Dakota
Two Weeks Later
My throat is on fuckin’ fire.
I opened my eyes.
Where the fuck am I?
“!” my dad’s voice rang out. “You’re awake!”
He appeared at my bedside, looking like he had slept under a bridge.
“You look like hell, Pops.”
“Well, your youngin’ bein’ in a coma for over two damn weeks will mess with one’s quality of life!”
Two weeks?
“Why am I here?” I croaked.
He looked alarmed. “You don’t remember the Waverly Mills fire?”
I didn’t respond to him, but it all came flooding back to me.
Lena, Cassie, the fire, those teenagers, Mayday, lost air pack, Jace…
“Jace! Is Jace alright?!”
My dad nodded proudly. “You saved his life,” he beamed. “I’m gonna go get Dr. Bowers.”
He quickly left the room.
Jace is alright. We got out.
The door burst open, and a doctor walked in.
“Hey, Lt. Clayton, I’m Dr. Bowers. How are you feelin’?”
“Like I got my ass kicked,” I admitted. “Where is Lena?”
“Lena…the brunette? That’s your fiancé, correct?”
“Lena is blonde, and I do not have a fiancé.”
“My mistake, I was under the impression that –”
“I understand,” I interrupted. “But I don’t want that brunette anywhere near me. Can I add that to some sort of list somehow?”
“Certainly. I’ll have your nurse come in and take care of that, but first, can you follow this light for me, using just your eyes?”
I followed the light.
“Excellent! Can you lift your right arm and your left leg simultaneously?”
I did as he asked.
After a series of other tests, he seemed confident that I was thinking clearly and on the right track.
Where the hell did my dad go?
“How’s your pain on a scale of 1-10?” Dr. Bowers asked.
I thought it over. “Maybe a three.”
“Wonderful! Okay, I’m going to send your nurse in to handle your situation with your visitor list and I’ll be back to check in on you later.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
I tried to sit up, but my ass felt like it was numb.
Where the hell did my dad go!?
Where the hell is my phone and where the hell is Lena?
I fumbled around for the bed’s remote, but the bitch was nowhere to be found. Frustrated, I gave up and closed my eyes.
“Happy New Year, shithead,” a sweet voice rang out.
My eyes flew open. “Loo!”
She looked like she wanted to cry as she came into the room, and I held out my arm for a hug. “Come here, pal.”
She walked over to the bed, her bottom lip trembling more with every step that she took. She was doing her best to keep a straight face, but I’d known her for far too long.
She gave me a quick hug as if she thought she might hurt me, the smell of her shampoo smacking me right in the face.
She stared at the IV that was in the crease of my arm, her brow furrowed with thoughts she wouldn’t say.
I reached out for her hand. “I’m okay, Lena Loo.”
“I know you love a good nap, but sixteen days is just excessive,” she teased. “It’s literally a different year!”
I laughed, the pain reverberating across my spine. “You know I’m an over-achiever.” Her lip quivered and all I wanted to do was kiss it away.
“How are ya, Loo?”
“I’m okay.”
“How’s Jace?”
“Good, I guess.”
You guess?
“You don’t know?”
“Not really,” she admitted. “I haven’t seen him since he was discharged from the hospital.”
Oh, shit.
“Have you been to visit me?”
“Every day,” my dad informed me from the doorway. “She comes before work, on her lunch break, and after work.”
I looked at Lena. “Is that true?”
She nodded.
Joining her at the bedside, he put his arm around her.
“Ask her what she did on Christmas Eve,” he prompted.
I looked up at her. “What did you do?” I asked curiously.
She rolled her eyes. “I slept in the rocker so Santa could find you. I knew I was on the nice list, and you weren’t, so I did you a solid.” She pointed across the room. “Once he got here, he felt bad that you looked like that, so he left you some stuff anyways.”
Dad pressed the button on the arm rail, adjusting my bed, so I could see what she was pointing at.
Oh, my goodness…
On a small table in the corner of the room was a small Christmas tree with a few wrapped gifts underneath it, alongside an overly filled stocking.
“Damn, it looks like I did make the nice list.”
“Only by association,” Lena pointed out. “I told you – that’s why I stayed.”
I rolled my eyes at her, but I felt like I was bursting as the seams.
I’m in love with her.
That realization was the only clear thought in my mind.
My dad interrupted my thoughts with some thoughts of his own.
“I guess I should call Cassie and tell her that you’re awake.”
I held up my hand. “Don’t bother. I’m waitin’ on a nurse to come in so I can officially add her to the visitation ban list,” I informed him. “She told Dr. Bowers that she was my fiancé.”
Lena looked at me guiltily. “I told him that she was your fiancé.”
What the fuck?
