“We did some shopping, some sight seeing. I had met a park ranger who offered to answer my questions that afternoon. Timothy flipped out. He claimed I was flirting with the ranger. Accused me of cheating on him again or wanting to, I told him he was being an idiot. He told me I should just put a knife in his chest if I was going to leave him because he’d rather die than lose me.”

“Was that a normal statement for him?”

“No, not when he was sober. He’d often make grand threats when he was high. I accused him of using again. We got into the you-still-don’t-trust-me fight again. I left our room and went to my meeting.”

“You left angry?”

“Yes.”

“And did you have an affair with the park ranger?”

“No! He was married with five kids.”

“What happened when you returned to the hotel?”

“It was late. Timothy was still pissed, we fought over dinner and he left.”

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know, he didn’t tell me. I didn’t follow.”

“And when did he get back?”

“It was around seven or so? He smelled like cigarette smoke and beer, I asked him if he’d been drinking because he was supposed to be sober from that too. He said he’d gone to a bar to calm down and someone had spilled a drink partly on him. We got into a fight over that. I’d pretty much had it and wanted to go home. We fought over that as we packed up.”

“You suspected he’d been drinking but you let him drive?”

“I tried to drive but he…” He glanced up and saw only Nick, sitting there, steady and still. “He told me to get my prissy rich boy ass into the car and let him do one thing for himself. So I did.”

“Even though you knew he was drunk you let him drive?”

“No…no…I suspected he might have but…he said…” Epi had to close his eyes. “I wanted to believe him.”

“And what happened during the car ride home?”

“We drove for a while without speaking and then he started talking crazy.”

“Define crazy?”

“He kept asking about the park ranger and if I’d bought him off to keep silent. He started questioning about people we knew, friends and neighbors, wanting to know which one’s I’d slept with. I asked him if he was high.” He’d screamed at him, pissed off and exhausted from the drama that never seemed to end. He’d snapped and screamed back at Timothy even though he knew he shouldn’t. “He flipped out, told me….told me to shut the fuck up. He told me I was stupid and selfish and thought I owned him.”

“What else happened?”

“I…I pushed up his sleeve and saw the needle mark. He hit me away, he told me it was a bug bite and I should shut up. I told him I couldn’t do it again. I told him I couldn’t live like this anymore. I…I told him I didn’t love him anymore.” There was no anger left in him, just bleeding hurt and he was suddenly painfully grateful that when he looked up he saw Nick and not a stranger. “It was a lie but I wanted to hurt him.”

“How did Mr. Ridell react to that?”

“He…he flipped out. Called me names, said I didn’t get to fuck him up and leave him like that. He said he’d kill me first.”

“And then what happened?”

“I…” He glanced to Shawn unsure if he should answer but at his nod he did. “I told him to go ahead. That it’d be easier if he did, that I’d rather be dead than see him use again.”

“And then?”

Epi knew he was going to lose it. It was unfair and it hurt. It wasn’t a memory he wanted to return to. His hands clutched the edge of the table and he knew he was getting short of breath. The last thing he wanted was a full on panic attack in the middle of everything else.

“Would you like to take a break, Epi?” Shawn asked carefully.

“I…” He did, he wanted to take a forever break and never speak another word about that day but he didn’t have that choice. He glanced up and Nick was still there. “No, I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” But his voice sounded shaky and he really wasn’t sure.

“What happened next, Mr. Whitmore?”

