Chapter Twenty-Two
The doctor had given me the all clear and Jackie had served me up another seafood feast. Although this time it was Mexican style: fish tacos, some Mexican crackers topped with scallops and prawns and sides of salsa and sweet potato chips.
Mexican food was my favorite food, my comfort food and after everything that had happened today.
It was like she knew that was the exact thing I needed.
Or maybe it was Dylan… Maybe Dylan was back on chef duties tonight and he knew.
I so badly wanted to duck my head into the kitchen, but Henry didn’t leave my side all night.
He sat close to me, resting his hand on my lap as I soothed my stomach with Mexican, in a mix of pure exhaustion, possibly a side of heat stroke and the excruciating pain in between my legs.
I devoured another fish taco hoping that it would be the one that would take this uneasy feeling that was circling around my stomach reaching it’s way up my spine.
When I wiggled around, I could feel the burn between my legs and wondered if I was still bleeding.
But filling my belly and the heaviness of my eyes and body, soothed the pain purely because I didn’t have the energy to focus on it.
Aaron and Dr. Cayman joined us for dinner.
I was just finishing up our goodbyes and thank you’s as Jackie saw them back out to the helicopter.
It took everything in me not to tell the doctor about the real pain I was in.
But I kept my mouth shut, hoping that it would magically go away, I would wake up and I would be healed.
Henry turned towards me, wrapping me up in his arms, and I felt like all I needed to do was to rest my head on his shoulder and I could fall asleep standing up.
“Let’s get you to bed,” Henry whispered in my ear, and I nodded, following him to the elevator without hesitation.
I didn’t bother showering. I didn’t know how the water would feel when it ran down in between my legs. Not only did I not want to know how it felt, I didn’t want to see how it looked.
I watched Henry, as he puttered around the room, his head deep in his phone, as he traced circles around me.
The man that loved, the man that I had made mine, the man with the fetish that I had welcomed, and he had taken it too far.
Not that I had the right to say that when we really hadn’t spoken about any boundaries in the first place.
I just didn’t want him to hurt me. But I never voiced that, and he had.
Earlier today he had saved my life. He had pulled me from the water, emptied my lungs and stayed by my side.
He had flown in doctor to the island, making sure that he tested everything that he needed to not once but twice, just to make sure that I was okay.
But he had never asked the doctor about the very damage that he had caused to me.
I guess technically I had asked for this, I had wanted to be marked by him, I wanted to be scared.
But now I was laying here in a mix of confusion and pain.
I felt numb, like I had just spent the past couple of hours playing happy families.
When moments before it wasn’t playing, it was real.
I still wanted what we had between us to be real.
“Is everything okay?” I murmured. My eyes were ready to roll into the back of my head, and soon enough I hoped they would.
I did not have the energy to talk about anything further today.
I wanted to sleep for as long as I could, and hopefully wake up fresh in the morning.
How I wished that everything since seeing Dylan last night was just a bad dream.
“No,” said Henry finally looking up from his phone, he ran over to the side of the bed, taking a seat down next to me, running his fingers through my hair.
“I really wanted to be able to switch my phone off this weekend, but I’ve got to make some calls.
Something well, let’s just say something’s gone wrong and I need to make sure that this is fixed fast. I really hope that this doesn’t take long, but I’m going to need to go and do some work.
I won’t bore you with all the details of it right now.
We can chat about it in the morning once I’ve saved the day.
” He smiled and winked, in a way that made me believe that maybe there was nothing really wrong between us, maybe I could wake up tomorrow and all would be forgiven.
“It’s fine,” I said, “I’m going to be fast asleep within seconds of you turning that light out anyway.”
“I won’t be long, and I’ll be curled up right next to you.
Don’t forget about what the doctor said, though.
You really do need to get your rest and don’t be scared of any potential vivid dreams that might come up.
It’s normal with everything that you’ve been through today.
” I nodded, closing down my eyes as he ran his hand through my hair one more time.
He kissed my forehead, and then my cheek, whispering in my ear as my body relaxed deeper into the mattress, “I love you, Miss Molly.”
It took me a few moments to realize what he had said and by the time I ran what I thought I heard through my head again, my eyes sprung open. The lights to the room went out and the doors to the elevator closed behind me.
Holy shit, oh my God, did he just say that, had he really just said that?
He loved me, he had said the words with so much ease out.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.
What we had was something different. And I knew that I felt the same way.
We were together, we had chosen each other.
Everything else, our differences, the hurt, we could work all of that out in the morning.
I closed my eyes again, wincing from the pain in between my legs as I shuffled around in the bed.
I woke up gasping. Heart pounding, body sweaty.
I waited for two arms to wrap themselves around me, to instantly calm my body.
But as I rolled around in bed, stretching out to feel him, I realized he wasn’t there.
What time was it? How long have I been asleep for?
I remember running in my dream again, but as I sat up in bed, the exact images that had woken me up had already faded.
It was dark and the stars were shining down brightly above me as I searched the side of the bed for my phone. It was 11.40 p.m.
Maybe I hadn’t been asleep for as long as I thought.
I don’t know what time it was that I came to bed.
I sighed, laying back down as I winced again, feeling the pain in between my legs, that now was not only a sting every time that I moved but it had become a dull throbbing ache.
I needed to look at it. But the thought of it made me feel sick.
What if it was bad? Soon enough surely Henry would want to see it anyway, then he would realize what he had done, and call the doctor back.
He never meant the hurt me, he loved me.
He had said those words last night. I wondered where he was.
Maybe I should go find him, surprise him and lure him back to bed.
But whatever he was working on did seem important.
I sighed, trying to curl myself back into bed again, hoping that this time I could keep my eyes closed till the morning.
But just as I felt my body begin to relax again, my vagina was fucking throbbing, and not in the way I liked it.
Oh God, I wondered how long it would last like this.
I wondered when I would go back to feeling normal again.
I needed to rest but these god-awful dreams wouldn’t stop haunting me.
The doctor had said that is was normal after what I had experienced, in fact, he said that it was expected.
But I needed to rest. And I couldn’t if this kept happening.
I calmed my breath and looked around the room, which was lit up the faint starlight seeping through the front window. Maybe there was only one way to clear these images.
“Ruth?” I called out. I’d only ever spoken to her in the wardrobe, but I was certain that she existed in more places than in there.
“Ruth,” I called out again. Her reply was usually prompt but still nothing.
“Ruth?” I said, one more, my voice faint now was I went to relax myself back down on the bed.
“Miss Molly?” A woman’s voice echoed throughout the room, but it was not the voice of Ruth. This voice was scratchy, high pitched. I felt my body tense a little, as my head turned in every direction.
“Who’s this?” I asked.
“This is Aria,” the voice replied.
“Can I see you please?” I jumped as bombshell blonde appeared at the end of the bed, staring back at me smiling and waving.
The image of her was shining bright against the night light and as she waved her hand back at me.
I saw two small glitches in her hand movement.
She had voluminous long hair, a perfect blow out of blonde curls that stretched down past her shoulders.
She was wearing a tight light-blue bodycon dress, that showed off more cleavage than I really wanted in my face right now.
But at the same time, I know that was just a little envy.
She was stunning, and the blue dress really bought out her eyes.
Henry certainly did have a way of creating very attractive, realistic AI, that was for sure.
“Um, hi,” I said, waving back at the image awkwardly, “I’m so sorry but do you mind telling me where Ruth is?”