Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
ELIZABETH
Heterochromatic eyes startle me awake. I move to wipe my face and feel a stinging tug. There’s movement from the side of my bed. I jerk when a hand touches my face.
“Open those beautiful eyes for me, baby.”
Ryder.
He kisses me ever so softly on the lips.
My mouth feels parched. So does my throat. I shift to sit up and feel that sting again. My eyes flutter open, and I realize I’m not in my bedroom. Ryder isn’t cuddled beside me.
My ears recognize the beeping of a heart rate monitor. I see the IV drip butterflied into my hand.
“Ryder…what?” My throat feels like I just ate nails. “Water,” I croak.
He brings a straw to my lips, and I sip gratefully.
I try again. “Am I in the hospital?”
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
“You’ve been out for about an hour. Hold on. Let me call the nurse and text the guys. They just went with Daniel to the cafeteria for coffee to give Jay a second to cool off. He was getting agitated with the staff, and Jules and I didn’t want to be kicked out of the hospital again like last time.”
“What happened?”
He gives me an uneasy look. “What do you last remember?”
“The library. I had a memory flash. Jayson.” My eyes fly to Ryder in panic. “Oh, god. Jayson. I fucked up. Ryder, please tell me I didn’t say what I think I said.”
He sits down in the chair beside my bed and cradles my hand between his. Strong, capable hands that love me. Hands that know exactly how to hold me and touch me.
He looks tired. And worried.
“It’s all right.”
“But he was so hurt. I did that. I hurt him like that.”
“He’s fine. I’m fine. We’ll talk and hash things out. It’ll all be okay. I promise. You come first.”
His words of reassurance don’t help lessen my apprehension.
I shake my head on the pillow, which only makes me dizzy. “I didn’t mean to hurt him. Not like that.”
“Let me text them, okay? Just hold on.”
He hits the call button and tells the nurse that I’m awake. She says she will page the doctor, and someone will be in shortly.
As soon as he sends his text, his phone rings.
“Hey, man. She’s awake.” He hangs up. “They’re heading back.”
“I’m not going to leave you, Ryder. I mean it. I love you. You , Ryder. So do not, for one second, think that anything will ever erase my love for you. Memory or no memory, I’m yours.”
Releasing a pent-up breath, Ryder drops his forehead to our joined hands.
“Tonight scared me in more ways than one. I love you. So very much, Elizabeth.”
“You hold my heart. I think you always have.”
He leans over the side of the bed, and I sigh into our kiss. Ryder is my home.
The hospital door opens, and it feels like an entire circus parades in. Jayson and Julien come rushing through first, with Daniel, a nurse, and a doctor on their heels. Ryder gets up and moves out of the way to make room for everyone to crowd around me.
I’m poked, blinded, and asked questions. Apparently, my glucose levels are low. The doctor assumes that’s why I fainted.
But I know the real reason I passed out, and it’s one I’m not going to share with him.
I nod yes to everything the doctor says, wanting to get out of here as soon as possible. I’ve had enough of sterile hospitals to last me a lifetime.
Eventually, the doctor is satisfied, and I’m given the all-clear and told I’ll be discharged within the next few hours once the final blood work results come in.
I blacked out twice in a row tonight, one after the other. That has never happened before. Jayson is right to be concerned. What if I am driving a car or doing something else when the next one happens? I could hurt someone. I could hurt myself. It’s something I need to seriously think about.
The doctor and nurse leave, and I’m once again surrounded by four men with matching strained faces.
“I’m fine.”
“Fucking hell, Princess.”
Daniel gestures at Jayson. “I agree with what he said.”
I don’t know why, but I start laughing.
“I’m glad someone finds this situation funny,” Julien grumbles.
“The doctor said it was low blood sugar. I didn’t eat much today. I should have carbed up after our morning run.”
“Elizabeth, I called Dr. Narwali. He would like to see you tomorrow to make sure everything’s okay,” Daniel informs me.
I know when to pick my battles, and now is not the time.
I allow everyone to coddle and fuss over me for another thirty minutes until I can’t take it anymore. “Do you guys mind if I speak with Jayson alone?”
Ryder hesitates before brushing a kiss on my cheek. “Take your time. We’ll be outside.”
Daniel waggles his phone. “I need to call Drew and let him know how you are. I’ll be right back.”
Julien smacks a huge kiss on my mouth. “That’s for scaring the ever-living fuck out of me. Again. ”
Ryder holds the door open for Julien, and they step outside.
