“Fuck.”
No more words are spoken. In a few short minutes, we screech to a stop outside the emergency room doors of the only hospital in Seaside. I’m out of the truck before Coop has time to shut off the engine.
I burst through the doors and look wildly around, panting in panic. I throw myself at the admission desk, startling the plump brunette sitting behind it when I start shouting.
“Theo Valentine! I’m here for Theo Valentine! Where is he? Where is he? I have to see him!”
“Ma’am, please, calm down!” She rises, hands held up, eyes wide.
I know I look like a madwoman, but I don’t care. Furious, I pound my fists on the desk and scream, “Take me to him now!”
Coop grabs my shoulders and peels me off the desk.
“Mornin’, Angela,” he says to the brunette, firmly wedging me under his arm. “Sorry ’bout that. We’re all upset—got a call they brought Theo in.”
I lean against Coop and weep into his flannel shirt, so scared, I’m delirious.
“Yes, not long ago,” says the brunette, sounding rattled. “I’ll see if I can get someone to come out and talk to you. Why don’t you have a seat in the waiting room?”
“Thanks.”
Coop drags me away from the desk and down a short hallway, catching me every time I stumble, his arm the only thing holding me up. When we round the corner and enter a sterile, brightly lit room filled with rows of chairs and one sickly plant dying in a corner, I pull up short, shocked to see Colleen sitting there in her Catwoman costume, crying.
She looks up, catches sight of me and Coop standing in the doorway, and cries harder.
She wails, “I can’t go through this again, Coop!”
I don’t know what’s happening. My mind is broken. Nothing makes sense.
Coop gently sets me in a chair opposite her, makes sure I’m steady, then kneels in front of her and takes her hands. “What happened, Colleen?”
Through her sobs, she tells the story. “W-we were at the Halloween party at Booger’s. Craig and I… We got into a fight. He was flirting with every girl there, just being obnoxious about it. And I know it was bad timing, but I was so mad, I told him about the baby—”
“Baby?” Coop says, startled.
Colleen nods, her shoulders shaking. “We haven’t been dating very long. He wasn’t h-happy”—she hiccups, wiping the back of her hand across her face—“and said it probably wasn’t even his.”
His voice hard, Coop says, “Do I know this idiot?”
“Craig Kennedy. From Capstone Construction,” she whispers.
Coop curses under his breath. “Okay. Go on.”
“We left the party late and went back to my house. We kept fighting. H-he was drinking. He was drinking a lot.”
Fighting nausea, I close my eyes. Not again. Please God, not again.
“When he was leaving, I tried to stop him. I grabbed his keys, but he pushed me down and left. I was terrified he was going to hurt someone, so I followed him in my car and I…I called 9-1-1.”
“That’s good,” murmurs Coop. “You did the right thing.”
Colleen looks up at him. Mascara tracks long black streaks down her cheeks. Her face is red and wet, and her eyes are haunted. “It didn’t matter, though,” she whispers hoarsely. “He ran through that red light anyway. He hit that little car with his big sedan without even tapping his brakes. I saw the whole thing. Thought I’d die from shock. I ran up the curb on Broadway before I could get control of my car.”
Her face crumples, she squeezes her eyes shut, and she winds her arms protectively around herself and starts rocking. “When I went over to the sedan, Craig was bleeding on his face, but his airbag had deployed. I think he was just disoriented, not badly hurt. Then I went to the other car…and…I saw Theo inside. Craig T-boned his car in the middle of an intersection, just like what happened to Theo last time.”
She folds over into herself, dissolving into loud, body-racking sobs. “Why would God do this to me again, Coop? How could he make me go through this again?”
Because God is a monster, I want to tell her. A monster who hates us both.
Before Coop can give her the hug he’s about to give her, I stumble over to Colleen and grab her, throwing my arms around her and squeezing her hard. She clings to me, sobbing.
I’m not sure who I feel worse for. Which of us has God fucked over the most?
I whisper, “You don’t have to go through it alone this time, Colleen. We’ll go through it together.”
“I know you and Theo are dating,” she sobs. “I saw you together at the party, then Suzanne told me you’d been seeing him, and I’m so sorry…I’m just so fucking sorry—”