Cement Heart Read online

  The back of my head rested against the wall behind me as I stared straight ahead, refusing to look at him. “Where’s Pete?”

  “He left a while ago. He asked us to please keep him posted,” he said quietly. “Viper, listen, about before—”

  “Don’t. I deserved it.”

  “No, you didn’t. I understand she’s upset, but this isn’t your fault.”

  “Oh, really?” I finally glared at him out of the corner of my eye. “Then whose is it? Because from where I’m sitting, it’s no one’s fault but mine.”

  “Accidents happen. You can’t take this on.”

  “Whatever,” I snapped, staring straight ahead again.

  Do. Not. Cry.

  The double doors opened and a nurse appeared. Brody and I collectively held our breath as she looked around the room. “Michelle Asher?”

  Michelle quickly lifted her head off of Kacie’s shoulder and stood when she saw the nurse. “Yes?” she responded in a shaky voice. Kacie stood beside her and held her hand. The nurse smiled at them and walked over; Brody stood up and followed. I stayed behind. The four of them talked intimately for a good ten minutes before Michelle hugged Kacie and followed the nurse back through the doors. Kacie turned to Brody with tears in her eyes and wrapped her arms around his waist, squeezing tight. She closed her eyes as he hugged her back and rested his chin on the top of her head.

  Fuck. What’s happening?

  Kacie’s eyes opened and looked right at me. The second we made eye contact, I looked down at the ugly gray tile and shifted uncomfortably in my chair. A few seconds later, I felt her sit down next to me, but I refused to look up.

  “Hey,” she said softly.

  “Hey.”

  “Are you okay?”

  I didn’t answer. Dumb question.

  “Sorry, that was a dumb question.” She laughed nervously.

  “Yep.”

  “Oh, Viper.” She hooked her tiny arm around my back and laid her head on my shoulder, not saying another word. I waited for her to ask something else or give me some bland speech about how it wasn’t my fault, but she didn’t, and I was grateful. Brody disappeared around the corner toward the bathroom sign and I finally decided to ask.

  “Is he dead?”

  She shot up straight. “What? No. Why would you think that?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “The nurse came out, Michelle left, you and Brody hugged…”

  “Oh, no. Sorry. I just wanted to hug him.” She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “No, he’s in the ICU. They did a craniectomy and now they’re watching him closely.”

  “A craniectomy?” I finally looked over at her. “What the fuck is that?”

  “His brain is swollen, so they removed a piece of his skull to allow for the swelling.”

  As if someone had punched it out of a sleepy haze, my heart started beating fast. “They removed part of his fucking skull?” my voice thundered. “Seriously?”

  “Shhh.” She frowned and held a finger up to her mouth, glancing around the waiting room. “Sit down,” she ordered in a loud whisper.

  I sat while she continued, “Yes, it’s a pretty common procedure for someone whose brain is swelling.”

  Like a giant tsunami washing over a tiny island, my mind was instantly flooded with questions. “What do they do with the piece they took out?”

  “I’m not positive in Mike’s case, the nurse didn’t say, but typically if they can save it, they tuck it into the patient’s abdomen so it’s preserved by his own body.”

  Holy shit.

  “So he’s gonna be okay?” I asked slowly.

  Kacie’s eyes looked up to the ceiling and for a quick second, I thought maybe she was praying. “Not sure. He’s definitely not out of the woods. It’s going to be a long recovery.”

  I looked back down at the floor and closed my eyes.

  “Listen, Viper—”

  “Don’t,” I stopped her.

  “You don’t,” she scolded. I glared at her to scare her off, but she lifted her chin higher and kept going. “I’m not going to tell you how to feel right now because I have no idea how you feel. I’ve never hurt one of my friends like this. What I’m going to tell you is that regardless of what happens, it was an accident. You didn’t set out to hurt him; it was an accident. Beating yourself up over it will only hurt both of you, and right now, we need all the positivity we can get. So feel sorry for yourself later. Fall apart and be pissed later, at home, but we need you to be strong for Big Mike now, and for the rest of us.”

