Chapter 1 - Ten Days Without Him
The first thing I remembered after the accident was the sound of a machine breathing beside me.
Not the impact.
Not the car.
Not the pavement.
Just a slow electronic rhythm and the feeling that someone had wrapped steel bands around my chest.
I tried to inhale.
Pain ripped through my ribs so violently that I stopped.
“Nicole?”
My mother’s voice came from somewhere to my left.
I opened my eyes.
The ceiling above me was white. A fluorescent light burned at the edge of my vision. Tubes ran into my arm. Something pressed beneath my nose.
“Mom?”
My voice barely existed.
Her face appeared over me, eyes swollen from crying.
“Oh, honey.”
She took my hand.
That was when I learned what had happened.
I had left work at 6:12 p.m. on September third. I had stopped at the corner of Elmhurst and Grant, waited for the pedestrian signal, and stepped into the crosswalk.
A car ran the red light.
It hit me hard enough to throw me several feet.
Then it kept going.
A delivery driver found me lying near the curb.
Three fractured ribs.
A collapsed lung.
A concussion.
Cuts and bruises along my shoulder and hip.
But according to the doctors, I had been lucky.
Lucky.
It didn't feel lucky.
The police wanted to talk to me, but there was one major problem.
I couldn't remember the collision.
Everything between stepping off the curb and waking in the ICU was simply gone.
That first night, Brandon came.
My fiancé walked through the hospital door looking like he hadn't slept.
For a few seconds, relief overwhelmed everything else.
“Brandon.”
He rushed forward.
“Nicole.”
He took my hand.
But something felt strange.
I couldn't explain it then.
His fingers were cold.
His eyes kept moving—not toward my injuries, but toward the monitors, the door, the nurses.
He asked one question almost immediately.
“Do you remember what happened?”
I blinked.
“No.”
His expression changed.
Only for a second.
At the time, I thought it was relief that I couldn't remember being struck.
Now I know better.
A doctor entered shortly afterward and explained that memory loss around traumatic events was common.
“You may never remember the impact itself,” she said.
Brandon stared at her.
“Never?”
“It’s possible.”
Twenty minutes later, he left.
He kissed my forehead.
“I'll be back tomorrow.”
He wasn't.
The next day, Mom arrived at eight in the morning carrying coffee she wasn't allowed to give me.
My sister Kayla texted that she was busy at work.
Brandon sent a message around noon.
Hope you're feeling better.
That was it.
I stared at the screen.
We were supposed to get married in five months.
Surely he would come after work.
He didn't.
Day three came.
Then day four.
Mom visited.
My daughter Lily visited.
Kayla stopped by briefly once, stood awkwardly near the door, and barely looked at me.
Brandon didn't come.
I called him.
No answer.
He texted two hours later.
Crazy day. Sorry.
I made excuses because sometimes love is less about what we know and more about what we're afraid to admit.
“He hates hospitals,” I told Mom.
She looked at me for a long moment.
“Nicole, you almost died.”
“He’s overwhelmed.”
Mom said nothing.
That silence bothered me more than an argument would have.
On day five, Lily came after school.
She sat beside me and braided a section of my hair.
At eighteen, she had inherited my stubbornness and none of my patience.
“Where's Brandon?”
“Working.”
She stopped braiding.
“Every day?”
“He has a project.”
Lily's expression tightened.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Lily.”
She shook her head.
“Forget it.”
There was something she wasn't telling me.
But pain medication blurred the edges of everything, and even a ten-minute conversation exhausted me.
By day seven, I had stopped asking nurses whether someone had visited while I was asleep.
By day eight, I stopped watching the door.
Day nine brought the first real victory.
The doctor told me my lung was healing well enough that I could probably go home soon.
I called Brandon.
Voicemail.
I texted him.
Doctor says I might be discharged tomorrow.
The message showed as delivered.
No response.
That evening, Lily visited again.
She was unusually quiet.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“You're a terrible liar.”
She forced a smile.
“So are you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You keep telling everyone Brandon is busy.”
I looked toward the window.
“Maybe he is.”
“Mom.”
“Not now.”
Lily studied me.
Then she reached into her pocket as though she wanted to show me something.
Before she could, a nurse entered.
Whatever Lily had been about to say disappeared.
The following morning, the doctor signed my discharge paperwork.
Mom was stuck at a specialist appointment she had waited months for.
Lily was at school.
I called Brandon.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
I tried once more.
Nothing.
The nurse helping me gather my things frowned.
“Someone coming to get you?”
“Yes.”
The lie came automatically.
Five minutes later, I ordered a cab.
Every bump on the ride home felt like somebody driving a knife between my ribs.
I sat with one arm around my chest and watched familiar streets slide past.
The closer we got to the apartment, the angrier I became.
Not dramatic anger.
Not screaming anger.
Something colder.
The kind that arrives after disappointment has finally exhausted every excuse.
Then the cab turned into my complex.
And I saw a car parked crooked near the entrance.
Kayla's sedan.
For the first time all morning, relief washed over me.
Of course.
Maybe Brandon had called my sister.
Maybe Kayla had come to help.
Maybe there was still some explanation that didn't involve the man I loved simply deciding I wasn't worth showing up for.
I paid the driver.
Getting upstairs took longer than it should have.
When I finally unlocked the apartment door, everything was silent.
Too silent.
“Brandon?”
No answer.
Then Lily stepped into the hallway.
My heart jumped.
“Lily? Why aren't you at school?”
She looked terrified.
Not teenage-nervous.
Terrified.
“Mom.”
She hurried toward me and took my bag.
“What happened?”
“Come with me.”
“What?”
Her fingers closed gently around mine.
“I think you need to see something.”
“Where's Brandon?”
She glanced toward the staircase.
And didn't answer.
A pressure deeper than my broken ribs began building inside my chest.
“Lily.”
“Please.”
She helped me toward the stairs.
Every step sent pain through my body.
At the second-floor landing, I noticed something else.
Cardboard boxes.
One near the guest room.
Another near the bedroom.
My pulse accelerated.
“Are we moving?”
Lily swallowed.
“I don't know what they were planning.”
They.
I stopped.
“What do you mean, they?”
She walked me toward my bedroom.
The door was almost closed.
Lily's face crumpled.
“I'm sorry, Mom.”
I pushed the door open.
And everything I thought I knew about the people closest to me collapsed in a single second.
Kayla was sitting on the edge of my stripped mattress.
Brandon was kneeling on the carpet.
Between them sat the metal lockbox my father had given me years before.
The one Brandon knew he wasn't allowed to touch.
A crowbar was wedged under the hinge.
Papers covered the floor.
Bank statements.
Collection notices.
My father's apartment deed.
My grandmother's jewelry inventory.
Brandon looked up.
The crowbar slipped from his hand.
Kayla went white.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then my sister whispered the sentence that changed everything.
“Nicole... you weren't supposed to come home until tomorrow.”
And suddenly I knew my ten lonely days in the ICU had never been about Brandon being afraid of hospitals.
They had been waiting for something.
May you like
The only question was what.
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