Swallow

Chapter 1.88:

Note: Previously published in Drowning as Bonus Chapter 2: Ezra.- New Edit.

"She's pregnant. Please help her." I cried in the back of the ambulance as I held onto my girl.  The paramedics tried pushing me away to get to her. I fought them as hard as I could. She needed my help. 

She was going to die and I had to save her.

"Son, you will need to let us do our job." The man taking her vitals said as I struggled through the bodies to get by her side again.

Riley hadn't opened her eyes once since the accident happened and I desperately needed her to be alright.  I would spend the rest of my life apologizing for doing this to her and I prayed it would be enough to get her back. 

"But she's bleeding so much. Make it stop. Please help her." My ordinarily strong voice sounded small as I choked my tears back.

The paramedics arrived on the scene ten minutes after I called for help. They immediately splinted her arm before the fire and rescue team came and moved in to rip open the car to get her out. Her wrist was bent at the wrong angle and didn't look quite right. It was the same one she used to hold herself in place during the crash.

The accident I caused.

It was my fault. I hurt Riley and I didn't mean to. 

One of the paramedics who helped pull her from the demolished car was standing over top of her. He was using some kind of odd-shaped scissors to cut the bloody clothes from her body as we barreled down the road with the sirens blaring. It left bright red streaks behind, staining her legs. There was so much everywhere and I had no idea where it was coming from.  It was getting so much worse since they moved her to the stretcher.

Even the large gash under her eye looked deeper than it was in the car.

I should have listened to Riley when she asked me to slow down. Better yet, I shouldn't have let my jealousy over her relationship with Aiden get into my head enough to put her in this situation in the first place.  I screwed up. My brain was just so torn up after what Brynn told me she saw happen in the house and I couldn't let it go.  I always suspected there was more between her and Aiden that I didn't know about, but I never really wanted it to be true. 

I couldn't blame Riley for looking for someone who wasn't such a fuck up. I had given her every reason to look elsewhere.  Tonight was proof that I was a terrible person. She needed someone stable to help her with the baby and I wasn't even close.

I should have been a real man and told her what was going on in my head. But unfortunately, I had never been one to open up and share my feelings with anyone.

My Dad had made sure I learned that lesson at an early age. One night, he came home and caught me crying over a broken toy. He called me a pussy and decided to teach me a lesson by punching me in the jaw repeatedly until I blacked out.  I woke up in my bed with my mom apologizing and making excuses for him like she always did.

I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I saw that defeated look in her eyes that my mom always carried to this day.

I didn't want that for Riley.

Instead of telling my girl I was scared to be a dad because of my past and who it made me, I tried to push her to do something she didn't want to do.

I didn't know what else to do. 

I never had the happy life Riley had growing up and was ashamed of it. I knew I was no good. I was horrible to her and would make an even worse father.

I was sitting in the back of an ambulance watching the girl I loved suffer because I couldn't control myself.  Why did I do things like this? Why was I so wrong all the time?