  Do not cry.

  “You’re right.” I nodded.

  “Damn right I’m right.” She looped her arm through mine and rested her head on my shoulder again, staring straight ahead with me. “I love you, Viper.”

  Fuck… Do. Not. Cry.

  Thankfully, Brody rounded the corner again at the perfect time. “Hey.” He walked over to us, looking exhausted with dark circles under his eyes. “We can go back to the private ICU waiting area, but we can’t actually see him yet. You guys wanna?”

  “Absolutely.” Kacie hopped up and walked past Brody.

  He laughed as he watched her walk by, full of independence and attitude. Shaking his head, he turned back to me. “You coming?”

  I wanted to say no. I wanted to sit there and pout. I wanted to sit there and feel sorry for myself. I wanted to disappear.

  But Kacie was right, so I stood up and nodded. “Lead the way.”

  Brody’s hand clapped my shoulder hard and he offered a tight smile as he turned around.

  “By the way,” I added, “that woman you have there… hold on tight to her. She’s pretty amazing.”

  BRODY AND I walked side by side toward the ICU waiting room. I’d never been in an Intensive Care Unit before. It was different. Instead of a hallway with rooms on each side, it was more like a pod—one central hub in the middle with all the patient rooms circled around it. Before we reached that central station, there was a waiting room on the right side. It was smaller than the waiting room in the ER, but it was also more private. When Brody and I walked in, it was empty except for Kacie and Michelle.

  We rounded the corner and my eyes met Michelle’s on accident. I didn’t look away; neither did she. She didn’t seem to be angry anymore, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what she was.

  “Hey.” She sighed and puffed her cheeks out. “Can I talk to you?”

  I shoved my hands into my pockets and nodded. “Sure.”

  “Ummm,” Kacie stammered as she stood up, “Brody, I’m gonna go grab some coffee and water. Wanna come with and help me carry?”

  “Sure,”—he looked back and forth between me and Michelle—“assuming I’m not needed here for security?”

  Michelle sniffed and shook her head, looking down as she played with her wedding band. “No, we don’t need security.”

  “All right, we’ll be right back.” Kacie pushed Brody’s chest gently and they left the room. I sat down in a chair across from Michelle and waited. I had no idea what she wanted to say. A million different things ran through my head, and I was prepared to take whatever she needed to give out.

  Finally, after a long awkward silence, she looked up at me with puffy, red-rimmed eyes and sighed heavily. “Viper, I’m so sorry.”

  What?

  “Huh?”

  “I’m sorry about the way I acted before, and I’m even sorrier about the things I said.” She grabbed the wadded-up tissue off of the coffee table and started picking at it.

  “You don’t have to apologize, Michelle—”

  Her eyes swept up to mine and she cut me off. “Yes. I do. No matter what happened, he really is your best friend, and you didn’t deserve that from me. I know you love him, and I know he loves you. I was just…” Her voice trailed off as she shook her head back and forth.

  My throat felt tight. I was getting choked up because she was choked up.

  Do not cry.

  I got up and went around the tabl
e to her couch and sat down. Not knowing how she would react, I hesitantly put my arm around her shoulders. Me hugging her may have been the last thing in the world she wanted at that very moment, but I couldn’t help it. I had to hug her. Thankfully, not only did she not punch me in the face, but she leaned into me just a little and rested her head on my chest. “Don’t say any more, okay? Let’s just sit here and… I don’t know,” I sighed.

  She sniffed. “Pray?”

  “Nah,” I said confidently. “Mike is as strong as they come. I’ll be surprised if he’s not trying to sign himself out of here this time tomorrow.”

  “MICHELLE?”

  I was sound asleep and nearly jumped out of my skin when a nurse came into the waiting room and called Michelle’s name. We’d dimmed the lights a few hours before to try and get some shut-eye, but the catnaps were few and far between until this last one, when I finally crashed. I blinked quickly to try and force the room into focus just as Michelle hopped up and walked toward the nurse. They disappeared around the corner as I sat up. Brody heard me and cracked his eyes open too.

