“Yeah of course, love you too, baby girl.”

I hang up. Before Jax can say anything I whisper, “Can you take me home now please?”

The last thing I want to do is fall apart at work. Getting lost in the sweet smell of the bakery while decorating cupcakes doesn’t have the same effect on me as it did minutes ago. All I want to do now is curl up in my bed and get lost in the memories.

He must see how much I’m dying inside because he nods and works on cleaning up. I close my eyes, and by the time I open them again, the kitchen is spotless. You can’t tell that we’ve been in here for almost two hours. It’s almost laughable how easy it is to erase something. I hear Jax speaking to Sam, but they’re too quiet for me to understand anything being said.

The cab ride is a blur. I’m barely aware of his arms around me while the endless amount of guilt suffocates me. As Jax helps me out of the taxi and into my apartment building, I’m losing my mind. I want to be strong enough, but I’m sinking fast. The memories that I work so hard to keep buried are rushing to the surface.

My body trembles from the emotional pain I’m intentionally causing myself. The memory of waking up in the hospital with Logan by my side is so powerful that reality disappears. I’m suddenly back in that bleak hospital room while he struggles to tell me we’re all we have left.

I woke up a little over twenty-five hours ago, but I haven’t really been here. I’ve been in and out of sleep the entire time, trying to piece together what happened, but my mind won’t let me. Everything is confusing.

Logan sits in a chair beside my bed, clutching my uninjured hand. I know that whatever he is going to say is bad. Really bad. He has tears in his eyes and he hasn’t talked about our parents, or Hadley. Not once. Every time I bring them up, he just shakes his head.

I have no idea what he means. “No” as in he doesn’t know yet because they’re not stable yet, or “No” because . . . I won’t let myself go there. I already know our dad is dead, there’s no way he could have survived.

My body convulses as I remember all the blood. The broken glass. No, he didn’t survive. Even though I know that he’s dead, I knew it before someone rescued us, I still pray that I’m wrong.

I allow myself to hope for the best, that maybe by some miracle he did survive like the rest of us. That they were able to stop the bleeding and give him a transfusion. He had to have survived, I can’t live without his help.

He’s my hero.

My dad didn’t die.

He wouldn’t leave me.

“I-I-I don’t know how to tell you this . . .” He stops talking, tries to compose himself.

I whisper, “Logan it’s fine, we’ll get through this together.” I wait for him to nod.“Now tell me what it is, how’s everyone doing? I haven’t seen Hadley since they put her in a different ambulance. Is she doing okay?”

I struggle to speak because my throat still hurts from not using it for two weeks. He holds out my water for me to sip. I swallow a few times, testing my throat. I wonder if it will ever stop hurting; even with all the meds they have me on, everything aches. It’s as if I’m reliving the accident without realizing it and I’m going through all of that pain, and desperation to escape again and again.

After I am able to speak again without it hurting so much, I ask the question that I’m dreading. “Are Mom and Dad . . . ar-are they okay? Di-did they make it?” That had to be the hardest question I have ever had to ask. I was barely able to put the words together.

Logan doesn’t say anything for awhile and when he finally does, I wish he didn’t. Ignorance is bliss.

“They didn’t make it.”

The tears in his eyes fall while I just stare at him, shocked. He squeezes my hand tightly but I hardly notice.

“Does Hadley know yet?”

When Logan looks into my eyes, his face full of so much remorse, it’s then that I know.

“NO! NO! NO!” I scream over and over again until a nurse hurries in and gives me a sedative. The last thing I see before my lids close is the unmistakable torture in my brother’s blue eyes.

I did this.

He’s alone because of me.

I killed them. I killed Hads.

The memories begin to float away as Jax whispers, “It’s gonna be okay, I’m here, Ads,” and suddenly I’m in the present again. The memory was so strong I started screaming, not just in the flashback. My entire body quivers and I feel like all of the air has been sucked out of the room. It takes me a moment to realize that we’re back in my apartment. I have no recollection of riding the elevator.

Jax holds me tighter to his chest and tells me, “Take deep breaths in and out for me.”

I’m barely able to hear him, I have no control over my mind right now. I’m sucked back into the past. It’s a welcome pain.

Connor and Jax wait by a nearby tree outside the cemetery gates. I can’t open the car door. If I open it, it’s real. I want to stay in here and pretend that this is a nightmare, that I’m still asleep in the hospital.

The sun shines, it’s a perfect day in Southern California. Not even the wind blows. Today should be a perfect day, but instead it’s the worst day of my life. Today I have to come to terms with what I failed to do.

Logan reaches over and clutches my hand. “I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere.”

He pulls me into a hug, but I barely feel it. I’m numb. This isn’t real. It can’t be. Logan gets out of the car after letting me go. I make no move to take off my seatbelt. No, I’m not ready, I can’t do this.

I lock the car door. No, I won’t go through with this. If I don’t face it, it’s not real. They’re not dead. I’m going to wake up any minute now. I refuse to believe that I killed my family.

My voice is hoarse as I whisper the first words since the nurse sedated me days ago.“No, they’re not dead.”

A knock on the door stops me from having a full-blown panic attack. Turning my head, I see Jax. Logan stands in the front of the car with Connor. Logan looks how I feel, utterly broken.

I did this.

I broke him.

I destroyed our family.

I’m struggling to breathe when Jax says, “You’re stronger than you think, Ads. YOU. CAN. DO. THIS.”

He unlocks the door, opens it and kneels in front of me. He sets the Stargazer Lilies on the floor next to him before he fits my hands in his. As he says, “We’re all here for you, you’re not alone,” my eyes are transfixed on the bouquet at his feet. When did we pick those up? How long have they been in my hands?

He lifts my chin, pulling me out of the silent battle between forgetting everything, and not wanting to ever let the memories go. The pain in his sad eyes resemble mine. I caused him pain, too. All I do is hurt people with my selfishness.

“Don’t, Ads. This is not your fault. Don’t blame yourself for surviving.”

Surviving. Yes, I’m a survivor, that’s what the doctor told me, too. Too bad I feel like I’m dead inside. I ignore Jax because I don’t want to fight. If I tell him what I’m really thinking, we will just argue. I’m too tired to fight with him. I’m tired of everything.

“This can’t be my life . . . it can’t. I can’t . . . I-I-if I go with you, it will be real, they will really be gone . . . I don’t know how to live without them.”

Jax squeezes my hands. His voice breaks as he says, “It’s already real, Ads. It already happened, you can’t change that. You need to do this, we don’t need to rush, we can go when you’re ready.”