Texting Prince Charming

Interlude Part 9

Song is "Cross My Mind" by Arizona.

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For a moment, I just sat there. Did I hear her correctly?

"Shelby is alive?" I swallowed any doubt back down my throat as my mother nodded.

"Yes, she's—" she started.

But I quickly cut her off. "How? I... I heard her dying. The monitor. The other doctors were trying to save her." There was no possible way, was there? "I don't. I don't understand."

My head shook of its accord and hurt, like hell. Only there was no rationalizing with what I had seen, heard, felt. Knew to be true. That Shelby had died. Was dead.

And now all of it was wrong. So wrong.

I cringed at the small parts about last night I could remember. Drinking. The covered bridge. Lindsay. Leaving and apparently crashing Bert.

I was such an idiot. Only repudiating the facts wouldn't change a thing.

My body relaxed for the first time in a day as my heart skipped. By that worried look on Mom's face, she wasn't telling me everything. But I was ignoring it for a little while longer and relishing in the basic fact.

Shelby was alive.

I didn't wait for her to answer, throwing my legs over the side of the bed instead. The only thing tethering me to this room was the IV pinching my hand as I attempted to stand.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." My mom pushed me back by my good shoulder. "Where do you think you're going?"

I had to make sure she was all right. I had to make sure it was true, that she was alive and witness it with my very own eyes.

"I have to see her," I said, and tried moving past her again. But my injured knee wobbled and almost sent me toppling to the floor.

"Sebastian, stop!" My mom had to help me with sitting back onto the thin mattress. "You, are not in any shape to be going anywhere. And anyway, she's in surgery right now. What are you going to do, barge into the OR?" She cocked an eyebrow, daring me to counter.

"No. But surgery. What?" I had asked as three sharp knocks pounded at the door.

Mom exaggerated a sigh and shook her head. Guess she wanted to explain what all had happened and was as equally aggravated by the interruption.

"Come in," my mother shouted and tilted her head toward the door awaiting a response. It was probably a nurse needing to check my vitals.

The door creaked open, revealing Sheriff Atkins. My sisters weren't lying when they said he wanted to see me, apparently.

"Hi, Gary. What are you doing here?" my mother rounded the bed and gave the mammoth of a man a big hug. A disarming tactic that she used underhandedly whenever situations arose. And if the sheriff of the county made a special trip just to visit with me, it wasn't a good one.

As round as he was tall, the sheriff removed his brown hat while extricating himself from my mom. "Brenda." He paused and nodded toward me. "David is in the hall, and we were hoping to have a word with Sebastian." His sudden shifting on his heels proved he was uncomfortable even being here. That was obvious, seeing as he and his wife had been good friends with my mom for years. "With your permission of course."