Chapter 8
eight
Two Days Later
Good God, make it stop.
The lights in this room never stop flickering. They buzz over my head, drilling straight through my skull until each pulse in my temples picks up the same miserable rhythm. Even with my eyes closed I can’t escape the sensation.
White glare bleeds through my lids. The pillow under my head has gone flat. The blanket weighs too much across my legs. Even the sheet scraping my skin is annoying.
I lie here and count breaths, lose count. Start over.
Somewhere beyond the pounding in my head, Dr. Felix speaks in his calm, measured voice. He has a permanently concerned face built for hospitals. Nothing rushed. Nothing dramatic. He gives bad news and good news in the same tone, which ought to make me trust him more than I do.
“Hope’s responsive. Memory looks good. Swelling’s down.”
A clipboard shifts. Paper rustles.
“No brain injury runs the same course. Recovery changes case by case. Rest matters a lot. Physical therapy. Counseling. Follow-up appointments. The course of healing is to stay on top of symptoms and watch for setbacks.”
Symptoms. Counseling. Setbacks.
Each word lodges somewhere ugly.
When do I get my life back?
I crack my eyes open a sliver and catch the shape of Alek near the foot of the bed. He stands with his shoulders squared, hands in his pockets, listening with complete focus. No pacing. No fidgeting. No sign he’s out of his depth on absorbing a pain plan for a woman he barely knows.
“I understand,” he says. “I’ve received clearance to work from home until she’s back on her feet.”
Until she’s back on her feet.
He says it with such certainty. Such ease. No stumble. No pause for effect. Two days ago he was a stranger in the crowd at Pike Place. Now he speaks over my future as if he not only belongs in it, but he’s controlling it too.
“Good, we’ll get discharge papers moving.
” Dr. Felix looks over and catches my eyes open.
“There you are.” He moves closer, checking my chart.
“Hope, don’t get cocky because your scans improved.
You took a hard hit. You’re young and healthy.
Good signs all around. None of which gives you permission to push beyond what your body’s ready for. ”
I don’t answer. Talking takes too much effort.
He studies me for a second longer. “Pain?”
I give him a look.
His mouth shifts, not a smile per se. “Right. Stupid question.”
Alek hovers half a step closer. Protective without crowding me. Present in a way I’m still trying to understand.
Dr. Felix hooks a thumb toward the folded stack at the end of the bed. “I brought you a pair of fresh scrubs. Easier than going home in a hospital gown.” He glances between me, Alek and the clipboard. “Nurse will bring final paperwork.”
He leaves on the same even note he came in on, door swinging shut behind him.
The machine by my bed keeps up its tiny electronic heartbeat. Hallway sounds drift in and out. A cart rattles past. Someone laughs too loud somewhere down the corridor. The whole hospital keeps moving while I lie here trapped in this stiff bed with a brain full of gravel.
Alek turns toward me. “You heard the doctor?”
I swallow. My mouth tastes stale and metallic. “Hard not to.”
His face softens. “You want water?”
I nod a bit too vigorously. Regret it at once.
He pours from the plastic pitcher, slips one hand behind my shoulders, raises the cup to my mouth slowly enough to keep the room from flipping sideways. Even so, the first trickle of moisture sends a wave of nausea rolling through me.
I breathe through it.
This whole thing is absurd. A near-stranger helping me drink water. Speaking to doctors as if we have a history. Somehow turning one insane lie into discharge plans and shared logistics.
All I have room for is exhaustion. I need to trust this man with my life and I’m not used to it. Especially after what just happened to me, which I haven’t even begun to process.
He sets the cup down. “Better?”
“Marginally.”
His mouth twitches.
I let my eyes drift to the stack of scrubs on the bed. Blue cotton. Hospital issue. Thin. Practical. Real.
Then it hits me all over again. I’m leaving here with him. Not to my apartment with the unpaid rent and the empty fridge and bills spreading over the coffee table.
With Alek.
We have to make the domestic partner lie believable enough to keep this whole disaster from swallowing me.
I let out a rough breath. “This entire situation is insane.”
“Yeah.” He drags the visitor chair closer and sits.
No fake reassurance. No pretending otherwise.
Oddly, I appreciate it.
