Getting into a life threatening car accident really can change a person's outlook on life. 

The second the screeching metal sounds hit my ears, I braced for the impact--something that I most likely shouldn't have done considering everything I'd heard about keeping your body loose and relaxed upon crashing, but I couldn't help it. 

It was so involuntary, the tensing up and waiting--waiting to feel that pain, to feel nothing, to be a numb, dead body flung from a moving car, soaring through a shattered windshield to be nothing more than bird food for the vultures. 

Dark line of thought, I know, but I couldn't get the imagery out of my head, imagining myself as a slab on a metal table under an autopsy light from one of those bad crime shows always on at midnight when I couldn't sleep. 

If that did happen to me, what would my legacy be? 

My little sister would still be trapped under my step father's thumb, and I would be nothing more than a good memory, moments of happiness stuck underneath the rubble of a terrible childhood.

Instead, I blacked out. 

One second we're flying through the air, flipping and turning and there was screaming, though I wasn't sure if it belonged to me or Matthew, and then everything was silent. 

Was this what death was like?  Silent, peaceful, cool and calm, I felt nothing and floated through a subconscious blackened world with no stars. 

And then a light was shining directly in my eyes and I flinched awake, my head encased in a neck brace and my body rolling on a gurney into the back of an ambulance, Matthew sitting with his head on his hands braced against his knees nearby. 

I had tried to insist that I was fine, I could move all fingers and toes and recite the alphabet backwards, and yes I knew what today was and who was president--but they didn't care. 

Protocol, they stated as their reasoning for hauling me into the back of an ambulance that would've been better served for someone else in a real emergency, but they never heard my pleas.

And then they inserted a needle into my arm, flooded my veins with something both hot and cold at the same time and distinctly tasting of copper, and then the world faded away again, the remembrance of what I was supposed to accomplish that night ringing in my ears like a laughing joker, reminding me just how badly I had failed.

Coming to the second time, I was happy to find my clothes nearby and Matthew on his phone at my bedside, most likely speaking to a manager, friend, coworker or family member of mine. 

"No, he's fine.  They ran all kinds of tests, he just needs to wake up from the sedation--aaannnd there he is.  No, he just opened his eyes.  Yeah, I'll keep you updated."

"What happened?"

My mouth could barely form sentences, and the garbled mess that came out sounded more like 'Wud apped' but thankfully Matthew had mastered the art of the gibberish language and immediately answered. 

"We were on our way to the game and we were sideswiped at an intersection.  It wasn't my fault, if that's what you were wondering.  The guy was drunk and he's fine, you had a little bump on the head but no concussion, you just passed out and you're lucky man.  So fucking lucky.  Doc said it could've gone the other way if both of us weren't wearing seatbelts.  The car flipped twice but we landed upright.  I just have a few cuts from the glass, but you made it out with a bump on the head.  A bump on the fucking head!  What guardian angel do we have to thank for that?"

Guardian angels weren't really what I was thinking.  More like ghosts watching from the great beyond, maybe hopefully possibly interfering when they wanted to, if that was even possible. 

I liked to think it was, that my dad was watching me and keeping me safe from harm, but I didn't dare speak those words aloud to Matthew.  Dude already thought I was losing it when I tried to explain my unexplainable connection with V because of our parents. 

"You can get dressed, I was going to go and grab some coffee and tell the nurse or doctor that you're awake.  Don't go anywhere--" he said, but cut himself off as I raised my hand up pointing to the IV still stuck firmly in my arm. 

"Yeah, okay.  Be right back...and by the way, I'm glad you're not dead.  That would've been just my luck, finding a loaded best friend and just as he's starting to make it big, he dies on me!"

I laughed even though it hurt--he was right about the bump on the head--but I saw past the deflection in his humor.  I was grateful that he was alright, too, and I didn't mind telling him immediately after. 

He scratched his neck, seeming more than uncomfortable in that moment. 

"Alright, enough of the sappy shit, I won't impress that hot nurse with red eyes."

The moment he was gone, my head was spinning. 

Unconsciously my mind drifted to my little sister, and as soon as I found my cell phone, she'd be the first I would call to assure her that I was alright, but if Matthew was as good a best friend as I already knew he was, she was obviously the first call he'd have made.  Elodie tended to worry, and after first meeting her, he saw it first hand as she play kicked me and told me that was for not letting her know the second my plane touched down. 

But then V entered my mind, and there was nothing to stop the onslaught of emotions that came from it. 

Was this my father's way of telling me to move on, that she wasn't worth it? 

She was, after all, the reason that I'd even gone to that damn game in the first place.  If not for her, I wouldn't be sitting in a hospital bed...with only a bump on the head. 

