He'd gone beyond his player ways for her.
She'd grown beyond her traumatic past for him.
Together, their love was beyond.
Until one fatal accident.
__________
When she loses the love of her life in a car crash, Althea has nothing left in California...
Just a quick note to tell you the link to the Spotify playlist in the external link at the end of the chapter, if you want to find all the songs I put in the headers 😘.
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*PAXTON (ASHER'S BROTHER)'S POV*
March 9, 2020.
There were some phone calls you should never have made in your life.
No, I wasn't talking about breaking up with a two-month girlfriend in high school or endless hold music while waiting for a job answer.
I realized those were nothing when I'd had to click on my parents' contact name, and when they'd started explaining about a virus interrupting the Mediterranean cruise they'd been dreaming about for years, I'd had to cut them off to tell them their son, the red and crying bundle of life they'd brought home when I'd only been two and who had grown up to become my best friend, had been in a grave car crash on his way out of their home.
If it hadn't been enough, it was followed by a call to his agent to cancel his special practice with the Lakers, and with it, his dreams, indefinitely, because he was already fighting for his life.
Still, the phone in my trembling hands really became a ticking bomb when the screen lit up with that one name. Althea.
How did you announce all of that to the love of his life?
I had no word for it, and when she hadn't replied to my first call and the followings, I'd cowardly hoped she wouldn't phone me back until Asher would be able to talk to her and tell her everything was fine.
But here we were, thirty minutes later. My fingers waited until the last ring to slide on the screen, and still, I had no word, the echoes of my mom's sobbed gasps and my dad's empty breaths only making my mouth drier.
I couldn't even utter a 'hello', so I let her speak first.
"Paxton? You called me ten times?"
"Yes, it's about Asher."
"I stop you right here, if he asked you to convince me—"
"No, he didn't." I swallowed harshly, though, with the shuffling echoing through the other side of the phone, she surely didn't catch it, just like the ticking of the bomb that had now moved on the tip of my tongue. "Where are you? Are you alone?"
"I'm on the campus. Why?"
Good, she wasn't driving, and she wasn't alone if she felt faint. But now, I couldn't avoid it anymore.
"Paxton?"
"Asher got in a serious car crash. They've taken him into intensive care." I let it all out in one go, like a bomb, my eyes closing instinctively for the explosion.