  “What’s going on?” he whispered loudly, trying not to wake Kacie, who was still sleeping against his shoulder.

  “I don’t know.” I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. “The nurse just came in and called Michelle out. Hopefully Mike woke up and asked for her or something.”

  The words were barely out of my mouth when Michelle reappeared in the doorway, teary eyed. “What’s going on?” Brody asked, no longer worried about whispering. Kacie jolted awake, blinked once or twice, and was instantly alert.

  “I just talked to Dr. Reese.” She sniffed. “Apparently Mike’s had a stroke.” Her voice gave out and she trailed off.

  Kacie gasped and rushed over, pulling her in for a hug as Brody and I sat, stunned.

  “What does this mean?” Brody asked.

  “They’re doing an EEG in a little bit to check his brain function and then they’ll know more,” she mumbled through sobs into Kacie’s shoulder.

  My stomach dropped for the hundredth time in the last twenty hours.

  Brain function? Holy shit.

  Brody went over and sat on the other side of Michelle, gently resting his hand on her leg. “Has he woken up at all?” he asked.

  Michelle never lifted her head to answer him, but Kacie looked at him with sad eyes, pressed her lips together, and shook her head slightly. “No, he’s been out since yesterday at the rink.”

  Brody leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees as he stared down at the ground. With each passing second, the room got smaller and smaller around me, and I suddenly needed to get out. I’d never been claustrophobic, but at that moment, I felt like I couldn’t breathe in there.

  “I’ll… be back,” I stammered as I wobbled to the doorway. Once in the hallway, I started jogging, desperately looking for an exit. Any exit.

  I took two lefts, one right, and an elevator down to the main floor and I was finally outside. I thought for sure once I was out of that room and outside I would feel better, but I was wrong. No amount of sunshine and fresh air could take away the dread that had permanently planted itself in the pit of my stomach. I walked up and down the sidewalk with my fingers linked on the top of my head, trying to make sense of what was going on, but I couldn’t.

  “Viper!”

  I turned when I heard my name to see Taylor, Big Mike’s little sister, hurrying toward me with tears streaming down her face. She threw herself into my chest and started sobbing. I wrapped my arms around her and let her cry for several minutes. Once her shoulders stopped shaking and she was done, she pulled back and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt.

  “Sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” She looked up at me and tried to smile. “I just saw you and all of a sudden, I lost it.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve almost lost it myself a bunch of times.”

  “How is he? Is he awake yet?” Her eyes begged me for good news, any little sliver of hope to hold on to.

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what Dr. Reese had told Michelle, so I just shook my head. “Not yet.”

  “Can you take me up there? I have no idea where I’m going.”

  “Sure, follow me.” I turned and headed back into the last building in the world I wanted to be in, not because I didn’t want to be there for Mike and Michelle, but because I wanted to go back in time and undo what had been done… by me.

  We took the elevator up to the third floor, made one left, two rights, and we were back to the waiting room. Michelle and Kacie were still sitting close together on the couch holding hands, and Brody was pacing on the phone. Once Michelle and Taylor saw each other, they both started hugging and crying again.

  “I can’t believe you came.” Michelle sniffled as she pulled back and cupped Taylor’s face in her hands. “You must’ve driven all night.”

  “Are you kidding? Of course I would be here.” Taylor’s breath hitched. “He’s my only brother.” When those words left her mouth, Michelle’s face twisted and she bit her lip to keep from breaking down all over again. “Is he awake yet?” Taylor asked.

  Michelle shook her head. “No, and unfortunately, he had a stroke this morning.”

  Taylor’s hand flew up over her mouth as she gasped.

  “But,” Michelle added quickly, “the nurse came in right after Viper went downstairs and said that while he’s nowhere near out of the woods, they’ve stabilized him for now, so we can go in one at a time to talk to him.”

