Chapter Thirteen #3
I look down at my shoes like they’re the coolest things I’ve ever seen.
I push past them, and Jonas grabs my arm, looking down at my injured hand that Chase squeezed to inhuman proportions on Monday.
I’m sure if it wasn’t broken, Chase had finished breaking it.
I should get it checked out. It’s gnarly and swollen and purple but the pain of it reminds me that I have survived yet another thing - a broken heart.
I lock eyes with Jonas, eyes that remind me of a forest, with drops of the sun. The look on his face reminds me of the day he pulled me into his lap.
“I’m going to maim whoever did this to you, baby.”
Us, Jonas. We did this to me. I did this to me. And then sickeningly, I think, at least it was my left hand. I don’t need it much. The thought almost makes me laugh. I’m a hazard to myself.
I pull my hand to my chest and cradle it with the other then back away slowly, jutting my chin to the door of Harrington’s lecture class, telling him he should go, I’m no longer his to worry about. I gather whatever strength I have and turn around, walking away from the love of my life.
That night, when I’m in my room, ear buds in, on my loveseat, huddled over my laptop looking up more names from the ledger in the eighties, the little hairs all over my body stand on end at once.
A chill rolls into my room and all the lights, except my sleep light turn off.
A shadow moves about before I’m hurled into a world of darkness .
I wake up in my bed with the worst hangover I’ve ever experienced.
My stomach rolls and I crash into my bathroom before I vomit bile into the porcelain sink, heaving until there’s nothing left.
My stomach is empty. Completely empty. I haven’t eaten since…
I can’t remember. I brush my teeth, sinking onto the tiled flooring of the bathroom.
I crawl back into bed since I can see through my window that it’s still dark outside.
I haven’t checked my phone in days. It’s as useless as I am.
My neck hurts, my hand is pulsating, my head is pounding, my stomach is cramping and all I can think of… is Damon.
I need him, his guidance now more than ever.
I lift my hand to grab my phone… but I’m so tired. I close my eyes and let the sandman take me away again… let the darkness consume me.
_______
Thursday afternoon I’m sitting in the quad beneath a willow on a blanket after my Art and Music History class, far away from the dining hall where I know the trio are eating.
My injured hand is palm up on the ground beside me, not as purple as yesterday, greener today, telling me it’s just very badly bruised.
I hope. I have my head down, neck sore and stiff, reading about Ludwig and other artists that lived in his time when a shadow takes away what little sun I had. Chase kneels beside me.
Blue eyes glower at me from beneath brown lashes. He grabs my wrist and tugs it toward him. This time I don’t hide the pain on my face.
“Relax, Spooks. Jesus you’re fucking jumpy.” He has a bruise on his cheekbone, red and angry.
It pleases me.
I arch a brow in question, a motion that tells him to hurry up and leave me alone.
He pulls out a bottle of water from his backpack and thena wrapped…
something from it as well and sets them both in front of me.
“When was the last time you drank water? Your lips are so chapped you look like you’re possessed.
I know you heard me call you fat… but now you’re just bones and you look fucking sickly.
If you’ re on a diet then pass it over. Otherwise, you gotta eat.
Unless you actually are possessed? Regan? Regan’s demon? Is that you?”
I blink at his attempt at humor. Which sucks because I love horror films and The Exorcist is a classic.
If it had been Brina or even Axel saying any of this to me, I would have cackled.
He unwraps the… well it’s a fucking wrap.
Gourmet. It smells delicious. It makes my stomach cramp.
He holds it out to me. I scrunch my nose at it and go back to my textbook.
“For god’s sakes it’s not poisoned.”
I didn’t think it was. I just don’t want anything he has to offer. I just want to be left alone. I’m staying in my lane.
“Look,” he takes a large bite out of the wrap with his freakishly perfect teeth I now suspect are fake, almost half of it gone, opens the bottle of water and swallows both down simultaneously then holds them out to me.
I take them both and set them on the blanket.
Truth is, I wish I could eat. But after last night, everything is nauseating.
I’m pretty sure I was drugged. But by whom?
“I’m not allowed to leave until you eat it. ”
Pardon me?
Chase tilts his head a fraction and I see Jonas sitting at the table closest to me, watching this interaction.
Great. Now I can’t even sit under my favorite tree.
