Three days of silence felt like three years.
Chase didn't show up to Monday's committee meeting. Marcus made some excuse about scheduling conflicts. Jasmine looked worried but didn't ask questions. The empty chair next to me might as well have been a crater.
Tuesday's meeting happened without him too. This time nobody made excuses. Just exchanged glances that meant "we all know what happened at the fundraiser but nobody wants to be the one to bring it up."
I sat there taking notes on voter outreach strategies like I wasn't slowly dying inside.
Wednesday he was still gone. Still not answering texts. Still not returning the three calls I'd made before I realized I was being pathetic and stopped.
His number didn't even ring anymore. Just went straight to voicemail with that generic robot voice that felt like a middle finger.
I went through the motions. Campaign work. Grant writing. Responding to emails with professional enthusiasm I absolutely didn't feel. Smiled at volunteers. Collected petition signatures. Pretended my chest didn't feel hollow.
At night I lay in my hotel room staring at the ceiling and wondering how I'd managed to fuck up the one good thing I had going.
Thursday afternoon, I opened a new note on my phone. Stared at the blank screen. My fingers hovered over the keyboard.
I shouldn't. I knew I shouldn't.
I did it anyway.
Started a new list. Just to feel like I had control over something. Like I could organize my way out of this mess if I just found the right words.
I stared at it. Added more.
The list didn't make me feel better. Didn't solve anything. Just sat there on my phone screen like evidence that I was still trying to write my way into being a person who knew what she was doing.
I deleted it. Rewrote it. Deleted it again. This was why I'd burned the journals—because lists didn't fix anything. They just gave you the illusion of progress while you were actually standing still.
That night I was lying in bed scrolling through Netflix options I wasn't going to watch when my phone rang.
Unknown number. I stared at it. Probably spam. Probably someone trying to sell me solar panels or tell me my car's extended warranty was expiring. But something in my stomach dropped anyway.
I answered on the fourth ring. "Hello?"
"Is this Zoey Hale?"
A woman's voice. Older. Shaking. Unfamiliar but somehow not.
"Yes?"
The pause that followed was endless. Like the world stopped spinning and forgot to start again.
"This is Margaret Donovan. Chase's mother."
My heart stopped. Actually stopped. Then started again too fast.
"We met briefly at the fundraiser," she continued. Voice cracking. "I'm sorry to call like this. I got your number from the committee contact list."
"What's wrong?"
She took a breath. Shaky. Wrong. "There's been an accident."
The room tilted. My vision narrowed to a pinpoint.
"What kind of accident?"
"Car. He was driving out toward the overpass. Lost control. They said—" Her voice broke completely. "They said he's lucky to be alive."
Lucky. The word sounded obscene.
"He's at County Memorial," she continued. "They're running tests. He's conscious but—" Another pause. This one worse. "I think you should come."
My hands were shaking so hard I could barely hold the phone. "Is he okay?"
"I don't know."
Those three words were the worst thing I'd ever heard.
"I'm coming." I was already moving. Grabbing keys. Shoes. My brain running on autopilot because if I actually thought about what she just said I'd collapse. "I'm leaving now."
"Zoey." Her voice stopped me. "He kept saying your name. When they pulled him out."
My throat closed. "What?"
"Before he lost consciousness. He kept saying your name."
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything except grab my bag and run.
The drive to County Memorial took twenty minutes. Felt like hours. My hands wouldn't stop shaking on the steering wheel. Every red light was personally designed to torture me.
The hospital parking lot was too bright. Too organized. Too normal for a place where people's lives were falling apart.
I parked crooked across two spaces and didn't care. The automatic doors whooshed open. Fluorescent lights assaulted my eyes—everything smelled like fear.
I found the information desk. "Chase Donovan. He was in a car accident."
The woman typed slowly. So slowly I wanted to reach over and do it myself.
"Third floor. ICU. You'll need to check in with the nurse's station."
ICU. Intensive Care Unit. The words didn't feel real.
I took the elevator because my legs wouldn't handle stairs. Stood in the corner with my arms wrapped around myself while elevator music played and I tried not to vomit.
Third floor, turn right. Follow the signs that pointed toward a place I never wanted to visit.
The ICU waiting room was beige and sad. Magazines from 2019. A coffee machine that looked older than me. And in the corner, hunched over in a plastic chair with her face in her hands—
Chase's mother.
She looked up when I walked in. Her eyes were red. Swollen. She was wearing the same dress from the fundraiser like she'd come straight from the event and never went home.
"Zoey."
"Is he—" I couldn't finish the question.
She stood, walked over, and did something I didn't expect. She hugged me. Not a polite greeting—a desperate, trembling embrace that said we were both drowning and maybe holding onto each other kept us from sinking.
"They won't let me see him yet," she whispered against my shoulder. "They said family only but he's not—he's not responsive."
My knees almost gave out.
"What happened?"
She pulled back. Wiped her eyes. "They don't know. He was driving. Lost control. Went through the guardrail."
The overpass. Our overpass. Where we'd sat on the railing with our legs dangling and pretended we weren't scared of falling.
"Was he..." I couldn't say it. Couldn't ask if he'd done this on purpose.
"They said it looked like he swerved to avoid something. But there were no other cars. No animals. Nothing."
Just him and the road and whatever was in his head that made him lose control.
A nurse appeared in the doorway. "Family of Chase Donovan?"
We both turned.
"He's awake," she said. "You can see him now."