mouth, praying that’s the case. But when I pull it away and look down, it’s covered in blood…her blood.

Oh fuck! I start to shake, and then throw up, gagging, staring at the redness. “Do you need an EMT, sir?” the officer asks me.

“No, I need to be with Abby.”

“What’s your name, son?”

“Latch.”

“Last name?” My eyes are on the chopper as it takes off and flies out of sight. My insides bleed in pain and I fall to my knees, feeling like part of me has died.

“Teracino.”

“Were you with Abby tonight?”

“Yes, we were driving home and got run off the road.”

“What’s Abby’s last name?” he asks me.

“McEllrath, can we please get going to the hospital?”

“Sure, can you just tell me what happened first?”

“I did – we were run off the road.” He’s persistent and I reenact all of the details for the officer, doing my best to stay calm and in control, like I have trained myself to do time and time again. I tell him everything, except for the fact that I know Darrell caused the accident. ’Cause if I did that it’ll just complicate things and take even longer for me to see Abby. He leaves me sitting on the side of the road and my mind keeps going back to her pink dress, completely blood-stained, and it breaks my fucking heart. Looking down at my hand, I try and wipe the blood on my shorts.
She’s going to be okay
, I repeat to myself as I clean it off, fighting back the tears, knowing that I need to stay strong for her and the baby.

“Latch?” The officer comes back over to me. “This is Officer Banks, he’ll take you to the hospital. I’m sorry for keeping you. Thank you for your time tonight.”

I nod and follow the officer to his car, and as we walk, I notice that the flames have settled on the car that was previously engulfed. “Was that the driver who hit us?” I ask the officer who opens the door for me.

“Yeah, the guy was burnt to a crisp.”

I look into Darrell’s car where the charred remains of his body still sit behind the wheel and it sickens me that I couldn’t protect her against him. “Do you know where they took her?”

“Uhh, New York Methodist,” he says.

I look out the window as the road flies by us and feel anxious, needing to get to Abby. I know Maris is close to the hospital and she could update me more quickly, so I text her,
Abby and I were in a car accident. I’m fine, but she was airlifted to New York Methodist. Can you please check on her? You’ll get there before me.

I’m on my way! You sure you’re okay?

Yeah.

Then the officer responds to a call over the radio talking in code, but I’m in a daze, wishing that he would just drive faster. My thoughts keep fucking with me as her screams replay in my mind and then the image of her lying there…and the blood…so much blood.

The officer pulls off the highway at the wrong exit and I ask him, “Where are you going?”

“My sergeant wants me to bring you in for questioning.”

“What? Why?” I ask, aggravated as shit that they are doing this right now.

“Not sure, just following orders, sir.”

I slam my hands on the grate that separates us and shout, “That’s fucking bullshit!”

“Do you know why you’re here, Mr. Teracino?”

“No!” I’m irritated as fuck and it’s coming through in my tone.

“Can you recount for me what happened tonight?”

“Why? I already told the officer on scene.”

“You did, but things aren’t adding up with the evidence and your statement,” he says. “Could you tell me again?”

“Why should I repeat myself when my girlfriend is in the hospital? Nothing has changed from earlier.”

“So you have nothing to add?”

“No, man. I just need to get to her. Please, could you question me there?”

I check my phone, but there is no cell phone service in here. Panic creeps in and I clench my fists.

“Why didn’t you tell Officer Devero that the other driver was Mrs. McEllrath’s husband?”

“I didn’t know who hit us.”

“Funny you should say that. Let me play you something.” He turns his phone towards me.

“911, what’s your emergency?” a female voice asks.

“I was just hit by another car and can’t pull over, I’m sandwiched in between traffic.” I recognize the voice right away. It’s Darrell’s and he sounds like a panicked little bitch.

He called 911 and pinned this shit on me!

“Can you pull over in the other direction, sir?” the 911 operator asks him.

“I’m trying, but he won’t stop hitting me and flashing his lights. He’s driving erratically and blocking—”

Then you can hear a collision and the operator asks him, “Sir, are you all right? He doesn’t respond and then there is chaos in the background, followed by silence, I’m assuming that’s when Darrell smashed into the pole and his car burst into flames.

