“Do you know anything?” she cried into the phone. “Is Gio dead?”

Just saying it made it hard for her to breathe. Her mother stood next to her stroking her hair and back.

“No, but he was one of the ones rushed to the hospital. That’s all I know about him. I’m getting ready to leave now. I’m flying down. Jack...” He paused and Bianca heard him take a trembling breath. “Jack didn’t make it.”

The intense relief of hearing Gio was alive was replaced with bone numbing sorrow. Sorrow for Felix—sorrow for Gio—for all of them. Jack was their father and what Bianca had done to Felix and Gio struck her like lightning now. She hadn’t just come between two friends. These two were like brothers. “I’m so sorry,” her words were barely audible as the invisible fist that squeezed her windpipe didn’t allow for more.

He didn’t speak for a few moments but she heard his trembling breaths. He was crying. And more than likely he was all alone. Alone in his huge cabin. Bianca wanted nothing more at that moment than to be there to comfort him.

“I gotta go,” he finally said but he was clearly broken up.

Bianca knew it was too much to ask. A blatantly shameful request given the circumstances but even now like all the times she’d been helpless to fight her feelings for Gio, she couldn’t hold back. She’d beg if she had to. “Take me with you,” she whispered. “Please.”

To her surprise his response was immediate. “I’ll pick you up in a few minutes.”

The moment she was off the phone she rushed off to her room to pack a bag, her mother and Nana right behind her. She explained to them quickly through tears about Gio and Jack. The emotions utterly consumed her. The grief of their loss was overwhelming but at the same time Gio was injured. She didn’t want to think the worst but if Jack had been killed, how bad were Gio’s injuries? Were they life threatening? Was it something he would bounce back from or was it something that would alter his life forever?

And 5th Street—it was all of their livelihoods and it had been virtually destroyed. Noah had a child on the way. A family to think of now. All these things bounced around Bianca’s frazzled mind as she signed rapidly to her worried mother that she’d be fine. She was just processing it all, she wasn’t hysterical, even though she felt the incredible urge to let out a blood curdling scream.

She ran out the front door as soon as she saw Felix’s car arrive. Bianca promised Nana and her mother she’d stay in touch, and stay calm no matter what, even though she knew that latter was doubtful.

The paparazzi had followed Felix and were already snapping photos as she reached his car.

“Are you moving back in with him now?” one of the photographers yelled just as he snapped the photo of Felix’s driver taking her overnight bag from her.

“Is it true it was all for publicity?” a different one asked now. “Or did you really screw his friend to get back at him about Shelley?”

Bianca had been patient enough with these vultures and they had said the wrong thing at absolutely the wrong time. She didn’t care anymore if they got this on camera; she was so sick of them. With her middle finger in the air she yelled what she’d been wanting to say to them all week. “Go f**k yourselves, you bunch of blood sucking ass**les!”

Bianca actually felt a tiny bit better as she got in the car until she saw Felix’s grief stricken face. She hugged him hard feeling the incredible anguish she’d felt when he first told her about Jack all over again as he cried unabashed against her shoulder.

~*~

Gio stared at the news reports numbly, switching from one channel to another as they went to commercial, ashamed to admit the stories and images of Felix and Bianca hurt just as much as the coverage of the fire.

His second home, 5th Street had been destroyed. Jack was gone and Gio still had room to mourn for Bianca. He watched the latest reports that showed her getting into Felix’s car with her luggage and flipping off the photographers. They were now said to be on their way here—together.

Gio had never felt so stupid in his life. He’d hardly said two words since he came to, over an hour ago, and the doctors advised him that the pain he was feeling was from his body being slammed against the wall. He’d been bruised and scraped up pretty bad from all the flying debris but otherwise the worst injury he’d suffered was a concussion. They didn’t think it was too bad but they did warn the pain would probably worsen in the coming days when the whiplash and soreness really set in.

Even that had him thinking of Bianca. Memories of the day they’d gone snowboarding for the first time and the days after when he’d barely been able to walk but it had been worth every single ache.

Then they let Noah and Abel in. Both looked wretched and he knew something was very wrong. When they told him Jack hadn’t made it he’d gone mute. Not even his mom or sisters could get him to talk until he said the only thing to them he’d said at all: “Can I be alone?”

The only other thing he’d been sure to say after flipping through the channels on the television for nearly an hour was to Noah. “Whatever you do. Do not let Bianca in my room. I don’t even wanna see her.”

He knew it was stupid to continue to obsess over the reports on TV but even when Trinidad died it was the only thing that numbed him. Staring at the television put him almost in a trance. After a while he wasn’t even listening anymore just staring and watching the images.