Jayson stands at the end of my bed, hands in his pockets. I get a momentary flash of a silver-eyed boy with two missing front teeth, hanging upside down from a tree branch.
I roll to the side to grab the bed control, wanting to raise myself up into a more comfortable sitting position. Jayson reaches it first.
“Here. Let me get that for you.”
The bed whirs until I’m more upright.
“That’s better, thanks,” I tell him.
“Why does this feel weird? We shouldn’t feel weird around each other.”
“You did break down my front door.” I try for a smile that doesn’t fully form and reach for his hand. Old scars crisscross his knuckles. “Are these from fighting?”
“Yeah.”
He sits down in the chair that Ryder vacated.
“I’d like to come and watch you one night. If that’s allowed.”
Jayson’s eyebrows raise almost to his hairline. “You would?”
“I may not approve, but I understand it’s something you need. You must be a good fighter.”
He grins, then his grin dissolves and turns serious and…sad. “Do you really love him?”
I pray for the strength to help me through what I need to say.
“I never meant to hurt you. But I’m not going to lie either. I do love him. I can’t explain it. It just is.”
“And I’m never going to stop fighting for you. Or for us,” he tells me with conviction. “Your memories are coming back, and one day you’re going to remember everything. When you do, I’ll be there. Waiting.”
Why me? I want to ask him. Why is he so stuck on me? Why does he want me so much that he’s unwilling to let me go? I’m not special. I’m not beautiful. I’m scarred and messed up in the head. Why does he want that? Why does Ryder?
“Jayson, we don’t know that. The doctors can’t even predict that.”
“We found each other when we were six years old. That’s fate, Liz. That’s destiny.”
The part of me that loves Ryder is terrified that Jayson’s right. But I can’t live in the what-if or what-will-be. I need to live in the now, and my now is with Ryder.
“Promise me that you and Ryder will talk. Promise me you will not shut him out because of my choice. You’re my family.”
“Family?” He slides the chair closer to the bed.
“You, me, Ryder, Julien, and Elijah. We’re a family.”
His shoulders hunch when he sighs. “Maybe this is karma coming back to bite me in the ass, but I do have faith that when you get your memory back, it’s going to be me and you and all our next times.”
“That was written on one of the paper stars. Those were really from you?”
“You had a jar full of them. The stars contain all my wishes for our future together.”
Jayson stands up, all six feet three inches of him, and hovers over my hospital bed. He has a small white scar at the corner of his right eyebrow, a day’s worth of dark stubble on his face. He really is a breathtakingly handsome man.
“I can’t promise that it will be easy between Ry and me. My first reaction to anything is to fight back. But I can promise you that I will try. For you.”
“Thank you.”
He lowers until his mouth is an inch away from mine. My heart rate monitor starts beeping like crazy, and Jayson’s smile blooms like a desert rose. He shifts ever so slightly and kisses my forehead.
Walking over to the door, he opens it. “You guys can come back in.”
Julien practically jumps through the doorway, but Ryder holds back.
“You and I will talk later,” Jayson says to him, his tone tinged with despondent anger. “But not now. Liz comes first, and she doesn’t need our shit making things worse.”
“Agreed.”
A different nurse walks in. “Good news, Miss Fairchild. The rest of your blood work came back fine. Your blood sugar is normal. Someone will be in soon with your discharge papers.” She takes the blood pressure cuff off my arm and disconnects the IV. “How old is your wee one?” she asks.
Wee one? Like a kid?
“What?”
“Your wee one. Your baby.”
Have I entered some alternate reality? I’m sure I didn’t hit my head in the library.
“My baby?”
Julien bursts out laughing but chokes on it when the nurse says, “Most young girls today are having C-sections, but they usually get the bikini cut. You don’t often see the classic cut anymore.”
She points to the scar on my abdomen. The red scar that starts at my navel and descends below my underwear. The scar that’s exposed and clearly showing where my shirt pulled up after I shifted to sit up in the bed. The scar I thought was another wound from my attack.
Daniel walks in just as I say, “My C-section?”
His face pales when our eyes meet, his phone slipping from his hand and crashing against the hard linoleum floor. The screen cracks. Just like my heart.
“Elizabeth, I can explain.”
But it’s too late. I see the guilt. The remorse.
“My baby?” I whisper.
“You motherfucker! ” Jayson roars and lunges at Daniel.