“Timothy went real quiet. He stopped yelling. The car sped up. I asked him to slow down. He went faster. I asked him to let me out but he just sat there. He…he…God…I…” He locked onto Nick’s eyes and didn’t look away. “He unlatched my seatbelt. It…I felt it slip over my shoulder that’s how I knew what he’d done but I didn’t react fast enough. He….oh God…he unlatched his own seat belt and the car was going so fast but nothing seemed to move…the car went off the road…he never even tried to slow down. It was…it was like the car started to fly but I knew…I knew and I couldn’t get my seatbelt back on…I tried but I couldn’t everything was moving so slow…Until we hit the tree….” He knew he should stop but he couldn’t now. The words had been uncorked and he couldn’t stop them from pouring out. “The sound was horrible and I know I was knocked out… I don’t know how long. It was almost dark when…when we…but it was dark when I woke up. I remember thinking it wasn’t so bad, nothing hurt…I wasn’t hurt….but when I tried to move…Timothy was moaning beside me but I couldn’t see him. I…it hurt so much…I had bones sticking out of my skin, it hurt to breathe…my leg was pinned when I tried to pull it out I blacked out again. When I came too again Timothy was silent and I thought I was dead. Everything was blackness and sounded hollow but it hurt too much so I knew I was alive…I…I couldn’t…I didn’t know…I…I didn’t know he was using again…I didn’t…He tried to kill me…”

Shawn put a hand on Epi’s shoulder and slipped a glass of water in front of him. “Take a moment.”

All Epi could do was nod. He picked up the glass but his hands were shaking too badly to hold it.

“If you can, Epi, would you state for the record how long you were trapped in the wreckage and what your injuries were?”

“Yeah…yes…I…I…think it was about ten hours before they found the car, fourteen before they got me out… They said if it hadn’t been such a mild night shock would have killed me but the weather was unseasonably warm. I had…I had been turned a little…trying to get the seatbelt back on so the airbag hit my right side. It broke the bones in my right ear, some metal or glass cut open my face here for the scar by my temple and eye. The airbag caused burns on my right side. I had a badly broken right wrist, a broken right forearm and compound fractures to my upper right arm. My right shoulder was dislocated, my right collarbone was broken. I had bilateral compound fractures of my ribs. My pelvis was broken in several places, both my hips were dislocated. I had a broken right foot, compound fractures of the right tibia and fibula, my right knee was torn apart, there were fractures to the femur as well. My lower left leg was crushed into the dashboard and console of the car. I was told most of my foot was turned into ground meat but the bones were crushed and tangled to about six inches below my knee. They amputated my lower left leg on scene five inches below the knee and I lost about another inch in surgery. If they’d taken anymore I would have lost my knee on the left side. I was covered in cuts and bruises, my lungs were bruised to the point that I could barely breathe by morning. Not that I really wanted to, each breath hurt in ways I can’t…” For the first time Epi saw sympathy in Nick’s eyes but there was no pity and no horror. “I had a bad concussion. I was in shock.

“I…a passerby worked for the local volunteer ambulance service. He saw the ground where we went off the road was over turned when it hadn’t been the day before. He stopped on his morning commute to look down over the embankment, if he hadn’t… I woke up to him calling the crash in as a double fatality. I tried to tell him I wasn’t dead but I couldn’t get enough air to speak. He heard me though, came to my side of the car but I couldn’t see him. My face was swollen up, there was blood in my eyes and glass stuck everywhere. He put his coat over me to keep me warm and I blacked out again. They left Timothy in the wreck while they tried to get me out. They covered him but I knew he was there. I didn’t really understand he was dead, I kept asking how he was.

“They kept me in a medically induced coma for almost a month. I’d been transferred back to Virginia by the time I came around. I had bolts in my pelvis, rods in my arm, pins in my ribs. My right arm and wrist were in a cast for over four months. I was in traction for three months for my right arm and leg. I was discharged to long term care as soon as I was out of traction but it was another couple of months before I could go home because I contracted pneumonia while in traction which slowed everything down. I was going to rehab every day but when I was discharged from long term care it was taken down to every other day and a couple of months ago down to three times a week. I’m still on blood thinners. Standing still hurts. My wrist will never be the same again and I’m told if I’m really, really lucky I’ll go from these stupid crutches to a cane. The worst thing, they worst isn’t that if there was an sort of merciful God I’d be dead, the worst is that Timothy did this to me and now I’m sitting here having to tell you because you can’t accept that he had more problems than just the drugs.” He dared to glance around the table and saw the horror on Timothy’s parent’s faces but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Tori had been very protective of him, he’d kept just how badly hurt Epi had been from anyone not directly required to know. Epi wasn’t even sure they’d known how close to death he’d been and how long term his injuries were going to be.

