Chapter 37 Olivia
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Olivia
The first thing I notice is the smell.
Sterile, sharp, like something you might find in a place where people go to get fixed up after everything goes terribly wrong.
My throat feels dry, as if I swallowed sandpaper, and my head is buzzing.
I blink my eyes open, but the light is too bright, too much. I wince and pull the blankets closer, trying to curl into comfort, but the sheets are stiff, hospital-ish.
Where am I?
I try to sit up, but my body doesn’t listen. I feel sluggish.
The weight of the world is sitting on my chest. I can’t remember how I got here, or why. The last thing I remember is being in the apartment… no, wait, I was at the truck.
Then I was packing up, and then… my head started to swim. Everything before this is blurry, and I can’t seem to piece it together.
What happened?
I attempt to clear my throat, but it’s a dry rasp. I force myself to focus on the room around me.
White walls, a plain, cheap-looking chair beside the bed, an IV stand hooked up to a bag of something clear that I don’t want to think about.
The beeping of a heart monitor fills the silence, and I try to make sense of it, but it only makes my head spin more.
And then, a figure appears in the doorway. It's a blur at first, but it sharpens quickly into someone I recognize.
Karl.
“Karl?”
The word comes out quiet as a whisper, more of a plea than a question. I don’t know what I’m asking for, but there’s something in his presence that makes me feel okay.
His eyes lock onto mine, and I see the immediate concern flash across his face. But then, he’s moving toward me, his large frame filling the space as he pulls a chair next to the bed.
“Olivia,” he breathes out, like it’s the first word he’s said in a long time.
He reaches for my hand but stops, hesitating as if he’s unsure I’ll want him to touch me. “How are you feeling?”
The question doesn’t register at first. I blink at him, trying to pull myself together. “Where am I?”
“Hospital,” Karl says softly. “You passed out. I… I didn’t know what was going on, Liv. You were so pale, and you wouldn’t wake up. I thought…” He cuts himself off, swallowing hard. “I thought something was seriously wrong.”
I try to focus on his words, but they’re slipping around the edges of my mind like water. Hospital. Passed out. Seriously wrong.
“Did I… did I…?”
“Yeah,” he answers quickly, leaning in just a little. “You collapsed. I had to take you here. You’ve been out for a while.”
I try to sit up again, but my body protests. It's like trying to move through quicksand. Heavy, slow, impossible.
My head is throbbing, and I can feel a pulse behind my eyes. A constant, rhythmic reminder that something is off. The sterile smell of the room fills my nose again, sharp and unsettling.
Everything feels… wrong.
Karl’s hand is still on mine, warm, solid, but I don’t know what to say to him. The worry in his eyes is too much, and I’m not sure how to make it go away.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I manage, barely a whisper.
“It’s okay, I’m just glad I could be there for you.”
I open my mouth to say something back, but then the door opens, and a woman in a white coat steps inside, her face a little too cheerful for the circumstances.
I can tell immediately that she’s the doctor, though she has that detached calmness about her that makes everything feel clinical. She’s accustomed to seeing people at their worst and not letting it affect her.
“Ah, good, you're awake,” she says, checking the clipboard she’s holding. “How are we feeling now, Olivia?”
I open my mouth to speak, but the words don’t come. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I don’t even know how to explain this feeling of being here. My chest tightens, and I must force myself to breathe.
“I…” I stop, swallowing hard. “I don’t know.”
The doctor looks at Karl, who still has a hand on my arm, holding me down, trying to keep me tethered to this moment, to reality.
“She’s been exhausted,” Karl says quietly, trying to explain something I should’ve known but never bothered to listen to. “She’s been pushing herself too hard. I—”
I hear the words in his voice, but they don’t make sense.
I don’t push myself. I’m just trying to keep things together, make everything work, and keep up. Isn’t that what everyone does?
The doctor nods, her eyes never leaving me as she starts to check the IV line, adjusting it slightly. “That’s what I thought. Stress, exhaustion, dehydration… you’ve been running on empty for too long. Your body finally said enough.”
I blink at her, her words not quite sinking in.
“I don’t understand,” I murmur. “I’ve just been… living. I mean, it’s just a lot of stuff, but I’ve been fine. It’s… just normal stuff.”
Karl’s grip on my hand tightens, and I feel a warmth spread through me.
“You’re not fine, Liv,” he says. “You can’t keep pretending like you’re okay. You need to take care of yourself a little more through everything.”
I shake my head, but everything is spinning.
“I am taking care of myself,” I whisper, but it sounds hollow, even to me.
The words taste wrong.
The doctor steps back and looks at me with a gentle but unflinching expression.
“It’s not just physical exhaustion, Olivia.
This is emotional, too. You’re burning out.
