Home > Everlasting Sin (Everlasting Sin #1)(29)

Everlasting Sin (Everlasting Sin #1)(29)
Author: J.S. Cooper

Chapter 13

Hudson

Present Day

The bus stop was in a desolate location. A location that fit my mood. I stood there waiting with panic and anxiety running through my veins, though it was the guilt that pervaded me the most. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called the hospital.

“Mercy Hospital, how may I direct your call?”

“I’m calling to check on a patient,” I quickly said into the phone.

“Sir, we can’t give out privileged information over the phone.”

“Jamilah Brown is her name!” I shouted. “I need to know if she’s okay!”

“Sir, I’m afraid you will have to come into the hospital.”

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” I shouted and hung up the phone angrily. I felt sick to my stomach as I stood there. If Jamilah didn’t make it, I would never forgive myself.

I wondered what I should have done to prevent this. I’d told Jamilah not to swim in the pool by herself. She’d promised me that she wouldn’t do it. Should I have told her mom? I hadn’t wanted her to get banned from swimming altogether, and she had promised me. She’d promised me she wouldn’t go without me.

But you can’t be there all the time, Hudson.

I closed my eyes as I thought about her in the pool. She’d gotten a cramp, her mom had said when she’d called crying. She’d gone swimming late at night and gotten a cramp in her legs in the deep end. She’d swallowed a lot of water. She’d nearly drowned. My heart stopped for a moment. I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know if she was okay. If she died, I didn’t know what I would do.

It’s a sign, a voice whispered inside of me. It’s a sign that you shouldn’t be with Riley.

Every time I slept with her, something bad happened. I knew the universe was telling me that I didn’t deserve her. She was too pure and innocent for me. She was good, while I was bad. That didn’t mean I would stop loving her. It just meant I had to start resisting her.

Making love to her tonight had been like heaven on earth. It had felt even better than the first time. I’d felt like I’d gone home again. She’d fit against me so perfectly. For a few minutes, everything in my life had seemed like it was going to be okay. If I closed my eyes and stood perfectly still, I could still smell her. That smell of sex and sin mixed together made my blood boil over. I hadn’t known that one woman could affect me so deeply. I knew in my heart that there would never be anyone else for me. Riley was the one. She had always been the one. I felt tears rolling down my eyes as I realized I had to let her go.

The bus pulled up around twenty minutes later and I jumped on it, making my way to a window seat. I stared out the window and wondered what it was I had done wrong in life to put me in this position. Then I felt mad because I was feeling sorry for myself. I still had my life. I still had my family. I’d had a pretty charmed life growing up.

My thoughts turned to Jamilah and the life she had being a latchkey kid, having to look after her brother. I should have done more. I could have tried harder. I should have been there for her. My heart thudded as I thought about her eager face and smile. All she wanted was to make it to the Olympics. We’d all had dreams like that at one point in time. I just wished she hadn’t gone in that pool at night. If only I hadn’t gone on the camping trip, then I could have been at home and taken her to the pool myself. I could have taken care of her.

The bus ride seemed to take forever, but that’s how it always was when you needed to get somewhere important. The ride seemed slow or the traffic was always crazy. I ran from the bus stop to the hospital. I ran as fast as I could and I didn’t stop, even though it was about two miles away. I knew that I couldn’t be that close and wait for another bus.

I pulled out my phone and called Jamilah’s mom as I approached the hospital. The sun was starting to rise, and I knew that Riley and the guys would be wondering where I had gone. A flash of guilt flooded me when I realized that Riley would be left with those vultures, but I knew she could take care of herself. I was scared that she wouldn’t talk to me again. I felt that I’d committed the ultimate betrayal by sleeping with her and leaving her by herself.

“Hudson!” Jamilah’s mom cried into the phone.

“Where are you? I’m at the hospital.”

“We’re in the ER,” she cried, and I felt my heart pounding as I walked quickly to find her.

I navigated the corridors in a cloud of fear as déjà vu hit me. I hated hospitals. They made me think of death. The last time I’d been in a hospital had been when Clara died and I’d never wanted to come back to one.

“Hudson,” Marcus called out to me in a soft voice as I walked into the emergency room’s waiting area. He looked small and worried as he sat there next to his sobbing mother. Tears were furiously rolling down her face, and as she looked up at me with small red eyes, I felt my feet freeze.

“How is she?” I asked after a few seconds, all the blood having drained from my face as I looked into her bleak eyes.

“She nearly drowned.”

“Is she okay?” I held my breath, waiting for an answer, praying to God that she was okay.

“They said she’s going to be okay.”

I felt my heart start again. I walked over to her and put my arms around her, awkwardly trying to comfort her.

“I don’t know what I would have done!” she sobbed. “My baby. My little baby.” She cried into my shoulder, and I patted her back.

“When can we see her?”

“I don’t know.” She continued to cry, and I just held her. I rubbed her back and smiled at Marcus.

I didn’t want them to see my pain and worry. I wanted to be strong for them. I wanted them to know that they could count on me as a man. I hadn’t been there for Clara when she’d needed me. I hadn’t been there to help her. I hadn’t been there for her mother when she died. I hadn’t known what to say or what to do. How could I have faced her, knowing that I’d been with another woman the night she died? It seemed to me that no mother would want to hear that her daughter’s boyfriend was a dog. I didn’t think she wanted to hear that I’d been about to break up with her daughter either. She didn’t want to know that my dating Clara had been a mistake. That my heart had belonged to Riley since we were teenagers.

“I don’t know if I can take this again.” Jamilah’s mom jumped up. “How am I supposed to look after my kids and work? I can’t seem to do both. My poor babies. I just don’t know what to do.”

Hot Series
» Unfinished Hero series
» Colorado Mountain series
» Chaos series
» The Sinclairs series
» The Young Elites series
» Billionaires and Bridesmaids series
» Just One Day series
» Sinners on Tour series
» Manwhore series
» This Man series
» One Night series
» Fixed series
Most Popular
» A Thousand Letters
» Wasted Words
» My Not So Perfect Life
» Caraval (Caraval #1)
» The Sun Is Also a Star
» Everything, Everything
» Devil in Spring (The Ravenels #3)
» Marrying Winterborne (The Ravenels #2)
» Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels #1)
» Norse Mythology