Chapter Thirty Nine

Boston


"Do you know who Aspen has been seeing?" Those are the first words that hit me when dad and Ashlynn make their way back into the waiting room from visiting Aspen.

"Sorry," I say with a shrug, avoiding eye contact. I'm not lying. I didn’t confirm or deny knowing, evading the truth, most definitely.

"What about you boys?" Dad asks the other three who are standing next to me.

They all just shrug, not giving answers either.

"Maybe it's someone on the football team?" Ashlynn says, looking at both Linc and I.

I just shake my head back and forth, determined not to outright lie to either of them, and lower myself back down to the chair that I'd been occupying before they'd come out.

"What I want to know is how they didn't pick up on the pregnancy when she was here last week," Jax says, moving the conversation away from who the father may be.

"They didn't run any blood tests last week. They didn't need to do x-rays. But because of the severity of the accident, they had to check before they could give her an x-ray." Dad says, wrapping his arms around Ashlynn from behind.

"Pregnancy would also alter what medicines they would be able to give her. Certain drugs can be harmful for a growing fetus, especially during the first six weeks of pregnancy," Dal says, spouting off random information about pregnancy like it's something he studies in his spare time.

When we all give him looks of confusion, he chuckles, shaking his head, "I looked some stuff up after the doctor told us earlier."

Dad and Ashlynn both nod in confirmation, just as the doors to the Emergency Room fly open and in flies a woman who should most definitely *not* be here.

Dad steps in front of Ashlynn as my mother, Victoria, barrels into the waiting room like the devil is on her heels.

"Where are they? And why didn't I get a call from you about there being an accident?" She screeches at my father, passing by me, Linc and Dal, not even noticing us. Shouting, she gets right in my dad’s face, "I had to hear from a couple of cheerleaders from their school that there was some sort of accident and that one of them had to be brought in by an ambulance."

"What are you talking about?" Dad says, nodding with his head towards the three of us, still sitting in our chairs, behind her. Victoria turns around, looking at the three of us, and then begins looking around some more. Now that she's turned where I can see her more clearly, her eyes are glazed, and she looks like she hasn't slept in weeks.

"Where's Jackson?" She shouts, going at Dad again, she raises her fists and begins hitting him, her purse flying and smacking him with every strike she takes.

It's only then that I realize that Jax isn't here with us, making me wonder where he's gone off to.

"Ma'am," a security guard says, grabbing ahold of Victoria's wrist, trying to get her attention, to which she turns and begins striking the security guard.

"Get your fucking hands off of me!" She shouts, pulling her wrists from the security guard and immediately turning back towards Dad, "Where is my son!" She continues shouting, asking where Jax is at. The security guard pull out a pair of handcuffs, readying them to cuff Victoria, when the bathroom door opens, the sound of a toilet flushing sounding through the waiting room as Jax emerges from the doorway.

"What the hell?" He says, taking in the scene before him, "Victoria?" He sounds just as taken aback as the rest of us at seeing her here.

"She's not supposed to be here," Dad says, turning his attention to the security guard, as he grasps ahold of Victoria's wrists as she strikes at him once more, "we have a restraining order against her. She isn't to be anywhere near these boys."

"They're *my* sons!" she shouts, trying to fight off dad and the security guard, as the security guard begins clasping one of the cuffs around it, then pulls both arms behind her back, to clasp her other wrist in the cuff. "You have no right to keep them from me! It's that stupid bitch’s fault!" Victoria screams, shouting at Ashlynn whose face is so read in anger that she looks ready to kill the woman in front of her.

"That is enough!" Dad grinds out between clenched teeth, his anger getting the better of him as he charges towards Victoria, his height causing him to tower over her five foot form, "you lost the right to those boys when you decided to fill your veins with chemicals. You lost your right to those boys when you up and abandoned them. You legally gave up the right to those boys when you signed them away, saying and I quote "that you didn't want to be tied down by four little heathens." So, dear Victoria, this has absolutely *nothing* to do with my *wife* and everything to do with *you*. If you so much as come within sneezing distance of any of them again, I will bury you so deep in court that you won't be out until their kids are graduating High School, do I make myself clear?"

"You have *nothing* on me," Victoria huffs, trying to stand taller, trying to look that she isn't batshit crazy and didn't just storm up into the emergency room and make a huge scene.

"Try me and find out." Dad says, his demeaner and voice deathly calm, which in and of itself is scary, but the look on his face is a look that I have only heard of. It's his courtroom face. And I must say, it's kind of scary as fuck. Glancing at the security guard, mask still in place, he says, "Get her out of here!"

"You will regret this Collin Richard Jones," Victoria shouts, thrashing against the guard as he escorts her, non-too-gently, from the premises.

"Fuck!" Dad says, burying his hands in his hair, tugging at the ends, just like each of is boys do when were frustrated or stressed.

"Honey," Ashlynn says calmly as she walks around to the front of him, until she is barely a hairsbreadth away from him and grasps ahold my dad’s hands, releasing them from their hold on his hair as she twines her fingers with them, and lowers them until they are resting between both of their chests, "It's okay," she says, "don't let her get to you, that's exactly what she wants."

I watch the two of them, my heart beating rapidly in my chest at how selfish Aspen, and I have been as I take in how easily Ashlynn is able to calm him down, just like Aspen does to me. *What are we going to do?* I wonder to myself, as the gravity of the situation hits me in the face once more.

"Can we see her?" Linc asks, glancing at me and then at the other two, before turning his attention back to Ashlynn and Dad.

"I don't see why not; you are her brothers after all." Ashlynn says with an affectionate smile, but her words are a blow for me, because I have *never* looked at Aspen as though she was my sister. I would never have even considered doing the things that I've done to her, if she were truly my sister. I want to shout, *she's not my fucking sister!* But I think that would be just a bit too obvious, so instead, I bite my tongue and follow Linc, as he must have been paying attention when Dad gave the directions to her room, while I'd been too lost in my jealous thoughts.

When we get to her door, Linc stops me, "Are you sure you're ready to see her like this?" he asks, knowing just as well as I do, that the sight of her laying in that bed isn't going to be one that easy to take. Not again, and not so soon after last night. But I need to see her. I need to be with her, to hold her hand and see and know that she's okay with my own eyes. Even if it is only for however long we get to be in here before we're kicked out, or Jax and Dal decide that they want their turn.

I close my eyes, trying to mentally prepared me for what I'm fixing to face, and take a deep breath in, and then release it. Opening my eyes, I pin Linc in my stare as I say, "Let me see her."

When he opens the door and we step through, I was in no way prepared to see her hooked up to all of the monitors that they have on her. A breathing tube down her throat, some sort of monitor around her stomach. Her face is barely recognizable as bruising and swelling has started to set it, causing tears to fill my eyes with guilt.

"What have I done?"