I lock eyes with the love of my life, now Cecilia’s love, (because only an idiot wouldn’t fall for Jonas Anderson) and raise the wrap and bite into the chicken.
Chew. Swallow. I bring the bottle of water to my lips; the water is so cool I can feel it when it coats my esophagus and settles into the traitorous pit that is my stomach.
I do this over and over again until the entire thing has disappeared.
My stomach hurts and I keel over, vomiting the entire thing up, until I fall over, face first beside the puddle of my own sickness and the entire world turns black.
I wake up what feels like seconds later, to someone shaking me awake, and I scramble, as quickly as I can, which I’m sure is in absolute slow motion, and it’s so fucking embarrassing. Who the fuck faints? A freak. That’s who.
I recognize my surroundings too quickly when I feel the plush firmness under my spine. I’m in my bed. In my dorm. I’m okay.
Except, Jonas sits on the edge of my bed. The twins are leaning against the wall .
“Can you look into the light, Raven?”
I freeze. I close my eyes. It’s a dream it’s a dream this isn’t real. Something I can hear-
“Raven?”
Something I can feel - I reach out to touch him. See - look into his silver eyes. Smell – I inhale that familiar scent of his, except he doesn’t smell like a sterile environment. He smells of rainwater and wet cedar and books. Taste – my vomit from earlier.
I put my hand over my mouth because if I can taste it, then he can smell it.
“I think the lady would like some water and mouth wash.” Damon chuckles when he sees I did everything he taught me to do before and during an episode, pride shining in his eyes.
He always looks at me like that. Like he adores me.
Like I’m… everything to him. Tears want to escape but I don’t let them.
Riordan comes back with both and hands me the waste bin so I can spit it out.
It takes everything in me not to climb into Damon’s lap, like I once did with Jonas. My uninjured hand hurts and I see the IV line connected to me.
Damon takes my other hand. “You gave us quite a scare, Raven. I had to run an IV. You’re extremely dehydrated. Can you tell me who did that to you?” he asks, pointing to my injured hand. Both Jonas and Chase stiffen behind him. I look at them from over Damon’s broad shoulder then back at my Damon.
No . I blink.
“Boys, I think I should like to be with my patient alone . She obviously doesn’t feel comfortable with you in the room and won’t be speaking-”
My face drops. We’re back to that. I’m his patient .
“-She doesn’t talk. At all. I should be here. I can decipher her looks sometimes.” Jonas says abruptly.
I shake my head and Jonas’ face contorts as though I’ve betrayed him.
Except he’s no longer mine to betray. Just like I’m no longer his to protect .
Unclaimed . I want him to go. Need him to go because I want to be alone with Damon.
Need to be alone with him. I have so much to tell him, so many questions to ask.
“Looks as though she’s communicating just fine without you, Mister Anderson.
I’ll see you on Tuesday.” Damon replies, not looking over his shoulder, gunmetal eyes piercing through me.
They all leave, and Damon gets up to lock the door behind them and I get a good look at him.
Even though he’s not in his lab coat, he is still as sexy as ever.
Black hair, silver on the sides that make his eyes pop.
Lavender button up, sleeves tight on his biceps, accentuating the other muscles.
Even his charcoal slacks are tighter around his quads, a slim black belt holds them up.
He runs his fingers through his hair as he walks back to me, every stride is unhurried and even then, he eats up the space between us so quickly, I barely have time to sit up properly before he’s sitting on the edge of my bed.
I hold my arms out and pulls me onto his arms and into his lap.
“I’ve been wanting to make my presence known for so long.
” He whispers, lips kissing my hair. He stands and we’re in my bathroom.
He juggles me and the IV pole the entire time he’s turning on the faucet to my bathtub, moving about the bathroom, grabbing everything he needs, as if he knows exactly where everything is, and it’s because he does.
My dreams haven’t been dreams. I’ve been making vocal noises, whimpering, moaning, gasping when he’s been inside of me, his fingers, his tongue, parts of his cock.
He undresses me tenderly and I don’t shy away.
Why should I? This man knows me, all of me.
The good, the bad, the ugly and has never batted an eyelash or told me how ugly me or my scars are, how horrendous I’ve been during my violent episodes, some even toward him.
He’s treated me with kindness, a kindness that was so rare to me, it made me love him as more than just my doctor.