Unapologetically, Juliet

Chapter Seventeen

THE first thing I saw when I woke up was the ASL "I Love You" sign waving in my face. Trixi sat cross-legged at the end of the bed I was in, while Shel sat to the right of me, up by my head, and it felt like she was braiding my hair.

"What happened?" I signed. I tried to swallow, but my throat felt like sandpaper, and my head was pounding like I had the worst hangover I'd ever had.

Trixi shrugged. "Your friend knows. The doctors haven't told us anything." At first, I had no idea what she was talking about. Not until Saber walked into the room holding two cups of coffee.

When he saw me looking at him, he froze where he stood and almost dropped the hot drinks in his hands. "Juliet." I cringed the second I heard my name. I figured he was going to launch into a lecture about how I should've stayed home and how it was really stupid, and pretty much every other true thing, but he didn't. He kinda just stood there.

"Can you both do me a favor?" I asked, before any of them could figure out what to say. All at once everything that had happened flooded back and I just kept seeing the terrified expressions on the faces of those two little boys when they looked at me.

"What?" Shel asked, finishing with my hair and taking a step back to admire her handiwork.

"Will you leave for a minute?" The three of them started to protest, but I shook my head. "Please?" I signed. Reluctantly, they each trickled out, Shel being the last one, blew me a kiss and shut the door behind her.

When nobody else was in the tiny hospital room except me, I immediately started sobbing. The tears I'd been holding in let loose and I turned over to face away from the door, and let the tears and snot and flakes of dried blood all run down together onto the stark white sheets in a messy puddle.

I cried for the two little scared boys who witnessed something terrible, I cried for the old man who'd hardly been breathing the last I saw of him, I cried because I'd promised Grimm nothing would happen to his car, I cried because Saber had been right, but most of all, I cried because my whole body hurt like a bitch and I was a baby.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and I jumped, trying to wipe away my tears and cover my face. I heard the familiar sound of the twins' laughter. Instantly, I turned to look at them and they laughed harder. Sitting up a little, I watched Shel spill the beans about how I was the sloppiest crier on the planet and no one should have to see that. Which I agreed with wholeheartedly.

"Too bad," Saber told me, his eyes hardened steel that didn't give away even an inkling of what was going on in his mind. "You scared me, you know that?" He crossed his arms and stood at the end of my bed, staring at me head on, while Trixi and Shel went back to where they'd been when I first woke up.

"It wasn't my fault," I blurted out quickly, as Shel took out the braids she'd just finished and started a new hairdo. At the end of my bed, Trixi pulled out her phone and began texting away rapidly. I figured it was either one of their brothers, or a work thing.

"I know exactly whose fault it was. That old man had no business driving in his condition," Saber snarled.

"How is he? He's okay, right?" His face fell and he didn't even have to say it. But he did anyway.

"He died late last night. He shouldn't have been driving in the first place, from what the doctors told me. He was unconscious before the accident and if your car hadn't stopped him, he probably would've hit the truck and killed his grandsons too." His every word was coated with bitterness.

Tears welled in my eyes again, but I blinked them back. "What about the boys? What happens to them?"

Saber's expression softened and he moved to the side of the bed across from Shel. "They're fine. Didn't have a scratch on them. They left with their parents this morning." For the first time, his eyes seemed to sparkle a little. "You're a hero, you know that?" Before I could even ask what he meant by that, Trixi passed me her phone.