ONLY THREE CHAPTERS LEFT OF THIS STORY! WOWEE THANKS SO MUCH FOR THOSE OF YOU READING AND SUPPORTING ❤️ ENDLESS LOVE

"It was him." I sobbed brokenly, my words incoherent. "Everything was him! The drugs, the crash, getting kicked off the show, the treehouse... everything!" I realized quickly that my words weren't making sense, instead coming out as muffled noises.

Brooks shushed me, and an EMT rushed over to us as he sheltered me in his arms.

"Savannah, honey, I'm going to need you to lie down. Can you do that?" The kind feminine voice asked me, touching my arms with her latex covered hands.

I stared at her blankly, not really seeing. It seemed that my mind had reached its limit today, and instead of answering, I found myself again unable to form a coherent sentence. My mouth opened and closed limply. Brooks made a move like he was going to let go of me, and my fingers tightened reflexively into his shirt. His warm hands pried them off, and he kissed the back of my palm before lacing our hands together. I felt myself being lowered slowly backwards onto the ground, but the lump in my throat wouldn't let me protest. Blood rushed through my ears, making me feel like I was underwater.

Above me, I saw the EMT and Brooks talking, and I picked out words from their lips like 'trauma' and 'shock'.

Traumatic and shocking didn't even begin to cover this night.

As the EMT started to undress me and tend to my injuries, I clutched onto Brooks' hand like it was my anchor to reality. I squeezed it so tightly that it was probably causing him pain, but his grasp on me never loosened. I stared at his face through wide eyes, conscious enough to take in every single one of his fuzzy features, but not enough for my body to feel the poking and prodding that was going on. He watched as the emergency worker did her job, and I could tell from the hard set of his jaw he didn't like what he saw.

I knew I should have felt exposed or embarrassed, laying on the ground partially naked and clutching a boy's hand like he was a child's cuddly toy, yet I couldn't summon any emotions at all.

I saw rather than felt a brace appear around my neck, and the word 'ER' floated around above me. My hand was tugged from Brooks' and I let out a strangled protest.

"She's losing a lot of blood, we need to get her out of here. We have to stop her moving first."

"Maybe she'd stop thrashing if you'd let me hold her hand."

I was thrashing? Weird. I felt like my body was stick straight— paralysed. The thought sent me into a panic, and my breathing came out ragged as I tried to reach out for Brooks.

Gentle hands caressed my face. "I'm right here. I'm still here. I'm not leaving you." The words appeared in my ear, and I instantly calmed, knowing without checking whom they belonged to.

"Okay, let's go."

The world became fuzzy then, and I fought through the haziness to stay awake. But the warm darkness was calling to me, and I felt myself slipping under with every passing moment. I struggled against it, but it was no use. The fingers of sleep pulled at me, luring me into the soothing blackness.

My body jolted, and then I surrendered.

***

I slipped in and out of consciousness for what felt like forever, unable to open my eyes but still conscious of people moving and speaking around me. I caught words and snippets from conversations; 'three days', 'bleeding', 'observation' and 'rest'.

When I finally awoke fully, I was surprised to feel that I was no longer in any pain.

"She's waking up!" Someone called out, followed by a loud "Shut up, dingus!"

I opened my eyes slowly, wincing as the light burned my retinas, and found three faces staring at me with concern.

"You three, give the girl some space!" Another higher pitched voice that I instantly recognized as Sarah's rang out.

Mia, Dallas and Jazmin each took a step backwards, Mia grinning at me sheepishly.

"Welcome back, sweetheart." Sarah smiled at me, her blue eyes watery as she stroked my arm soothingly. Her hands held a bright pink reusable coffee tumbler, and she placed it on the nightstand next to the bed.

I glanced around curiously, taking in the small, pale yellow walls, high windows and dozens of colorful bouquets dotted around the room. A machine to my left beeped, and I turned to find that I was hooked up to a bunch of noisy machines.

"How are you feeling?" Mia asked, and I turned my attention to her bouncy blonde curls and round blue eyes. Four pairs of eyes watched me with anticipation.

I surveyed my body in response and, aside from tweaks of pain that shot through me when I moved, I felt okay. My lungs were heavy and my breathing shallow, but I felt better than I had in the warehouse. I nodded my head slowly and tried to make my tone light. "I'm fine." I croaked, clearing my throat multiple times.

Something on my face must have contradicted my voice, because Mia burst out into tears right in front of me. Dallas pulled her into his chest and kissed her forehead, and Mia offered him a watery smile, making my chest warm.