“I need help getting dressed,” I mutter after a second. “Every time I sit up, my head does cartwheels.”
His ears go pink.
“Are you sure there isn’t a friend you want to call?” He clears his throat, eyes fixed somewhere near the blanket instead of my body. “I’m happy to help. I just don’t want you thinking I’m using the situation to take advantage of you.”
The fact he even says it twists something inside me.
Most men would leap at this setup. Vulnerable woman. Hospital room. No backup. Or family nearby. Not one person to storm in and ask hard questions. I know men who’d jump at this opportunity. Every woman does.
You learn fast or you get eaten alive.
Alek sits there trying not to look at me and offering to call his mother.
I close my eyes for a second.
“My friends are in Bozeman,” I say. “Mom and I moved here for treatment. I stayed after…” The sentence catches. I force it the rest of the way out. “After she died.”
He doesn’t rush to fill the silence.
Good.
The room three floors above in the cancer ward had enough pity to choke on for three lifetimes. Nurses. Doctors. Neighbors. Casual strangers with softened voices and awful eyes.
I can’t stand those eyes.
Alek gives me none of it.
“I remember you mentioning your mom,” he takes my hand and rubs my palm with his thumb, “at the market.”
I close my eyes. “Really?”
“I remember most things you say.”
The words should sound smooth. They don’t. They come out awkward, plain, embarrassingly honest.
Which makes them worse. Or better. I can’t tell anymore.
He rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “My mom can come, if you want. Seriously. She’d probably bring snacks.”
“I think I can manage your scandalized modesty.” A short laugh slips out before I can stop it. My head punishes me for it.
His shoulders drop an inch. “Walk me through what you need.”
“Help me sit up first. If I pass out, catch me before my face smacks the tray table.”
He moves to the bedside, careful and hesitant, making me trust him more than confidence would. One arm supports my back. The other braces near my elbow. I push up and the whole room swings wide, walls bending, floor pitching under the bed.
A low sound escapes me.
Alek freezes. “Too fast.”
“Not your fault.” I swallow hard. “Give it a second.”
My gown hangs open in humiliating places. I tug at it and look away.
He reaches for the scrubs and sets them in my lap with studied concentration, eyes anywhere but my chest. “Top first?”
I nod.
Pulling the gown off takes longer than it should. My arms shake halfway through. The room sways again. He steadies me with one hand between my shoulder blades, then steps back the instant he can.
No grabbing. No opportunistic glance. No weirdness.
By the time I get the scrub top over my head, sweat dampens my hairline and my vision has gone grainy. The pants are worse. I nearly tip sideways trying to thread one foot through.
Alek catches my forearm. “Sit. Please.”
I do as he asks.
The edge in his voice carries more fear than irritation. For me, not for himself.
I stare at the floor while the dizziness passes. “I never paid rent this month.”
He goes still.
“I’m gonna lose everything.” The words spill once I start.
“I can’t work. I can’t bartend. I can’t busk.
Zane said he’d hold my job at The Mission, which is amazing, except I can’t even stand without seeing stars.
My market spot is gone if someone else slid into it already and my guitar has been stolen anyway.
My landlord won’t care why I’m late. He’ll slap a notice on my door and move on. ”
A tear slips free and tracks hot down my cheek before I can wipe it.
Pathetic. I hate crying in front of anyone.
Alek kneels in front of me, not touching me, barely in my line of sight. “Hey.”
“Please don’t tell me not to worry.” I scrub the tear away with the heel of my hand.
“Wasn’t going to.” He waits until I look at him. Then he reaches out and takes my hand. “We’re in this together now.”
No grand speech. No heroic nonsense. No promise he can fix every broken piece of my life.
One word.
Together.
It should comfort me more than it does. Instead it scares the hell out of me.
Two days ago he was a face in the crowd. Now he’s the man holding my hand in a hospital room while I get dressed to move in with him under a lie big enough to ruin us both.
I squeeze my eyes shut against another wave of dizziness.
Please let him be real.
Please let me not be stupid enough to mistake decency for salvation.
He stays in place with his hand around mine, waiting with me for the room to stop spinning.
Outside, a cart rattles past. Someone calls for a nurse. Somewhere down the hall a phone starts ringing.
Life goes on.
Even if mine has cracked in half.