Things Money Can't Buy

Chapter 21

~*~

On autopilot, I rushed to Jason's hotel room and started frantically pounding on the door. It took him a minute to finally answer, and when he did, he came out with only a towel wrapped around his waist. He had clearly been in the shower as some droplets of water were traveling down his muscular chest.

After seeing my panicked expression, concern spread across his features.

I thought of all the worst-case scenarios for my brother. As I started to speak, I had trouble catching my breath as I was starting to hyperventilate. "My brother can't breathe." The words flew out of my mouth before he even said anything to me. Halfway through my explanation, I realized that I was crying. "I'm so scared for him. He's going to the hospital now. I'm sorry to bother you, but... I don't know what to do!"

"Let's head back," he said calmly. His voice was firm, yet gentle. "We didn't even unpack yet. Let's leave in twenty minutes."

He left the door to his hotel room ajar and walked away. I heard some rustling in the room.

"What about the meeting?" I shouted into the doorway where I knew he could still hear me. My head was swirling with the thoughts of my brother. Although I normally fought Jason on helping me, I didn't have the energy in me right now. The only thought racing through my mind was that I needed to get back to New York to see Evan. 

He returned to the door a moment later dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. 

A smirk spread across his face. "The meeting isn't urgent. We can come back again next week."

"What about the cost of the hotel room?" I asked. I was upset that this trip probably costed him a lot of money... money which was now going to waste if we were just going to come back again next week.

He stifled a laugh, waving his hand dismissively. "The cost was nothing. I'd rather make sure that you're okay--that your brother's okay," he quickly added.

I heard it--before he corrected himself, he said he wanted to make sure that I'm okay. Without even thinking, I dove head-first into his chest, bringing him into a tight hug. His body stiffened for a moment from my action. The smell of his body wash overwhelmed my senses, but it was so comforting. "Thank you."

He started to soothingly pet my hair with one hand and pulled me closer with the other. "Of course," he said gently. 

Reluctantly, I pulled away and saw that I had left his shirt a bit tear-stained. "Third time crying in front of my boss," I joked. I'm sure that I was a 'sight for sore eyes' with my puffy eyes and red, tear-stained face.

He chuckled. "Who's counting?"

Looking down at the floor in embarrassment, I murmured, "Apparently me. This time with a bonus hug."

He breathed deeply, putting his hand on the small of my back. He pulled his hand away a moment later, seeming to realize that probably wasn't appropriate for a boss to be doing. "You've been going through a lot recently. Let's just get you home," he said.

I wiped away my tears with the back of my hand. "Okay. Thank you."

~*~

Evan wasn't answering my calls, but I had to assume which hospital he went to because it was the closest one. It took a moment to catch my breath when I reached the reception desk. I didn't even notice I'd been running. "I'm here to see Evan Castle."

"What's your name?" the receptionist asked. She was a young, blonde woman that had a polite smile on her face.

"Anna Castle. I'm his sister."

"Okay, great. It does look like he listed you as an emergency contact. He's in room 403," she said to me.

My heart was pounding as I took the elevator to the 4th floor. When I entered the room, Evan was asleep. The heart monitor that was attached to him kept making a beep beep in a steady rhythm, so I figured that was a good sign. He was hooked up to an IV line and a bunch of other medical equipment. I took a seat in the chair that was in his room. 

A few minutes later, a nurse entered the room. "Hi, you must be Anna," she said warmly.

"Hi... yes, I am. What happened?" 

"He has a collapsed lung, likely due to his smoking. We had to put in a chest tube, but he's stable now. He'll be staying here for at least a few days, though." 

He smokes! Since when? I pushed that thought aside and breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

"He also put," she said, looking at the computer in the room, "his father, Victor Castle, as an emergency contact. Do you know how to get in contact with him?"

I froze. It surprised me that Evan put our father as an emergency contact. "Um, yeah."

The nurse nodded. "Great. If you could contact him, that would be a big help. He didn't give a phone number at the time."

The nurse left the room, and I stared at my phone blankly for several minutes. 

Did he want me to call dad? I hadn't spoken to our dad in ten years, and he knew that. I looked up at Evan, unconscious and connected to the IV line with a chest tube down his throat. Seeing him like that broke me down. 

In that hospital room, alone, I started to cry. I'd been crying a lot recently, which was a foreign feeling because I rarely cried. For years, I had bottled up these feelings of anger and resentment towards my parents. I'd just moved on with my life, living my life how I wanted to while dismissing the mistakes that my parents made. I always tried to distance myself from them because I was ashamed of them.  

However, Evan being arrested was a wake-up call that I needed. When my brother, the person that I loved the most, did something despicable--something that I had shamed my parents about for all these years--it gave me a strong feeling of cognitive dissonance. 

The walls that I had built up over the years came tumbling down, and the tears kept coming.

This collapsed lung didn't seem like a critical emergency, but it easily could have been. What would I have done if he died? I would have been alone... completely alone. Of course I had friends, but they had their own family. 

What other family did I have? I had Aunt Laura in California, who had just gotten engaged to her boyfriend. All of my grandparents were dead, and my dad was an only child, so there were no aunts or uncles from that side of the family.

As usual, I was a sensitive soul. Evan wanted me to call dad, but I didn't want to. However, it wasn't me who was sick. If Evan had continued to have a relationship with our dad even when he was behind bars, that was his choice. He had listed dad as an emergency contact when he came into the hospital a few hours ago, which meant that he wanted someone to let our dad know. That someone was meant to be me. 

I knew the phone number for the prison by heart as I had dialed it so many times when I was a kid. Between the ages of ten and twelve, I called my dad in prison nearly every day. It was heartbreaking at the time when my mom had to explain that dad wouldn't be able to come home for twenty years. Now, it was only eight years until he'd be released. 

I entered the digits into the phone and dialed. They hadn't changed the phone prompts in ten years, so the muscle memory of the buttons to push to get ahold of my dad quickly returned.

I told the receptionist my name. I was on hold for a few minutes until a familiar voice came through the line. A familiar voice that felt like a distant memory.

"Anna? Is that really you?" His voice sounded shaky, like he was crying.

I swallowed the bitter feeling in the back of my throat away. "H-hi dad."

~*~