Chapter 43
Milow
They brought me into a small room where a doctor examined my face, pressed carefully around my nose, and sent me for X-rays of my face and hands.
He talked the entire time, explaining things to Mom, but I didn’t really follow any of it.
My head felt thick and slow, and my eyes kept slipping shut no matter how hard I tried to keep them open.
I remembered Mom staying close, her hand never leaving my arm.
Everything else blurred together until there were gaps I couldn’t fill anymore.
When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a bed.
The room was dark and quiet, with only a dim, warm light glowing in the corner near the window.
For a moment, I didn’t know where I was or how long I had been asleep.
I knew I was awake, but my body didn’t feel like my own, and it felt like I was experiencing everything from afar.
As I shifted my gaze, I noticed someone sitting beside the bed.
Ashby was there. He sat on a chair pulled close, hunched forward with his arms folded on the mattress and his head resting on them.
He was asleep, looking completely worn down, with his shoulders tense even in rest. I watched him for a long moment, the sight of him making my stomach twist. I wanted to poke him.
I wanted him to know I was awake. But my hands felt too heavy to lift.
There was a splint on my left hand and a cast on my right.
They were resting in my lap, and I stared at them when everything came back all at once in an overwhelming wave.
Hailie had done this to me. She had snapped in the middle of the school hallway and turned into this vicious person, and she had hurt me without anyone stopping her.
She had attacked me unprovoked. No… that wasn’t the full truth. I had flipped her off. I had reacted to her words, but only because of what she said about Scottie. I couldn’t stand hearing her mouth tear into someone I loved, but still… I had provoked her right back.
And maybe I shouldn’t have.
Maybe if I had just looked away, if I had swallowed her cruelty like I always did and kept walking, my face wouldn’t be aching, and my hands wouldn’t be wrapped in thick white bandages. Maybe none of this would have happened if I had stayed small and invisible the way I was supposed to.
My body tensed as tears burned behind my eyes. I just sat there, staring at the back of Ashby’s head, and replaying everything over and over to try and make sense of it all.
No one explodes like that for no reason. No one gets that violent without being pushed. That’s what made sense. Which meant this had to be my fault, at least a little.
I stayed still, afraid that if I moved, the pain would only get worse. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to feel something familiar under my fingers, but my hands stayed where they were. They felt heavy and useless.
A soft knock pulled me out of my thoughts, and I looked toward the door as it slowly opened.
Wesley stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind him.
He paused when he saw me awake, his expression shifting instantly.
Relief flashed across his face before it tightened with anger and sadness.
I wanted to believe that the anger wasn’t directed at me, but after going through what happened in my head, I just couldn’t shake the truth that I had still done something to provoke Hailie.
He crossed the room and stopped at the side of the bed opposite Ashby, and I watched his eyes drop immediately to my hands before slowly lifting to my face.
His mouth tightened for a second before it softened into a smile, and then he reached out, resting one hand carefully on my arm.
“Hey, Milow,” he said quietly. “I’m really glad you’re awake. ”
I bit the inside of my cheek and just looked up at him, my eyes wide. My body was still too tired to respond properly to anything. Not that I really could, anyway.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, lowering his voice even more. His thumb moved slowly along my arm, and his eyes never left my face.
I nodded. That was all I could manage. I wanted to lean into him, needing to feel his comfort.
Wesley seemed to understand without me having to explain.
He let out a quiet, shaky breath, then stepped closer and wrapped his arms around me carefully.
I leaned into his chest without hesitation and closed my eyes, resting my head against him as his heartbeat thudded hard beneath my ear.
“You’re so incredibly strong, Milow. I’m so sorry.”
I wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. He hadn’t done this to me. Nobody here had. If anything, it had been my fault. I should’ve known better.
He pressed a soft kiss to the top of my head and rubbed my back, and I let myself stay there for a little while longer, letting him hold me. I didn’t have the energy to pull away anyway.
“Everyone’s here,” he told me quietly, his voice reassuring. “Mom and Dad, Evie… Stan, Scottie, and their parents, too. They’re downstairs in the cafeteria. We’ve all been waiting for you to wake up.”
I turned my head slightly to look up at him, and he smiled at me, even though I could see how much it hurt him to do it. He was trying to cheer me up, without lessening the truth of it all. I let my gaze drift to Ashby, still slumped over the edge of the bed.
“Ash hasn’t left your side,” he added softly. “I tried to get him to come eat, but he refused. He didn’t want you to wake up alone.”
My throat tightened. I wanted so badly to reach out to him, to run my fingers through his hair because I knew he liked it when I did that. And I wanted him to stop worrying. Even asleep, he carried my pain like it was his own.
“Do you want me to wake him?” Wesley asked, his hand coming up to cup the back of my head.
I nodded and gave him a grateful look, then watched as he moved around the bed and stopped beside Ashby’s chair. He rested a hand on Ashby’s back and rubbed slow circles there, not wanting to startle him. “Ash,” he said quietly. “Hey, buddy. Wake up.”
Ashby shifted, mumbling something under his breath before he lifted his head from the mattress.
It took a second for him to orient himself, but the moment his gaze landed on me, and he realized I was awake, he straightened fast. The chair scraped against the floor as he leaned forward, one hand coming to my forearm. “Milow…”
His voice broke when he said my name, and the look on his face made my heart ache.
He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes and his jaw clenched like he hadn’t relaxed it once.
The worry he’d been holding onto was so obvious on his face, and it hurt knowing that all of it was because of me.