Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
ERIKA
Everything felt foggy, like I was underwater and too far from the surface.
My head throbbed with every breath I pulled in.
The steady beep of a monitor tracked my heartbeat somewhere to the side, sharp and relentless.
Lines and tubes were everywhere—taped to my skin, snaking across the bed.
Two fluid bags hung above me, one filled with blood.
I felt the pull of IV lines in each arm, tethering me in place.
“How are you feeling?” asked a kind voice I found belonged to a person wearing teal scrubs, her hair in a bun. “I’m Raelynn, one of the nurses here at the hospital. If you can remain calm, I need to leave you alone for a moment. I’m going to get Dr. Murray.”
A while later, an Indian woman with gray streaks in her hair leaned into my vision. She shone a light into my eyes. “I’m Dr. Murray. Can you tell me your name?”
“Erika. Erika Chomping.”
“Well, Erika, you got a good hit to your head. There’s a concussion, but it’s nothing time won’t heal. You’re lucky. However, you got a comminuted rib fracture that punctured a lung and went through your diaphragm into your liver. You lost a lot of blood and we had to do surgery.”
“Do I have a drain?” I slid my hand to feel toward my abdomen.
Dr. Murray caught my hand. “Yes. Let’s try to leave that alone for now.”
“Is he… Did someone get the guy who did this? Did anyone else get hurt?”
Dr. Murray squeezed my arm. “Let’s give you another half hour and then if you’re up to it, I can have someone come in and visit with you. They can tell you the details when you’re ready.”
“Josh,” I rasped, the word scraping against my raw throat. It felt like sandpaper and fire, like something had been forced down it—an anesthesia tube, most likely. I swallowed, but it did nothing to ease the burn. “I… I want to see him.”
Sometime later—seconds, minutes, hours, I couldn’t tell—I felt a warm hand slide around mine. The touch dragged me up from the darkness like a rope thrown into deep water. I fought to open my heavy eyelids. The world swam in and out of focus, shadows and light blurring together. I was so tired.
“Josh,” I rasped, relief breaking out of me in a shaky whisper. The word scraped my throat, but it didn’t matter. He was here.
His face crumpled. His eyes were bloodshot, ringed with exhaustion and something deeper—something hollow and hurting.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed out.
“For what?” I managed.
“That guy almost killed you. I thought he was going to shoot me, but Dante got him. He’s dead.”
“Pretty sure you rescued me. Finally got to be a hero.” My voice wavered. “I knew you’d come for me.”
He looked away, blinking hard. When he spoke, his voice cracked straight down the middle. “I was,” he swallowed, like the words were too heavy to push out, “I was almost too late.”
My heart twisted, but I tugged on his hand weakly until he met my eyes. “But you weren’t.”
Something in him broke. Not in a destructive way, but like a dam finally giving way to everything it was holding back.
“I really thought I was going to lose you. There’s so much I never said.
Important things. I’m sorry I pushed you away in high school.
I was wrong to do it. So wrong. I faked it with Milly to make you mad enough to break up with me.
I didn’t know you’d go to war with me. But I deserved it.
We’re better together. Not apart. Not fighting. ”
“Why do it? You wrecked me.”
“I overheard you,” Josh said, his voice shaking like it hurt to force the words out. “At your house—you were arguing with your dad about your plans after graduation. I wasn’t meant to overhear, but I did.”
He swallowed. “You didn’t get into UNC like we planned—you in Chapel Hill, me in Raleigh at NCState. It didn’t make sense. Your grades were a hundred times better than mine. You were going to follow me to Raleigh anyway, take whatever job you could, and reapply the next year.”
I remembered the argument. The sharp edges of it. Seeing Josh in this much pain made my chest ache. I squeezed his hand.
“He wouldn’t let you live with me in sin.
You refused to get married before you left.
You said you didn’t know if you were ready.
” Josh went on, bitterness threading through his words, “He swore at you. He talked about how he wouldn’t pay for you to live alone in Raleigh or to go to a second-rate school up north.
He said you could stay here and work or he’d pay for community college, or he’d pay for a wedding.
” His chest hitched, breath coming unevenly, like he was fighting for air.
“I couldn’t let you accept any of those,” he said softly.
“You needed to go to Virginia—where you did get in. I knew your dad would never pay for it, but you’d get a scholarship.
And I knew—God, I knew—you’d never go to Virginia if it meant leaving me. ”
His grip tightened. “So, I let you go. I refused to be the thing that held you back. I refused to be the reason you didn’t become everything you were meant to be.
” His dropped his head as if the weight of it all was too much.
“You’re so much smarter than me. So much more talented.
You needed a chance at more. To become the incredible person you are now. ”
“Damn you.” My voice trembled, and my eyes burned like they wanted to cry but couldn’t—too dry, too damaged, too medicated to obey. “I was in hell without you. Utter hell.”
“I’m sorry.” He hung his head. “I was wrong.”
“I loved you so much. I still love you. That’s more important to me than a stupid school or job or whatever future you thought you were protecting.”
His face twisted with regret so raw it was almost painful to look at.
“I was trying to do what was best for you.” He wiped his eyes.
“Everything fell apart for me because you weren’t there to hold my broken pieces together.
I see that now. I thought letting you go would save you, save both of us.
Instead, it destroyed everything. And I…
” He swallowed hard, eyes shining with more tears he couldn’t blink away.
“I couldn’t let go of you back then or now. I love you. I always have.”
My breath caught. For a moment the world stopped. There were no monitors, no pain, no hospital walls. Just us. “We’re not broken anymore?” I whispered, terrified of the answer.
“No.” He gave a soft laugh, shaking his head. “We’ll always be a mess. Life’s a mess. We’re messy to each other. But I’d rather fight like hell through all of it with you than pretend I can do it alone.”
“I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions about Milly. So sorry.”
“It hurt. I won’t lie. But I love you.” He lifted my hand to his lips, kissing it with a gentleness that shattered me from the inside out. “I can’t do all this without you. To think I almost lost it…”
“Me too. Love you.”