Rumors, Austin Butler

twenty-three

Irl

    Austin was currently in a hospital room, sitting next to his wife. Emery was alive, and stable, but she received a broken arm from the car crash. She was still asleep, but at least she was ok.

It turned out that Emerys blurry vision didn't allow her to see the intoxicated driver, that ended up hitting her. He was alright, but he shouldn't be. Austin wished he had gotten hurt, instead of his wife. Austin wished he could walk into that man's room and yell, and punch him.

"Austin?" Emerys small, and quiet voice broke Austin from his thoughts. He quickly rushed to her side, with a glass of water in his hand.

"Hey, baby. Drink this it'll help," Austin tried not to cry, he thought he had lost the love of his life.

"Don't cry, I'm fine."

"I thought I lost you, baby. Of course I'm gonna cry."

"But you didn't. And that's all that matters, I love you."

"I love you too."

-

The doctors that had helped Emery were currently in CT room, where they were looking over her scans, seeing if they had missed anything.

"I don't see why we are looking over them again, she seems perfectly fine!" One of the interns said, causing the doctor to get annoyed.

"Sometimes they can seem that way, but they could be hurt." Just as the doctor said that, something came into view.

"Shit! We have to go now!" The doctors ran out of the room, trying to get to Emerys room as fast as they could. But they were to late, she was already flatlining, and there was no way they could save her.

"Mr. Butler, we are so sorry, something came up on the CT that we didn't notice before."

"She's gone. The love of my life is dead. All because you didn't notice something," Austin let out a hysterical laugh, but the laugh turned into a sob. Everything was supposed to be okay. But nothing was.

Austin beat himself up for it even when she was alive, he shouldn't have let her leave the house. How could he be so stupid?

Now he had to break the news to all of her friends, and family. And he wasn't mentally prepared for that.

-

Florence was currently sobbing her eyes out, Austin had come over to tell her the news about Emery. Why would she let her leave? Knowing she was crying, and not fit to drive. Florence felt an overwhelming amount of guilt, not just for Emerys death, but for the lie she had been keeping from her their entire friendship.

"I can't tell her, but I can tell you, so that has to count for something."

"What?" Austin's broken voice asked out of confusion.

"The reason I didn't go to your wedding. I've been in love with her since I met her, and seeing her be happy with you and marrying you would have destroyed me. God, I should have called or texted." Florence finally confessed, a huge weight being lifted off her chest. After a long and awkward silence, Austin finally spoke up.