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...
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*ALTHEA'S POV*
November 2, 2023.
"Asher can't talk to you right now. He's in the ER because he fell during PT and hit his head."
"No, no, it's not possible." I shook my head, my trembling fingers digging into my palm, although I couldn't feel anything under the obliterating pain tearing through my chest.
I was living the nightmare again.
"I don't know how it happened. He wanted to do extra hours of PT, and I stayed with him. He lost balance, and I tried to hold him back, but I think I only pushed him more, and the next second he was already on the floor," Sarah rushed, her voice echoing faint and distant as she was probably whispering in a crowded hospital hallway.
Or maybe it was because I was the one traveling back to a cold waiting room, the day my world had crashed down.
"Tell him I'm coming, please."
"Wait, what—"
Her gasp was cut off as my phone's battery died down at this instant, and with it, my last indication of time, past and present blurring before my eyes.
The only thing leading me was this tug inside my chest, while everything happened as fast as flashes of color: the orange pendant my quivering hand clutched like some would have held prayer beads... the metal zipper of a still-filled suitcase... the blue 'sorry' I scribbled on a white card... the beige of the front door closing behind me... the red of a large apple on an airport sign... the purple silhouettes I glimpsed on the other side of endless aisles... the dots of light illuminating a square of darkness... the yellow car I jumped in...
... And finally, the wide brown of Carol's shocked stare.
"Althea?!" The nurse let me in as soon as she recovered from the initial shock of her night shift being interrupted by restless thuds on the backdoor, even if her eyes stayed as big and worried when she took in the suitcase behind me. "Oh god, Sarah didn't imagine it when you said you were coming. What are you doing here?"
"I need to see Asher. Where is he?" I glanced frantically around, in case his jade eyes would have miraculously appeared out of the darkness.
They didn't. Nevertheless, after waiting for so long, I found my glimmer of hope when Carol replied that he was in his bedroom, and I ran to the familiar forest-colored door before she couldn't even finish her sentence.
