Flawed Perfection (Beautifully Flawed, #1)

Chapter Fifty Three

I'd never seen the man that stood in front of me, but I knew that look. My skin crawled with it as he looked back at Adam and me. He opened his mouth to speak, and all I could see was the movement; all I could hear was white noise. I felt Adam's hand go slack in mine, and the world spiraled back at me. The force of the realization knocked the breath I had been holding out of my body. I struggled to breathe as the words pounded into my brain and shattered my soul.

"There's nothing we could do for him."

Him. Bobby. Gone.

My head jerked in slow motion as I heard Adam's knees hit the floor. The hospital droned, but all I could hear was Adam's sobbing at my feet; his fists pounding into the ground. I realized I was still staring at the doctor unblinking as my brain struggled to catch up—as I struggled to get air.

In my mind I was trembling, screaming Bobby's name, ripping at my hair. In my head I lost it. In real life I was standing doing nothing. Not even breathing.

The doctor's eyes trailed down to Adam and mine followed.

Realty jolted into me and everything suddenly was going too fast; adrenaline rushed through me as I pulled Adam into my arms—a broken shell—something I desperately wanted to be but couldn't. The noises bore down on me now, pulsating into my skull as I tried to grasp on to Adam as the beehive that was the hospital exploded in my brain.

"Tara?" I finally asked.

I looked over Adam in my arms to the doctor. He swallowed.

More bad news, but it wasn't that news.

"We aren't sure yet. She's comatose."

I nodded as I pulled Adam to the chairs where he continued to shudder. I closed my eyes as I tried to block out the noises around me. My senses burned with the imagined stench of death, the sound of sobbing and the buzzing of machines as the person on the other end struggled to live...or died. The worst part was the emptiness I felt growing within me; a black hole that fought to consume me, one that already consumed Adam.

Then I heard it—the running—a heaved breath as two sets of feet stopped in front of me.

"Oh. God. No," Vickie's voice hit an unbearable pitch.

"River!" she screamed in my face. "Where's my son?"

I pried open my eyes, and the look in my tear stained face told her what happened.

"No!" she screeched as I tucked my head into Adam's shoulder against the sound. "No!"

Her wails softened against the fabric of a shirt, and I knew Alec pulled her into his arms.

So we crumbled. A broken family even further broken by the lack of the one thing that held it together. Bobby.

Adam's sobs finally softened, but I felt the silent tears still continuing to stain my shirt. His, or mine—I couldn't tell.

It didn't really matter.

Once Tara's parents arrived I managed to pull Adam with me to go home. There was no point in standing around anymore. There wasn't anything we could do. Adam's parents had to handle the final things.

I realized walking up the stairs to our apartment was the worst part of it all. With each step it felt as though a thousand pounds of bricks was piled, slowly, agonizingly, on my chest until I reached the top.

Adam and I stood and stared at Bobby's apartment for a period of time that didn't seem it would end. We were glued to the spot, and I wondered if he was praying somehow Bobby would open the door and beg me to make dinner. I was praying for it, but there was no movement.