In an Instant by Adrienne Torrisi Page A

mom laughs. “No, honey.” The word honey is like knives in my chest. She is so full of shit. Why is she even here? It’s all a show for Hanna’s dad.
    For once, I’m grateful for the drugs coursing through my veins, pulling me back into the warm darkness. I close my eyes, ignoring the hate enfolding me.
    The next time I open my eyes, I’m sure I’m awake. A part of me is disappointed because I wasn’t able to make it back to Jake. I desperately want to see him again.
    Something is different. I look around to see no bag of blood or liquid, no beeping machines, no tubes in my nose—nothing. Everything is gone. Am I really awake? Then my eyes lock with Cam’s green gaze as he leans over my bed.
    “Finally.” He smiles, his hands bracing the railing attached to my bed. “They stopped giving you drugs hours ago.”
    “How long was I asleep?” I ask. It feels like weeks.
    “Almost two days.”
    I try to bolt up, but I’m quickly reminded why I’m actually in a hospital bed.
    “Whoa, slow down there. You’re better, but let’s not run any marathons yet.”
    I can’t smile or laugh. It’s been too long. I have been asleep for too long. What did I miss? What happened in the last two days? My stomach turns at that thought. I need to know.
    “You said you’d tell me.”
    “And I will.”
    “Now,” I say emphatically. No more games.
    “Now,” he says sweetly, softly. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to. Regardless, he’s played his last hand, and there are no more excuses.
    Cam takes a deep breath and moves his eyes to the ceiling as he starts to speak. “Mel is okay, but she’s still in serious condition.” His eyes make their way back to mine as he explains, “She was bleeding internally, but they caught it right away, and they were able to stop it with surgery. She’s doing better. She’s been in and out, and she keeps asking for everyone. We told her you are okay.”
    I don’t miss that he didn’t mention Jake or Marcus to Mel, and anger starts to build. Are they keeping her in the dark, too? What is it they don’t think we can handle?
    “Jake …” He looks at the beige railing of my bed, tracing the bars with his finger. “Jake is pretty bad, D.” His eyes refuse to meet mine; instead, they are focused on the bars. I need him to look at me so I can read how bad it is. “But they think he’s going to make it. They gave him a sixty-five percent chance of survival. It’s better than half, and I know in my heart he’s going to pull through. The hardest part is over. The first forty-eight hours were touch and go.”
    The hardest part is over, and I wasn’t there for any of it.
    “They have him in a medically induced coma right now so he can heal, but they say, with each hour, his chances are better and better.” When Cam’s eyes finally meet mine, they are clouded with guilt. “It’s been so hard, D. We’ve all been here. No one wants to leave. Everyone is afraid it will be the last time we see you guys if we go too far away.” He looks back down and studies the bandages on his hand and wrist instead of looking at me. Then he shakes his head back and forth with disbelief. “Jake was thrown from the car. He was in the middle of the grass, just lying there.”
    I want to say I know. I saw. But then I think about how that would sound and figure I shouldn’t mention it.
    He doesn’t move on to Marcus, and I see his eyes glaze with mist.
    “Tell me,” I whisper.
    “Marcus is really bad, D.”
    With Jake, Cam was optimistic, but with Marcus, his entire body slumps. My stomach turns over from his words, even more so from his defeated body language. He has already given up.
    There is a small pulse of joy within me that he is still alive. I was so afraid he wasn’t going to be.
    Cam shakes his head and looks down.
    “How bad?”
    He presses his lips together and gives the smallest shake of his head.
    “It’s my fault,” I whisper.
    Cam’s eyes come up to meet mine as he wipes at