“I’m sorry, Shawn, I can’t do this…I just can’t…” He pushed his chair back and stood up but the world turned side ways. He stumbled against the table and his legs tangled in his crutches.  He heard people around him making noise but none of it mattered. His ankle turned and his fake leg wasn’t able to compensate.

Falling still made healed wounds hurt. Epi’s wrist always screamed in protest and his collarbone and ribs. He was told that some of that would fade but he held out little hope. The physical pain was bad enough but the humiliation of not being able to do simple things like stand up and leave when he wanted to stung far worse. Hands fell onto his shoulder and Epi struggled to throw them off.

“You okay? You hurt?” Shawn asked worried as he tried to get the metal crutches out from their tangle with Epi’s legs.

“I’m fine.”

“Don’t be stubborn let me help.”

“He’s fine.” Nick reassured and knelt down beside Epi. What Shawn had been struggling to do, Nick just did and got the crutches free and set to the side. “Need a hand up?”

Epi got himself turned onto his backside and bunched his legs up close to his hips. Getting up from the ground was ridiculously hard and one of the things he was working on in rehab. “Yeah.” He admitted and offered his left hand to Nick.

It took a good tug but Epi was soon hauled to his feet. He staggered a bit before he found his balance and took the crutches back. Nick let go of Epi’s arm only when he was sure the man was stable and then he moved to open the conference room door.

“Straight to the car?”

Epi shook his head. “I need a minute. Men’s room?”

Nick glanced around and spotted the sign. “Down the hall here.”

“I’ll be right back. I don’t need an escort.”

He wasn’t so sure he agreed with that. Epi was visibly shaking and it wasn’t from the shock of falling. Nick hadn’t lived through what Epi had and just hearing the accident recounted was enough to make him feel shaken. If it had been his story, he’d want a private moment to gather himself back together too. The last thing Nick would have wanted was to lose control where other people could see.

Nick waited in the hallway but Shawn came out of the conference room before Epi came back from the men’s room. The lawyer looked upset and he glanced around the hallway before he approached Nick.

“Where is he?”

“Men’s room.”

“I’d need a moment after that too. Timothy’s parents are a bit shaken. They hadn’t even seen photos of the wreck until today. I made them see them.”

“Good.”

“They’re not quite willing to drop the suit, they feel Epi isn’t telling them everything but I think they know they can’t win and poking at Epi just to hurt him more…well I think they’ve kind of accepted that he’s been hurt enough already.”

“Does he need to go back in there?” Nick nodded to the office.

“Technically? Yes but no, I’m not letting him. Take him home, make sure he eats dinner, make sure he’s not alone tonight.” Shawn’s eyes went a little round when he heard how it sounded. “Rent a movie or something, just don’t let him alone with his memories, okay?”

“Yeah. I understood.”

“I’ll get this wrapped up here and convince them they don’t need more from him.”

“What…what were they hoping he’d tell them? What are they after?”

Shawn glanced down the hallway and back to the office room before he spoke. “I can’t swear to it but Timothy, well, from what I’ve heard, he was always difficult. Even as a child. His parents kind of gave up on him well before Epi met him. I think they’re looking for absolution. I think they want to hear that there wasn’t anything they could have done if they’d been closer to him.”

Nick shook his head. “Nothing he says will give them that.”

“I know, you know but they haven’t figured that out yet.” Shawn smiled slightly. “I’m working on it. Let me get back in there, just get Epi away from here.”

Shawn didn’t wait for Nick to agree and it made Nick wonder if some of his rush to get away was because he didn’t like seeing Epi the way he was now. It wasn’t fair but he could understand. Understand or not, Nick was glad that the lawyer didn’t try to offer pity or sympathy to Epi both were emotions he doubted the other man wanted from anyone.

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