Leave it to my dead father to send me a sign from the great beyond in the form of a knot on the back of my head. 

But then I remembered the significance of the accident. 

We were sideswiped at an intersection by a drunk driver...almost the exact same type of accident that V had been in as a twelve year old girl, except I wasn't the driver, wasn't drunk, and was on my way to see her.  Was this the universe's way of telling me we weren't supposed to be together. 

Of telling me that she wasn't worth it, that if she really cared she would've unblocked me and reached out the millions of times I'd wished and prayed for her to do exactly that? 

I pondered the different thought cycles my brain was taking as I took my time hiking up my pants being careful of the IV line, and then it was time for the shirt. 

Somehow, I was able to slide the sleeves on, though I did it through the IV wires.  I would just slide them out once they took it off, but the most peculiar thing happened when I began buttoning my shirt at the bottom. 

The door opened, and I called out to Matthew, "I just gotta put my shirt back on and we're good to go, man."

But it wasn't only Matthew waiting for me in the doorway. 

I turned. 

Time stopped.  

Maybe I had actually died, and this was just some kind of limbo, because suddenly the most beautiful angel I'd ever seen appeared in the doorway of my hospital room, flushed and frantic and so utterly, amazingly perfect. 

Pink dusted her lips and cheeks, adding more color and definition to a face that I'd committed to memory just in case I'd never get to see it again in person. 

Her hair was styled to perfection, the only thing proving that she'd been out of sorts the thin, dark chocolate colored strands that were floating around that only added to her appeal. 

Eyes defined with layers of black eyeliner and sparkling eye shadow, the makeup didn't take away from her natural beauty like it did with most who caked it on in order to change the way they were perceived.  

For a moment we were lost in each other's eyes.  I didn't even notice Matthew's presence until he was already gone, and then it was only the two of us.  I was frozen.  I had no idea what was going on...and then she spoke. 

A stuttered 'hi' that had me choking out the same sentiment, but watching her through curious and too-hopeful eyes, there was a sinking feeling in my chest. 

She had most likely just come from the game after singing, and that fact wasn't lost on me. 

But then I asked the question right on the tip of my tongue, and I just hoped it wouldn't scare her off. 

"What are you doing here?  I mean, okay I get why you're here, I just meant...did you not sing tonight?"

"I-I didn't hear about the accident until I was already done."

A surge of pain almost damn near gave me whiplash as I realized the real reason she was there.  She was there to check on me, make sure I was fine, and that was it.  She pitied me, and she probably heard that I was going to the game...she probably realized that it was for her, too.  

God, did I feel like an idiot. 

"So you what? You just wanted to come and check on your ex? Or was it something more?"

She didn't see the hope in my eyes, but I could hear it in my own damn voice. 

"Something more."

I stopped fucking breathing at her answer. 

"I bet you did amazing," I somehow choked out, though I knew she could already sense how uneven I was, how the foundation of control for staying away from her that she had poured through me after our breakup was crumbling just at he mere sight of her. 

That didn't necessarily mean what I wanted it to mean, though.  She could've still just been here for pity, something I definitely didn't need from her.  I could do better from there on out, would do better, because her watching me suffer from her absence was the one thing I couldn't bear--aside from the losing her already. 

"I would've left without doing it if I knew about your accident before."

"No, you wouldn't have. Not for me."

My answer came immediately, because how could it not?  All these months of radio silence from her, I was pretty sure I got the message, loud and clear. 

"Eli-"

"No, it's okay. I don't need your pity. I see now how wrong I was..."

How wrong I was to hold out hope for someone who didn't think I was worth it.  For someone who wouldn't let me help her through her pain...for someone who didn't trust me with that pain, to treat her right and prove to her just how worthy I was of that love.  The thought almost broke me, but I could find someone else and show them just what I was worth, someone that wouldn't be Virginia. 

"Wrong? No, I-"

And then Matthew knocked on the door, interrupting us in the midst of a stand off that had me on the tips of my toes and my head downcast at the same time.  I wondered what it was that she was going to see, but at Matthew's intrusion it was looking like that was all I was going to get.  

I started to turn my back, until her fierce and commanding voice bled into my ears. 

"Eli Shepherd look at me right now."

How could a man not listen to a command like that, from someone that beautiful?  And I hadn't even let my eyes wander the white outfit she'd been wearing clinging to her like a second skin because I knew the moment I did it, I would be in more trouble than I already was. 

"I was not giving you pity, and I did not drive here just to make sure you were okay."

