5. Zola
ZOLA
The morning light through Declan's bedroom window is softer than what I'm used to at my apartment. Everything here is softer—the sheets, the carpet, the way he moves around me like I might shatter if he's not careful enough.
I shift against the pillows propped behind me, and pain flares through my abdomen sharp enough to steal my breath. Three days out from surgery and it still feels like someone's taken a baseball bat to my insides. Which, according to Dr. Reeves, isn't far from what actually happened.
"You need another pillow?"
Declan appears in the doorway before I can answer, holding a glass of water and what looks like toast. He's been doing this constantly—materializing with food or medication or extra blankets before I can even think about needing them.
It should be comforting. Instead it makes my chest tight with guilt and something else I don't want to examine too closely.
"I'm fine." The lie tastes stale. "You don't have to keep checking on me every five minutes."
"It's been ten." He sets the water on the nightstand, that familiar muscle working in his jaw. "And you're not fine. You just winced hard enough that I felt it from the hallway."
Smart ass. I reach for the water anyway because my throat is dry and arguing takes energy I don't have. The movement pulls at my incision and I can't quite hide the grimace.
"See?" He hovers, hands twitching like he wants to help but knows I'll snap at him if he tries. "You need to take it easy."
"I am taking it easy. I'm literally lying in bed doing nothing."
"You're trying to do your coursework." He nods toward the laptop balanced on my thighs. "That's not nothing."
"It's finishing my semester online. Which is the only reason I might actually pass my classes after missing a week." I close the laptop with more force than necessary. "Unless you think I should just give up on that too?"
The words come out sharper than I mean them to, edged with frustration that has nothing to do with him and everything to do with the mess my life has become.
No job—Sharon was sympathetic but she can't hold my position indefinitely.
No income. Hospital bills that make my stomach drop every time I think about them.
A semester I'm barely holding together through sheer stubbornness.
And a body that betrayed me in ways I'm still trying to process.
Declan's expression shifts, something pained flickering behind his dark green eyes. "I think you should focus on healing. The rest will work itself out."
"Right. It'll just magically work itself out."
"Zo—"
"I'm fine." I cut him off before he can start another argument about letting him help with the bills.
We've had this fight three times already.
I'm not taking his money. I'm not becoming some kept woman who needs her boyfriend to pay her way through life.
"Nia's coming by later. You don't need to babysit me. "
He stares at me for a long moment, that muscle in his jaw working overtime. There's something else there too, something that's been present since I woke up in the hospital—this tension that radiates off him in waves. He looks at me sometimes like I'm going to disappear if he blinks too hard.
"I'm not babysitting you." His voice goes quiet in that way that means he's fighting to keep it level. "I'm taking care of you because I love you and you scared the shit out of me."
The words land heavy between us, weighted with everything we're both not saying. About the surgery. About what it means. About the future neither of us knows how to talk about anymore.
"I know." I force myself to soften because he doesn't deserve my anger. None of this is his fault. "I'm sorry. I just—I hate this. Hate being useless."
"You're not useless." He sits on the edge of the bed carefully, like he's afraid to jostle me. "You're healing from major surgery. There's a difference."
I want to believe that. Want to believe that lying in his bed accepting help and dependence doesn't make me weak or pathetic or any of the things that have terrified me since Mom died.
But the fear sits heavy in my chest anyway, mixing with the pain medication until I can't tell which is making me more nauseous.
"Dec." I reach for his hand, need the solid warmth of him to anchor me. "We should talk about—"
"Later." He cuts me off gently, thumb brushing across my knuckles. "When you're feeling better. Right now you need to rest."
There it is again—that pained expression, the tension in his shoulders, the way he can't quite meet my eyes. Something's wrong. Something beyond the obvious disaster of the past few days. But he's shutting me out and I don't have the energy to force the conversation.
The doorbell rings and Declan practically launches himself off the bed. "That's probably Nia."
He's gone before I can respond, leaving me with the laptop and the water and the uncomfortable certainty that we're both avoiding something that's going to explode eventually.