"Oh honey, I wish you would have told us what was going on." Sarah exhaled, leaning into the bed to stroke my hair but being careful not to jostle me.

The McCormacks knew by now what had gone down at the warehouse, but they couldn't have known about everything else, could they? Sarah saw the question on my face and frowned. "Travis confessed to the cops everything. The stolen car in LA, the photos, the stalking," she paused to bite back tears of her own, "Brooks."

I swallowed through the thickness in my throat and when I spoke my voice was husky. "I didn't want any of you to get hurt. All of this is my fault. If I had just never come in the first place—"

"Stop that." Sarah scolded me. "I told you that you are a member of this family, and you belong here. None of this is your fault."

My eyes watered at her sentiment, and I laughed as I wiped the tears away. "Look at us all, being sappy." I joked, gesturing to Mia and Sarah. Dallas grinned at me, and the relief I saw in his expression was almost tangible. Even Jaz looked happier than ever.

I glanced around at my friends gratefully, yet I couldn't help but wonder where the one person I truly needed to see had disappeared to. Mia caught my frown and her eyes gleamed knowingly. She flicked a strand of blonde hair out of her face.

"He's down at the station giving an official statement." She told me quietly, glancing at Dallas quickly for reassurance, who nodded in return. "He hasn't left your side since you got here, but he couldn't put it off much longer. None of us expected you to wake up yet, the injuries to your head were more severe than we thought. He wouldn't have left if he didn't have to."

I reached up to touch the back of my scalp as I took in Mia's explanation, and my fingers found a row of stitches surrounded by a small bald patch. I winced in pain when the tape over the stitches moved.

"How long have I been in here?"

"About five days." Jaz answered, speaking up for the first time since I had woken up. My mouth popped open and I watched her in shock.

"Five days?"

Sarah shifted uncomfortably beside me. "You lost a lot of blood and your internal injuries from the crash were worse than anyone suspected. You broke a rib and punctured a lung and had a bad concussion. They had to operate to remove some of the glass in your legs too."

Oh. Well that explained why it felt harder to breathe than usual, and the pounding headache I'd had throughout the entire ordeal.

I shifted nervously in the bed as my next question bubbled up, tasting foul on my lips. "And... and Travis?"

Sarah's eyes hardened and her mouth pressed into a thin line. "He won't be hurting you, or anyone, ever again."

I didn't have to ask her to expand to know exactly what she meant; Sarah was a lawyer, and if she believed that Travis was gone for good, then so did I.

I opened my mouth to thank her when a new voice interrupted me, and I sat upright quickly despite the searing pain in my torso.

"...and no one thought to call me?" I caught just the tail end of the conversation, and strained to hear more.

"You were in the interrogation room, Brooks. What was I supposed to do? Barge in and deliver the message?" Another voice that I recognized as belonging to Lewis retorted with a sniff.

There was no response, because then the door to my room slammed open and there he was, beaten and bruised but alive, and staring straight at me.

My breath caught in my chest as he stared at me and all the worry and anger in his eyes melted away, revealing a soft, sensual look beneath that had my heart in a puddle on the floor. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the rest of our family and friends were swiftly departing, giving us a moment of privacy. Jaz was the last to leave, shooting Brooks an unreadable lingering glance before closing the door swiftly behind her.

"Hey." I whispered hoarsely, suddenly nervous. I had no idea where we stood or how Brooks felt about it all. Was he mad at me?

In the split second it had taken my mind to go from absolute euphoria to stomach-wrenching anxiety, Brooks had taken three large steps and closed the gap between us. He sat down on the bed beside me and gripped my face gently.

"I-"

The end of that sentence vanished forever from my mind, because Brooks chose that exact moment to lean in and crush his mouth against mine. I squeaked in surprise, but almost instantaneously I melted into him and opened myself up to his warmth.

He kissed me with the passion of a blind man seeing the sun for the first time, and I found myself returning his enthusiasm despite my lack of oxygen. Limbs and wires and blankets tangled around us, and I subconsciously pressed my body against his, craving to be impossibly closer.

He made a small sound in the back of his throat and went to pull away, but I whined and reached up to drag his face back to mine. He smiled briefly into me before his lips turned soft and gentle, exploring, as he stroked my hair, being careful not to touch my injuries. I poured my adoration and pain into the kiss, deepening it with every thread of emotion I had felt over the last two months, and through it, the small tears in my heart began to knit back together.

