Race

Chapter 24

Vee's P.O.V.

My eyes burned from all the crying. My vision was blurry. The image of the hospital room that I was in changing between distorted and clear every few seconds, my eyes never really focusing on the details but just staring into the space like it was a void.

I didn't dare to look at him. I just sat there in my chair, at his bedside, holding his hand and checking his pulse with my finger every few minutes or so, scared out of my mind and only trusting my own senses even though I knew that if he stopped breathing or his heart would stop, an alarm would go off, alerting the nurses and doctors.

I wish I could crawl back into the hospital bed with him and lie next to him very closely, feeling the heat radiate off his skin, feeling his chest rise and fall while breathing, like I had done earlier before the nurses had separated us and I had taken seat next to his bed where I had remained for the past 5 hours without ever moving from his side.

"Do you need anything?"

Niall had stepped into the room without making a sound. Jake had called him right after the accident had happened. Apparently he had been in Ireland at that point and he had arrived a few hours ago, having come driven down to us right after he had received the message of his brother being in hospital. Their parents had missed the last flight and were coming with the first flight in the morning.

"No, thank you, I'm fine," I answered, my voice hoarse from all the sobbing.

I could feel Niall's presence in the door behind me for a little while longer before he turned around and left again, probably going back to the area that Jake and him were waiting in.

Harry was out of immediate danger or at least the doctors had told us so after they had operated him. He had a severe concussion and a few broken ribs and bones. He had been extremely lucky. As lucky as you can possibly get when frontally colliding with a wall while partaking in a car race. It was a miracle.

But how had this even happened? How had he lost control like that?

I remembered sitting on my seat watching the race, I remembered Harry passing the start line once again and that was when it had happened.

The scene seemed to play out in slow motion in front of my eyes over and over again. Harry driving dangerously close to the left side of the track. Directly headed towards the left side of the arch. Him hitting it. Me jumping up from my seat and screaming. Me continuing to scream and wanting to jump down from the stand and run to him. Jake catching me and holding me back. Me clawing at his arms and screaming at him to let me go, while paramedics rushed to Harry's car. Jake finally letting me go and me running to the wreck, sobbing and crying. A paramedic holding me back as they freed the unconscious and broken form of the man I loved.

The rest of the night seemed to have been a blur. Us going to the hospital, Jake and me riding in the ambulance, me not being responsive at all and just staring at Harry's bleeding, still and unmoving body in horror. Jake calling Niall and Harry's parents while Harry was in the operating room, while I just sat in the waiting area, staring off into the distance, tears streaming down my face and not able to control my sobs in any way.

I had had a lot of days that had felt like hell. Bryan had done things to me that I could never say out loud and I had wanted to die and I had prayed to God and prayed and prayed to make it stop. But none of these days ever compared to what I had experienced tonight. Nothing that had ever been done to me had ever been as bad as watching what had happened to Harry today.

I was ripped out of my thoughts when I felt his hand move in mine.

"Harry," I whispered, not daring to speak any louder.