Nia sweeps into the bedroom fifteen minutes later carrying two iced coffees and enough righteous fury to power a small city.
"I cannot believe this happened to you." She sets one coffee on the nightstand and claims the chair Declan dragged in from the living room. "I swear to God, if I find out who was driving that car—"
"Nia." I reach for the coffee carefully, grateful for the distraction. "We've been through this. Getting worked up won't change anything."
"It'll make me feel better." She crosses her legs, her natural curls pulled back in a puff that makes her look younger than twenty-two. "You could've died, Z. You understand that? You could've died and I would've had to plan your funeral and I don't know how to do that and I refuse to google it."
Despite everything—the pain, the fear, the mess—I laugh. It hurts my abdomen but I can't help it. "You'd be googling funeral planning?"
"Obviously. You think I know how to coordinate that shit?" She waves her hand dismissively. "But we're not talking about that because you're alive and you're going to stay that way. How are you feeling?"
"Like I got hit by a car and had my insides rearranged." I sip the coffee, cold and sweet and exactly what I needed. "So pretty normal for a Tuesday."
"Don't joke." Her expression goes soft, worried. "Seriously. How are you?"
The question digs deeper than she probably means it to.
How am I? Physically broken. Financially fucked.
Academically hanging on by a thread. And internally—internally I'm trying not to think about the fact that they removed parts of me, took away possibilities I hadn't even realized I was carrying.
"I'm okay." Another lie, but this one feels necessary. "Declan's been taking care of me. Making sure I eat and take my meds and don't move too much."
"Of course he has." Nia's mouth quirks. "Man's been in love with you met. You think he's going to let a little thing like major surgery stop him from fussing?"
"It's not fussing." I defend him automatically even though she's right. "He's just—"
"Obsessed with you? Completely gone? Would probably burn down the city if you asked him to?" She ticks them off on her fingers. She's suddenly become his biggest supporter after seeing him try to move mountains after everything happened. "Pick your favorite."
"Supportive." I settle on that because the alternatives make my chest tight. "He's being supportive."
Nia studies me over the rim of her coffee cup, and I know that look. That's her I-can-see-through-your-bullshit look, the one she's perfected over fifteen years of friendship.
"What?" I shift against the pillows, immediately regretting it when pain shoots through my side.
"Nothing." She keeps watching me though, assessing. "Just trying to figure out if you've actually talked to him about all this or if you're both doing that thing where you pretend everything's fine."
"We've talked." Sort of. In fragments and half-finished sentences that don't actually address anything real. "There's nothing to say anyway. It happened. I'm dealing with it."
"Z." Her voice goes gentle in that way that makes me want to cry. "You lost—"
"I know what I lost." The words come out harsher than I intend. "Trust me, I'm very aware of what's gone. But sitting around being sad about it won't change anything, so I'd rather just move forward."
She doesn't argue, just nods slowly like she's filing that information away for later. We've known each other long enough that she understands when to push and when to let things breathe.
"Fine." She shifts gears smoothly, leaning back in the chair. "Then let me tell you about the absolute nightmare that is my internship right now because my boss is losing his mind."
Relief washes through me. This I can handle—normal conversation, regular problems, someone else's drama that has nothing to do with hospitals or surgery or futures I can't have anymore.
"What happened?"
"Okay, so you remember how I told you Ryan was convinced the new financial software was going to revolutionize everything?
" She's already warming to the story, hands moving expressively.
"Turns out the software is garbage and it's been calculating projections wrong for three weeks and nobody noticed until yesterday when the quarterly report made zero sense. "
"Oh no."
"Oh yes." She grins despite the disaster she's describing. "Ryan spent four hours on the phone with tech support and I swear I watched that man age ten years. He kept saying 'this is unacceptable' in this voice like the software could hear him and would be ashamed of itself."
I laugh again, carefully this time, protecting my incision. "That sounds terrifying."
"It was hilarious." She takes another sip of her coffee. "Though I did have to stay late fixing spreadsheets, which is how I ended up at the diner at nine PM stress-eating pancakes."
"Classic Nia stress response."