A Twist of Fate SERIES (Pentatonix)

(3) Run to You

( SCOTT )

After Pentatonix broke up in 2017, it was supposed to be the end of all communication between the five of us and the rest of the crew. It was supposed to be a heat-of-the-moment decision that turned into everlasting. We were supposed to forget each other ever existed.

But I didn't. I couldn't. Pentatonix had easily and quickly become my entire life, and that included every single relationship I had with every single person.

Hell, I had known Mitch since I was eight and Kirstie since I was fourteen. That's seventeen fucking years I've known Mitch, and eleven fucking years I've known Kirstie. Seventeen fucking years total that I couldn't just throw away and act like they were nothing.

And, so, when I realized that it was the two of them—of all people—in that car accident, I felt the brick wall of those twenty-three years come crashing down on top of me. Like every single memory we ever had was just gone to waste.

Especially when I find out Mitch is dead.

"Scott, listen to me," Kevin says frantically, but I can't. I can't listen. I should have left the past behind me, but I didn't. I'm the reason we haven't seen each other in six years; why we broke up in the first place; why we had to fire all of our loyal crew members; why we had to film a three-minute painful-smile video for all of our fans, revealing that, only after six years, we were parting ways, and then didn't even say goodbye to each other after the camera turned off.

If I hadn't been so fucking inconsiderate, I wouldn't be sobbing in the midst of a panic attack on the floor of the hospital emergency room, Kevin in a paramedic uniform kneeling down in front of me, desperately trying to get me off the floor before security came to take me away.

He eventually pulls me off the floor, then pushes me into a vacant room, yanking the curtain closed behind him. "Scott, you have to listen to me," he says again, but I still can't.

I'm helplessly gasping for air as sobs wrack my body; I can't see anything, or really hear or feel anything, either. My head is spinning, and it's already hurting from the sobs that emit themselves from my eyes and throat.

"No," I croak weakly, pathetically, helplessly, as I faintly see Kevin stand up. Great, now he's leaving me, too.

"Hang on," I think is what Kevin says in response, and he's back in only a couple of seconds, pressing a mask to my face and punching some buttons on some device. Immediately, I can breathe again, but the tears don't stop. "Just take deep breaths, Scott. There you go. In and out. That's it."

Under normal circumstances, I would have given him a look and he would have laughed so hard he'd be rolling all over the floor, even though it wouldn't be necessarily all that funny. But now, I look at him and he still has tears in his eyes, a concerned expression knitting his eyebrows together.

Silent tears are still in an uncontrollable, nonstop stream down my face, collecting and pooling on my shirt, my lap, and the floor, but at least I can finally breathe. Kevin gingerly removes the mask from my face and shuts the machine off, before taking a shaky breath.

"Will you listen to me now?" he asks softly, but I quickly interrupt him, my voice hoarse, weak, and strained all at the same time.

"Where is he?"

Kevin sighs and averts his eyes, though he doesn't seem all that annoyed. "If he's...you know, he'd be at the, um, morgue by now."

"Don't say that," I say through gritted teeth, angrily swiping at my eyes and my cheeks, but they just get replaced with more water. "He's not dead."