CHAPTER FIVE
ALLISON
“Have you seen my glasses?” The hospital is finally releasing me, so I can fly home later this afternoon, but I really don't want to travel blind as a bat. I gently shake the bedding again and pray the glasses appear.
“Nope… Maybe you lost them at the scene,” Jenna, a fellow coworker, says.
Frowning, I finish dressing in the clean clothes she brought and consider the possibility.
That day is a fuzzy memory. The only thing I remember with painful clarity is the mysterious man who appeared in my hospital room afterward.
Large. Imposing. Attractive in a villainous way. I shake that particular observation off. Romanticizing bad men belongs in books and movies, not my real life.
“Maybe I can get a prescription for a new pair before we leave.” Otherwise, I'll be relying on acquaintances to safely fly me from Paris to Raleigh.
They're capable, but it'd be uncomfortable and awkward as hell.
“Let me ask a nurse,” she says, heading toward the door. “I don't want to be responsible if you cross the street during a red light and get nailed by a Vespa.”
I hide an unsurprised grimace by pulling on a hoodie.
Do I want to be reliant on other people? No, life has taught me that independence is best.
But would it be nice if I could count on those around me?
Damn straight.
“She said you'll have to see an optometrist for the glasses.” Jenna huffs as she strolls back into the room. “Looks like I'm your new chauffeur until you get home. You have spares there, right?”
“Yeah, I'll be fine.” And I'm determined to not be a burden to Jenna. She doesn't deserve being my babysitter just because I'm cursed with bad eyesight.
Geez, I'm a wreck. Practically blind, arm in a sling, and forced to be wheeled around due to my injured leg.
It'll be a miracle if I get home without adding to my menagerie of ailments.
***
“Mom? Dad? I'm here!” No one answers my greeting as the front door slams behind me, though my brother Josh is on the couch watching an anime show.
“Where is everyone?” I ask, using my crutches to hobble into the living room. Driving for two and a half hours wasn't the best thing for my sore leg. Tensing and relaxing the healing muscles with each press on the gas and brake sucked. But after almost dying in Paris two weeks ago, I felt nostalgic for home, so I let my family know I was visiting for the weekend.
Stupid, really.
When have my parents ever comforted me? Since when have they had the emotional capacity to deal with anything I might be struggling with?
That's why I still haven't shared about the bullet wounds that sent me to the hospital. I figured I'd make up a random excuse for my injuries.
Who doesn't share the truth with their family?
People who know it'd result in more work to calm and reassure rather than a soothing embrace.
“Don't know,” Josh mutters. “I haven't seen them.”
Disappointment dampens my spirits, and my gaze trails toward my car parked outside, tempted to drive back home despite the long journey I just completed.
How quickly I'm reminded that those fantasies of maybe this time will be different, maybe this time they'll care are puffs of smoke.
Here and gone within a breath.
Joining Josh on the couch, I prop my feet on the scuffed footrest and watch as two characters skateboard down a mountain until the screen flicks to black.
“You don't have to turn it off,” I say as Josh tosses the remote to the cushion beside me. “Where are you going?”
He mumbles a short sentence I don't quite catch.
“What?”
With his back turned to me, another garbled response hangs in the air, but this time I let it go. If I ask a third time, he'll accuse me of not listening and get pissed. It's happened before.
His footsteps fade the further he gets from the living room, and the prick of tears behind my eyes has me rapidly blinking up at the popcorn ceiling.
Don't cry.
Don't cry.
So what if I drove over a hundred miles just to be ignored and abandoned? It's not personal. It's their problem, not mine.
I repeat things my therapist has said—facts I logically know are true—but emotionally?
They don't do much to ease the pain of feeling unwanted.
And always being alone.