You’ve been carrying too much on your shoulders for too long without enough rest. And your body has finally hit the breaking point. ”
I want to argue. I want to tell her I’m fine, that I’m just fine. But my words feel too heavy. I’m drowning in them. Everything is starting to feel so much bigger than I can manage.
There’s too much happening around me and inside me, and I’m no longer sure how to control it.
Tears sting the back of my eyes, and I force them away, but it’s hard. It’s so hard.
The doctor glances between Karl and me, her face softening just a little. “You’ll need to rest, Olivia. We’ll continue to monitor you for a while longer, but with the right care, you should make a full recovery. Just take it easy for the next couple of days. You need to focus on your health.”
She gives me a reassuring smile, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m still not getting it. Rest? How am I supposed to rest when there’s so much to fix? I want to ask her that, but the words get caught in my throat.
With one last look at Karl, the doctor steps out, leaving a quiet that feels too heavy.
I close my eyes, trying to ignore the pulse in my temples. I wish I could get up, shake this feeling off, and walk out of here. But even my thoughts feel like they’re moving through molasses.
Karl’s hand is still there, a quiet reminder that he’s not going anywhere.
I try to breathe through the heaviness in my chest, but it doesn’t get better.
I open my eyes and look at him, his expression unreadable, but there’s something in his gaze that makes the words spill out before I can stop them.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” I say, cracking a little.
“I’m so tired of trying to keep everything together, Karl.
The coffee truck, my stupid case with Stokes, and dealing with Richard’s nonsense.
It's just… too much. I don’t even know where to start.
I could handle it all, but now I’m here…
and I don’t even know how I ended up like this. ”
Karl shifts in his chair, his jaw tightening, but he doesn’t say anything right away. I can see the internal struggle on his face. He wants to say something, but isn’t sure how to approach it.
Finally, he sighs.
“Leo told me a bit about the case,” he admits, his gaze shifting away briefly. “But I’d like to hear it from you.”
“I haven’t told you because I’ve just been waiting to see what happened.” I shake my head to myself. “But he’s really coming down on me. He’s accusing me of embezzling funds from the company before I left. He’s trying to sue me.”
Karl’s face hardens as the words leave my mouth.
“Embezzling?” he repeats, rough with disbelief. “That bastard.”
I can’t help but flinch at the sharpness in his tone, but it’s not anger directed at me. It's the kind of anger that builds up for someone you care about, someone you feel a deep sense of protectiveness toward. And for some reason, that makes me feel both lighter and heavier at the same time.
“Yeah.” My voice is hollow, but I continue, despite how difficult it is to admit.
“He’s claiming that I took money when I was still working there, but I never did, Karl.
I didn’t. I just… I don’t know how to prove it.
I have Ivy’s friend helping me. I’m sure Sloane Katz will do a good job, but I’m still nervous… ”
“I’m sure Leo told you that you have us, right?” Karl declares fiercely. “We’ll help you in any way we can as well.”
I nod with a thin smile. “Yeah, he did say that a lot.”
“Well, whatever you need from us, we will do.”
“I… I don't even know where to start with all of this,” I admit, exhaling slowly. “It feels like I'm drowning in it, Karl. I don't know what to focus on first.”
Karl leans back in his chair, his gaze steady but gentle, the concern still there, but without the same edge.
“You start by taking care of yourself first,” he says softly, his hand still holding mine, firm but tender. “Rest. Get better. Let Sloane handle the details, and let us handle whatever else we can. You focus on you, Liv. Let the rest come later.”
I blink at him, the simplicity of his advice making it sound like something I should have known all along.
I’ve been so consumed by everything falling apart around me that I forgot the most basic thing. I have to be okay first. But how could I focus on that when the world outside felt so heavy, when the pressure of the lawsuit and my past mistakes kept pressing down on me like a weight I couldn’t shift?
“I don’t know how to rest,” I admit, voice small. “I’ve been running so fast for so long, I forgot what it was like to just… stop.”
Karl’s thumb brushes the back of my hand again, slow and soothing. “It’s okay to stop, Liv. You’ve earned it. I’ll help you, okay? We’ll help you.”
My chest tightens again, but not from the suffocating stress. This time, it’s something warm spreading through me. The idea of not having to do it all alone. It’s… almost comforting.
“Thank you,” I say quietly. “For being here. For… caring.”
Karl meets my gaze, his expression soft but serious. “Of course I care. You don’t have to thank me for that.”
I let out a shaky breath and give him a small, tired smile. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Karl. I really don’t.”
“Well, that is not something you have to worry about.”
As he grins at me, it hits me just how much my life has changed since being here. I really didn’t know that Coyote Glen was going to change everything for me in the way that it has.
I can see now why Ivy wanted me to come so badly.
It really has been a rest for me. In more ways than I ever could have planned for.