Mended

Prologue

Ethan's POV

I couldn't fucking breathe.

My chest heaved as I tried to clear out my vision, feeling droplets of some warm, crimson liquid streaming down the side of my face, dripping down into my lap. Sharp pain lashed out at every part of my body, the sensation only comparable to knives pricking at my skin. Through the chaos, three words repeated themselves inside of my head. It was a vicious pattern that tore apart my mind, reminding me of what I'd just done.

I fucked up.

Rain splattered down on the cracked windshield of my car, flooding the inside of the vehicle. I fumbled around, trying to find the door handle as the edges of my vision started to blur.

Somehow, I managed to find it, despite the darkness surrounding the inside of the car.

Pushing the door open, I stumbled outside and onto the asphalt below me, something that wasn't very difficult to manage since I hadn't been wearing a seatbelt.

Shards of glass littered the road below me, but I knew that none of them belonged to my car.

Someday, Ethan, your self-destructive tendencies are going to land you in a situation that you can't get out of.

And when that happens, it's going to be too late.

I groaned in pain as I tried to stand up, slamming my hand down on the side of my car for some support. Holding back a curse, I managed to hoist myself up until I was standing, using the driver's side door as an anchor so I didn't fall.

I didn't want to look, but I had no choice. And when I finally did look, when I realized what I'd just done, it took everything I had left inside of me to remain standing.

I fucked up.

There was a split in the center of the other car. The impact of the collision had almost caused it to split entirely in half.

If someone was inside, there was no chance of survival.

My throat began to burn as I pushed myself away from my car, stepping over the shards of broken glass and debris as I stumbled in that direction. As I reached closer to the destruction that I'd caused, fragments of what had happened flashed before my mind, each memory making the panic rising in my throat amplify.

Red solo cups and pounding music. White lines and a black table. Wads of cash being thrown around before the haze had taken over. Sweaty bodies and hands grabbing at me, shouting at me to stop. Chase and Aiden trying to rip the keys out of my hands. Rosalie crying. Izzy calling me.

I swallowed hard as my footsteps began to falter.

The rest of the night continued to flash through my mind, the different bits and pieces causing the invisible hands squeezing my throat to tighten their grips.

A car door slamming shut. My battered up knuckles gripping the steering wheel as I backed out of the driveway. Street lights. Neighborhoods.  Police sirens. Blurry glances at the speedometer of my car as I pressed down on the accelerator, craving to feel something, anything. Merging onto the highway without checking my blind spot as I pressed down harder on the gas, and then—

Nothing.

What had I done?

My gaze swept over the car flipped onto its side and the sinking feeling suddenly turned into drowning when I realized the make and model of the car.

I recognized it. Everybody in this city would fucking recognize it. My brothers would recognize it.

I dragged my eyes over to the side, searching the road until I found what I was looking for.

I paled as I saw the body lying a few feet away, as if it had been launched out of the car from the impact.

And then I saw the face.

Panic seized my chest so tightly that it became difficult to breathe under the weight of its grasp. My hand trembled as I reached for my phone. I clicked the first name I saw, unable to comprehend what I had just done.

The chain of events I'd just begun.

I was reckless. I lived to forget about the nightmares that haunted me; day and night. I lived to forget the blood and the violence and the devastation my family had gone through. I wanted to forget, but I never cared enough to realize that forgetting came at a cost. My actions had consequences, and in an effort to forget, I'd lost touch with reality.

"Ethan?" Sophia answered my call.

My throat burned. My lungs screamed for air. My chest ached, yet somehow, I found my voice. Feeling like I was in a daze, I slowly reached my fingers up and touched the side of my forehead, feeling the warm liquid dripping down the side of my head.

When I saw the blood, everything I wanted to say faded away until only three words remained. The rain turned heavier in its intensity, the water feeling cold against my skin as I stood in the middle of the road, feeling like I was floating.

Sophia called my name again and I spoke.

"I need help," I choked out, whispering the words that I'd never spoken before, even if they were the ones I needed to say the most.

And then, as I hung up the phone, I realized that if this was my wake up call, then it came at the cost of a war.

***

A/N: if you have no fucking idea what just happened, that's okay haha, it's supposed to be like that.

next chapter, it's the start of Izzy's POV (which will be most of the book) and all of the characters start coming back. thank you for being so patient with me, ily all <3