“What do you have to say now, Mr. Teracino?”

“Nothing. My story isn’t going to change. Look at the damage to my car, I never hit him. He rear-ended me over and over, then drove us into the center barrier causing us to flip.”

“We’ve looked at your car, and it’s smashed to pieces, front to back.”

“What about his?”

“Mr. Teracino, you do realize that Darrell McEllrath is dead and Abby McEllrath is going to die, and both of those murders will fall on your shoulders.”

“Fuck you!” I shout and stand, slamming my fist on the table.

“Sit down, Mister Tough Guy. Your tattoos don’t scare me.”

I take a seat and look at the prick ass officer who is twisting this whole thing into a story that it isn’t.

“Get a crime scene investigator out there!” I repeat, my body burning with adrenaline.

“Why don’t you let us make those calls? So last chance…nothing to add?” I flip him off and he laughs stepping out of the room. My eyes follow him as he walks into an office congregating with another officer. Little fucking pussies, I say. On the wall of the office is a ton of baseball memorabilia and suddenly everything makes sense. They know that I am innocent, but they are trying to make me admit to something I didn’t do because this is personal. Someone here has to know Darrell. It’s got to be the only reason.

Looking at my phone, there is still no service and the clock on the wall ticks by slowly. Each minute feels like an hour and all I can think about is Abby and our baby. How could things go from being so perfect to so fucking bad?

Resting my head in the palms of my hands, I feel sick imagining the worst and I pull myself away from that dark place. I can’t go there. Abby is a fighter.

The door opens and in walk two assholes. The one who questioned me and one of the on-scene officers, who I don’t trust either. “We’re gonna cut you loose,” the on-scene officer says.

“For now,” the other adds. “But this isn’t the end. We’ll get an arrest warrant and you’ll be charged.”

I blaze past them as they keep talking, “Fuck you both!” and bolt out of the room, walking outside in a fit of rage. I flag the first cab I see. “To New York Methodist.” He pulls away from the station and it takes forever for my phone to get service. Finally it chimes with seven missed calls all from my grandma. Immediately I call her back.

There is panic to her voice the second that she answers, and her first words are, “Oh, God, Latch.”

“How is she?” I ask, frightened for the news.

“Her injuries are terrible, the doctors she might not…” she stalls. “You need to get here now!”

My insides break. I cannot believe her words. “Noooo,” I respond through a sob and sink further down into the seat, wanting to jump from the moving car as I hold on to my hair, like it’s going to fucking help me right now.

“It’s not good Latch…you need to hurry.”

In the background, I hear alarms and someone shouts, “McEllrath, code blue.”

“Noooo,” she wails. There is so much emotion in her tone as her voice cracks and my phone falls from my ear. I’m about to hyperventilate thinking of losing Abby. This terrifies me like nothing that I’ve ever felt. Looking down at the screen, I hear my grandmother’s sobs and I press the end button.

“To President Street in Crown Heights,” I tell the cabbie with a stone cold expression.

My breath is already slipping from me. I cannot live without her, she is my world.

Everything inside of me is on autopilot; my actions are involuntary, almost as if I have no control over them. Someone else is controlling my body and I grab my phone, sending a text to my grandma.
I love you, thank you for everything.
And then I drop my phone to the floor of the cab. Leaning forward, I rest my face in my palms, a pain greater than what I can take resonates inside of me. Deep down, I know Abby is not going to make it, my grandma said so herself. And I can’t bear to see her that way; my last visions of her are already tainted. I’ll be damned if they are ruined further.

The cabbie weaves through the city and the emotions inside of me are unreal. After all that we have been through, this is how it’s all going to end.

Finally, he pulls up to my house and I hand him all of the cash from my wallet before getting out. He looks down at it, shocked. Each step I take feels unreal. My body has been taken over, fire burns from deep within my soul, and I am not myself any longer, and that means that Abby has left this world.

I can fucking feel it.

Opening the door to my home…our home…I close it behind me. A picture of us stares right at me. I pick it up with tears streaming down my face and squeeze it so hard the glass cracks. Looking at her perfection, through the shattered mess, she’s so fucking gorgeous. She’s my world…my everything.