CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Whitney
C louds.
Big, fluffy, white clouds wrap around me and let me sink into them while feeling like I’m floating all at the same time.
I’ve never been this comfortable in my whole life, and I never want to leave.
The sun is bright through my closed eyelids. The pain? Pretty damn intense.
I need pain meds. Desperately.
But when I open my eyes, the pain is put by the wayside when I find myself in a foreign room.
Hardy.
I know it immediately despite there not being a damn thing here that identifies him. It’s just him somehow. Maybe it’s the windows that look out for miles or its the simple extravagance of it, but it’s most definitely him.
The space is big, bright, and airy. Everything is white with touches of grays and blues here and there. The sheets beneath my hand feel like they cost more than my yearly income, and the comforter wrapped around me even more so.
It’s luxurious and decadent, and if I hadn’t just spent four days in a horribly uncomfortable hospital bed, I’d force myself to get out of it promptly.
But I have and so I allow myself the grace to relax for a few more minutes while the nausea abates and the pain settles from moving too quickly.
Even so, this is all wrong. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t want to be here.
I need to tell him. To ask him to take me back home.
But it’s when I swing my legs over the side of the bed and try to stand up that I know there isn’t an ounce of fight that I can muster. I’m so light-headed that I have to grab onto something to steady myself as my vision turns black and a streak of pain shoots up my side.
I might yelp. I don’t really know. All I do know is that when I open my eyes, I see the dresser to the side of me loaded with bags and supplies from stores I don’t shop at. Victoria’s Secret, Sephora, Nordstroms, Alo, Lululemon. Bags much like the ones that arrived at the hospital with all new clothes, pajamas, undergarments, skincare, and toiletries.
This is ridiculous. I don’t need all of this .
I care dammit. I care about you whether you like it or not so stop apologizing and thinking you aren’t worth it or deserve it or whatever the hell is going through your head because you do. You just fucking do .
Weren’t those the words that were on repeat in my head through each and every one of my dreams?
Aren’t those still the ones I can’t forget now as I sit in this castle in the sky and wonder why they make me feel so damn good?
My head dizzies.
Or maybe I’m just delusional.
The one thing I know for sure is that I need my pain meds and I have no idea where they are... .