I hadn't even realized Matthew had already left before she spoke her second sentence, but I was glad to be alone for this, because my words slipped past my mouth before I could change them.  All the built up resentment that I held for her just fell out of me, because goddammit I loved the woman, and it felt like she just didn't care. 

How could she leave so easily, cut off contact so easily?  

How could she not suffer as much as I had from her absence?  Did she really not care?

"Then why did you come? You already made it perfectly clear how you felt about us months ago."

"No, I didn't. Because I was just making excuses, because I was scared. Because I have issues and pain and so much anxiety I could fill a stadium with it. Because I couldn't handle my insecurities and be in a stable, healthy relationship with so much shit piled on in my life, and it was unfair of me to ask you to have to deal with that so soon, because it was all so new...."

"So you're saying now that you're ready to be with me, after everything? Did you just expect me to wait around on you for you to get your shit together and we'd live happily ever after?"

Okay that was petty, but I was pissed.  Yeah, I was on my way to the stadium to ask for her back, and I was prepared to not take no for an answer, but after that accident...something in me flipped. 

I deserved to be the one that she fought for, for once, because it was obvious in our almost nine months apart that she hadn't fought for me one single time.  I had called, texted, left voicemail after voicemail until that damn mailbox was full on her phone until she blocked me, and I wasn't ashamed to admit that it hurt.  A fucking lot. 

"No, I knew it would be unfair of me to ask you that, but I didn't know...I just knew that you'd be there tonight and I was going to find you and try to see you."

The same exact night that I was going to see her, too?  That couldn't have been a coincidence, but the anger was still coursing through my body even after her confession. 

"Really? Even though I'm pretty sure my number is still blocked from your phone, and I can't access any of your social media unless it's from someone else's phone?"

She recoiled, almost like my words had slapped her in the face, but I had made sure my voice wasn't sharp, but questioning and desperate for the answers that she hadn't given me. 

"I didn't want to be able to contact you, because I knew if I had a way, I would do it in a heartbeat. I had to make it a clean break, or I'd go back to you the second I heard your voice. With how often you were calling and texting, it was bound to happen, so..."

My pulse jumped in my throat and a sheen of sweat broke out on my forehead at her answer. 

Was this it?  Was this really happening, or was it in my mind?  Of course I forgave her.  I had forgiven her the moment she appeared in my hospital room, but I still had questions, still needed answers to what had changed so drastically. 

"And what changed? Your dad's death? Or was it something else?"

Her explanation, filled with everything I had dreamed of her saying to me echoed in the air after it was all said and done. 

Her trauma from her father, finally healing from all of that damage and running into my best friend on the plane...it was everything and more that I had ever wanted to hear from her, things I'd only ever imagined her saying to me in my dreams and there she was, flesh and bone in front of me. 

"Virginia..."

My body was calling to hers, begging for me to reach out and touch her, but the moment I took a step forward, but before I could fall to the ground, Virginia was there, her vanilla and sugar scent clogging up my nose and making me drunk on her with the very first touch. 

And one touch just wasn't fucking enough, not after so long apart. 

I was going to be greedy, because that's what I deserved, to be greedy with her, to take and take whatever she would allow, whatever she would give, because I didn't know how much of this was a head trauma induced hallucination and how much of it was reality. 

The moment our eyes locked, I was swimming in sinful thoughts of everything I would do to this woman the moment I was healthy and we didn't have tons of bullshit to sort through when it came to our relationship, if it were even that yet.  I still had more to say, but my lips on hers was the only thing I could focus on in that moment. 

I dipped down just as she reached up, and for a blissful second, everything was as it should be.  V's mouth caressing mine in a silent, honey sweet kiss and her arms wrapped around my body, soft and pliable against me, and we weren't in a hospital where I'd been injured in a car accident, her family hadn't royally fucked her over, and she wasn't close to mega stardom, just like I wasn't inches from reaching my basketball career. 

We were only two simple people in the world, two people who found each other against all odds and maybe from some psychic, ghostly interference from our dead parents. 

But of course, someone always has to interrupt our most sacred moments, and this one happened in the form of Matthew Thornberry, being a literal thorn in my side. 

"Are you fucking kidding-"

"Mr. Shepherd. Glad to see you're healing up nicely."

I held Virginia close to me as my doctor explained everything that had happened and all the tests they'd run. 

I couldn't close my mind off.  I hadn't expressed my emotions yet to V, and I could tell by her fidgeting and biting her lip that she was nervous, probably about the fact that I couldn't open my damn mouth--unless it was against hers.

I'd rectify that the second I was discharged. 

***

A/N:

Hello my lovely readers!

Continue to the next update for THE FINAL CHAPTER!!!!!!!