  Michelle turned away from Taylor and looked at the rest of us. “Is it okay if I go in first?”

  “Of course,” Kacie answered immediately. “We wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “Thanks,” she muttered quietly. “I’ll be back soon.”

  As soon as Michelle was out of the room, Taylor let out a huge sigh and plopped down onto the couch next to Kacie. “This is unreal.” She shook her head, staring incredulously at the coffee table.

  Kacie nodded. “It is.”

  “Wait,” Taylor looked around the room quickly, “Where are the kids?”

  “Michelle said they’re with her neighbor Jodi.” Kacie responded.

  “Oh, okay. So…” Taylor asked slowly, “what exactly happened? Michelle called, but we didn’t really get into it over the phone. She just said there’d been an accident at practice.”

  I knew right then that I would hear that question over and over for the very near future, and every time someone asked what’d happened, I felt worse than the time before.

  “Um…” Brody paused. He was choosing his words carefully. “We’d just finished our workout and he was playing a game one on one. He got checked and slid into the wall really hard.”

  She scrunched her eyebrows together and curled her top lip, clearly not liking what she’d just heard. “Who checked him?” she asked.

  “Me,” I spoke before Brody had a chance to. “It was me, Taylor.”

  Her eyes flashed over to mine for a quick second before she threw her hands up in the air. “Oh, thank God. I was worried it was done on purpose, like someone was out to hurt him.” She turned back to me. “I’m sorry, Viper. This must be really hard on you too.”

  “Huh?” I was confused.

  “This whole thing”—she waved her arm around the room—“must be hard for you too. I mean, clearly you didn’t mean to do it, so this must suck for you especially. I’m so sorry.”

  She sounded as genuine as I’d ever heard another person sound, offering up her apology to me, the person who’d put us all in this situation. I was stunned. I didn’t know how to answer that. I quickly glanced up at Kacie, who appeared to be reading my mind and was giving me a sympathetic I-told-you-so smile.

  “I should be the one apologizing, Taylor,” I finally said.

  She shrugged. “I mean, if that makes you feel better, fine, but I don’t think anyone here blames you.” She looked at Brody and Kacie and then back at me. “I certainly don’t.”
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br />   “I appreciate it, but I still feel like a giant dick.” I took a deep breath. “I wish I could go back in time and do it all over again.”

  “Well of course you do,” she said matter-of-factly. “That’s life. When something bad happens, we always wish we had a do over, but that’s not how life works unfortunately. Shit happens and we have to react to it. Good shit, bad shit… it all happens, but I doubt anyone that has ever been around the two of you together thinks for one-half a second that you did this on purpose. You love him like a brother; we all know that.”

  Do. Not. Cry.

  Clearing my throat, I looked down at the tile beneath my feet and nodded slowly. I was searching my brain for what to say next when Michelle somberly walked back into the room. We all stared, waiting for her to say something, anything.

  Her eyes were red and swollen as she hugged herself tightly and sat on the couch next to Taylor.

  “Honey,” Taylor asked slowly, “are you okay?”

  Michelle didn’t say anything; she simply shrugged. “He looks awful. He has a bandage around his head, and he’s hooked up to all these machines that are breathing for him. He doesn’t look like my Mike anymore.”

  Without saying anything this time, I got up and left the room quietly. I needed the break I didn’t get last time when I’d run into Taylor.

  Two lefts, one right, and the elevator.

  I found a bench right outside the door at the very moment my legs decided to give out. Who knew a hard-ass concrete bench could be so comforting? I ran my hands through my hair and rested my elbows on my knees, staring at the concrete slab below me. An ant slowly walked up to my foot and stopped. I wondered what it was like to be an ant. Did they have friends and families? Did they accidentally hurt each other? Did they feel guilt? I’d fought like hell my whole life to keep my feelings in check and never let people see them, but the last two days were testing that more than any other time in my life. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep it together.