Read Wished Away: A Broken Fairy Tale for Free Online

apart, each nerve splintering in agony.
    “Come with us Jess. You need to come before it’s too late,” Sarg says from above us as Joey tenderly picks me up in his arms.
    “Charlotte. Where’s Charlotte?” I ask frantically looking around.
    “I called Kat from the ambulance and asked her to meet us here. She’s taking Char back to her house and will keep her there tonight so you can be with Dave.” Joey wipes my tear soaked hair from my face. “He’s been shot Jess. It’s not good. Not good at all.”
    I feel like my own life is slipping away with his words. My life is Dave’s. “He can’t die Joey. I can’t live without him.”

    The drive to Brick Memorial is painfully long. Even with the flashing lights of Sarg’s patrol car taking us speedily through the streets, every minute seems an hour. I’m resting up against Joey’s shoulder, staring blankly ahead, praying over and over for him to stay with us. I don’t care if he’s crippled, I don’t care if I have to take care of his every need for the rest of my life, as long as he’s with me, we can make it through anything. He’s always said that, and I believe that more now than ever. Just as my thoughts turn grave, Joey reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small pendant.
    He begins slowly telling me the details of the shooting. How Dave was responding to a house alarm and came upon a murder and hostage situation. The hostage was a little girl. Of course Dave wouldn’t have waited for back up if a little girl was in danger. When trying to save the little girl, the intruder had another gun he didn’t know about and shot him once in the stomach and another time in the side of his head. Joey told me how he was there with Dave after he’d been shot, that he stayed with him the entire ride to the hospital, then came straight for me. The doctors have to get him stabilized before they perform surgery and I can only hope I will get there in time to see him before he is taken back. I’m suffocating with grief thinking of the love of my life fighting for his life alone in a hospital bed right now.
    “Dave asked me to tell you he loves you and Char…” Joey chokes up before he can finish our daughter’s name. He grips me tightly and we both cry together. After a few moments he struggles to speak again. “I have to do this Jess. I promised him.” He takes a deep breath holding on to my shaking hands. “He said he wants you to be strong, to live, and to give you this.”
    I take the necklace and know exactly what it is. I’ve seen it countless times on his father. “Was he wearing this?”
    “No, it was in his pocket.”
    Anger pushes through my sadness wondering if he’d only worn the pendant, he might have had a different fate, but I can’t allow myself to question him right now. Dave would’ve always done everything he could to keep safe for me and Charlotte. He doesn’t deserve my questions. I take the pendant and put it on immediately, praying to St. Michael that he’ll protect my husband, that he’ll save him from being taken from us far too soon. I know Dave wanted to protect me, but I would never feel safe without him.
    We pull up to the hospital and Joey leads me inside and I feel like none of this is really happening. How can it be? Just this morning, we were lying in bed together planning out the rest of the weekend, and now he’s being kept alive by a machine. I have to see him. I have to touch him. One. Last. Time.
    We are rushed through the lobby and come upon a small sterile waiting room where Cam and Holden are sitting huddled together in the corner with Dave’s parents. I look up at Joey, “I need to see him now.” I can’t look over at Cam and Holden again, it’ll make me crumble.
    Before Joey can answer me I burst through the doors and am grateful when I hear Cam tell them to let me go. She knows me well enough to know when I need to be alone, and now is definitely one of those times. I need to see Dave and now . I