I leaned away only when my poor lungs couldn't go a second longer without air, and when I finally opened my eyes I stared at Brooks in dizzy bliss. His own warm honey eyes swirled with powerful emotions, and I blinked when his fingers grazed my cheekbone.

"I have wanted to do that since I was ten years old." He confessed breathily.

I chuckled and leaned my forehead against his. "Was it worth the wait?"

He didn't answer me, instead wrapping his arms around my hips, being careful of my ribs, and pulling me gently into his lap, melding his lips against mine once more. I twisted my legs around his firm torso, ignoring the sting of pain that accompanied the movement, and somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered whether the curtains in my room were closed. This was not exactly hospital-appropriate behaviour.

"Every second." He whispered against me, and I shivered.

My smile faltered as I thought back to Brooks' face when he had entered the warehouse that night, and I realized I still had so many unanswered questions to ask him. Where did I start?

"How did you know where I was?"

Brooks stiffened, his grip on my hand hardening. "When I woke up at the hospital after my fall I asked about you. Dallas said you were on your way here, but hours passed and I got worried." His mouth pressed into a firm line. "Then Dallas told me that you had sent him a text claiming you were going straight to the airport and had decided not to say goodbye after all."

I gasped loudly. The bastard had thought of everything. "That wasn't me." I promised him, "It was Travis, it had to have been. I never would have left again without saying goodbye."

The idea that, for even a moment, Brooks had believed I would leave Beaufort without so much as an explanation after everything that had happened sent a pang through my chest.

"I know," He appeased me, still not meeting my gaze, "that's what I tried to tell everyone. They kept saying to let you go, that you were leaving just like you had always planned. But I could feel it... something was off. Wrong. I checked myself out of the hospital when dad was in the cafeteria and took Dallas' car, and that's when I saw the wreck near the house."

Brooks took a deep, steadying breath, his fingers gripping fiercely into the edge of the bed. "I called for help after that, and the cops found you both much faster than I could have. They told me not to go in until they got there but I— if they were too late..."

Brooks steadied himself, and I hadn't noticed that I'd started crying until water spilled onto my hands. I wiped my face quickly, but they kept flowing.

"When I walked in and saw that he was holding a gun and had you pressed against the wall, I thought I was going to kill him right then and there." He admitted, the muscle in his jaw ticking as he relived the situation and all of the emotions that tacked onto it.

"And then I saw your face, and I was expecting you to look frightened. But you weren't." Brooks finally met my gaze, and he held it for a long moment. "You looked so strong. You were bruised and bleeding and so exhausted that you could barely hold your head up, but you had this look in your eye like... like... like you weren't afraid of anything."

Was that how I looked? In my mind I'd been a hot mess— hyperventilating and seconds from collapsing. But it was true that, in the brief moments when I had fought back, I did feel strong. The thought jolted me upright and for the first time in what felt like forever, I realized I was proud of myself.

Warmth unfurled in my stomach and I couldn't help the small smile that found its way onto my lips.

"Thank you for coming to find me. For believing in me." More hot tears leaked down my cheeks and snot dribbled from my nose, but I couldn't have cared less.

Brooks returned my smile, reaching over to push my unruly dark hair away from my eyes. He searched my face longingly before pressing a kiss to the tip of my nose and wiping away my tears.

"I would do it again a thousand times over." He promised me in a whisper, cradling me in his arms. "I would do anything for you." He inhaled deeply, "I love you, Savannah. Always have, always will."

My heart skipped a beat and the urgent beeping of the heart rate monitor attached to me made us both turn to look at it. Brooks chuckled gently, and I found myself ugly crying into his shirt as I had unfortunately done too many times before.

Even after all of these years, after I had given him and everyone else so many excuses to give up on me, he never had. He had been my strength when I had none left,  had protected me and forgiven me and loved me when I hadn't loved myself.

In that instant I didn't know how I had never seen it before, but it had always been there. Because I was undeniably and whole-heartedly in love with him too, and apparently it had been obvious to everyone but us. But I knew how I felt now, and I didn't plan on letting that go. I didn't think I could even if I wanted to.

I closed my eyes and leaned against him, letting myself be comforted by the idea that what I was about to say could potentially change everything, and yet I was more ready for that change than I had ever been for anything in my entire life.

I breathed in deeply, and when I looked up into those golden eyes, the words spilled out of me like overflowing water.

"I love you too, Brooks."