“What? Why?”
“Because I thought she was? She was still livin’ with you when you got hurt!” She defended herself.
“Because she refused to fuckin’ leave!” I shouted.
I was starting to get a headache.
“Ok, simmer down before you short circuit a brain cell,” my dad joked. “Lena was doin’ what she thought was best and she has tried very hard to get along with Cassie, for your sake.”
“I have!” Lena chimed in. “So, you’re welcome, Jackass.”
Maybe I’m not bein’ clear.
“Cassie isn’t my anything. I don’t want you to be nice to her, for me, and I don’t want to be anywhere near her.”
Failing to hide her smile, Lena nodded.
Can I just tell her I love her?
“I love you, Lena.”
Okay, you didn’t even give all your brain cells time to decide!
She rolled her eyes. “Love you, too. Most of the time.”
She’s not gettin’ it.
“No, I need you to listen.”
She smiled. “I am listening. The whole floor is listening. Why are you hollerin’?”
Because you are not fuckin’ listening.
“Dad, can you give us a minute?”
“Sure thing, I’ll go call Brett and let them know you’re awake!”
He left my room.
I looked at Lena. “Climb in here with me,” I ordered. She looked at me like I had lost my mind. “In your bed?”
“Yes.”
“Dak, no. You are healing and I don’ –”
“Lena, please.”
She sighed in frustration, but she climbed up on the edge of the bed.
“I’m worried I’m goin’ to snag a wire,” she confessed.
Fuck these wires.
“I think I’m in love with you.”
She looked like she had seen a ghost.
That’s not the reaction you want when you tell someone that.
“Why do you think that?” She asked quietly.
“Before this happened, you were the first thought in my head when I woke up, the person I wanted to talk to all day, the person I wanted to make a bad day better, the last thought in my head before I fell asleep,” I rambled. “The day of the fire, when I woke up that mornin’, and I saw you hadn’t texted or called me, I thought it was because you were back with Jace. He had told me the day before that you had been at his house…”
She waited silently for me to continue.
“When I ran back in there after him, I was determined to find him because I didn’t want you to feel the pain of losin’ him. I’d have gone back in for him either way – that’s my brother – but the thought of the chief having to tell you he didn’t make it… it kept me going. When I realized that all of it, no matter the risk, was worth it so long as you didn’t feel pain… I knew I loved you.”
I watched as tears fell in her lap.
Now I’m the one causing her pain.
I tilted her chin up to look her in the eye. “Tell me what you’re thinkin’, Lena.”
“I’m scared.”
Me, too.
“So am I,” I admitted.” But I know that this is different.”
“How?”
“Because I’m goin’ to love you either way.”
She looked confused.
“What do you mean?”
“If you choose to walk out of here right now and never speak to me again, I’m still goin’ to choose to love you. Even if it’s not the same for you – even if you aren’t in love with me – I’ll still choose this every day because just being able to love you is enough for me.”
That was a shit ton of information for her in ninety seconds.
She opened her mouth to speak but a knock at the door interrupted her.
“Come in,” I invited.
The door crept open and in walked Cassie, her face lighting up when she saw that I was awake.
“Ooh, I lied. Don’t come in. Go back out.”
Lena swatted at me. “Stop. She loves you, too, and she’s been worried to death.”
Too? Does that mean you love me?
Cassie stepped up to the foot of my bed.
“I just wanted to make sure that you are okay,” she told me, an obvious sadness weighing down her voice.
Lena tried to pull her hand out of mine, but I did nothing but tighten my grasp.
“I’m fine, Cass. In fact, I’m better than I’ve been in a long time. I was just tellin’ Lena that I’m in love with her.”
It was a toss-up of whose eyes grew wider – the woman I wanted or the one I’d never want again.
“How can that even be possible? We just broke up,” Cassie pointed out tearfully.
You were literally with someone while we were still together…
“I’ll let you two talk,” Lena spoke up, effectively snatching her hand away from mine.
“I don’t want to talk anymore, Lena. I just want you to curl up in this bed with me and take a nap.”
She looked at me like I was being ridiculous while Cassie sobbed at the foot of the bed.
Through her tears, she spoke bitterly, “So, that’s it? You’re throwing away everything that we built together?”
Happily.
“Yes. I’m starting this new thing where I throw away things that are trash.”
She stared at me for a few seconds before leaving the room, quietly shutting the door behind her.
The moment the door closed, Lena jumped up from the bed. Radiating anger, she put her hands on her hips.
“Why the hell would you do that?! She’s a shitty person but she was worried and that’s the first thing you say to her?!”
Grabbing ahold of her shirt, I yanked her into my arms.
“I told you… when you’re in love with someone, you don’t want to hide it.”