Colton
Beep. Beep. Beep.
My head fucking hurts.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
You know what doesn’t help when your head fucking hurts?
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I feel heavy, my arm like lead when I try to lift it to hit whatever is causing the incessant beeping.
I try again and again, but nothing happens. I can’t see anything about where I am. The room is pitch-black as my head moves from side to side.
“I don’t care if I’m not family, James, let me the fuck in.”
“Harper, it’s not up to me. It’s a rule for the hospital. How did you even get back here? Actually, never mind. Don’t answer that.”
Harper.
“You’re in here and you aren’t family. You get out, and I’ll come in.”
Let her in, please let her in.
“Harper, let’s go into the hall. I don’t want to disturb him.”
Disturb me? I’m awake. I’m awake…
“I already gave James a rundown of what happened. What else could you all possibly need from me?”
“Believe it or not, Ms. Mathers, I am just here to check on Colton.”
“Oh, come on in.”
“I wasn’t expecting to get to see him. I thought only family was allowed in?”
Anders? What does he sound so chipper about? Nothing to be chipper about. Everything hurts.
“Do you have an update for me, Agent Anders?”
“She’s being rather difficult about giving up the details of her network. But your sister has actually been a tremendous help in going through her communications and tracking down key players.” I can hear the smile in his voice, coated in admiration.
“I told you before, I am more than happy to also be of assistance.”
“Ha! I believe the assistance you offered was promising to get us whatever answers we wanted if we gave you five minutes alone with her.”
“I still don’t know why she did it,” Harper tells him, the not knowing obviously still eating away at her. Anders sighs, probably debating if any words of encouragement will help relieve her stress in the situation.
“From what she’s mentioned and what we found at her apartment, her desire to take over the club stemmed from a desire, to put it frankly, to be you.”
“What do you mean?”
“She had been keeping tabs on you from the minute you opened the door to Cirque, long before she acquired a job here. She had articles about you and Sadie, photos of you that were clearly taken without the subject knowing. Our profilers have deduced that what started out as an obsession with you seemed to shift into wanting to be you. And apparently the only way she thought she could do that was to take over Cirque, resorting to methods that you wouldn’t consider so she would feel superior and above you. Like she was winning.”
“So, basically what you’re telling me is she thought she could be an improved version of me?” Harper scoffs.
I want to scoff along with her, but for some reason no sound is coming out.
“In her own words, she believed that she would be more evolved than you by giving the people what they wanted.” He laughs, a low chuckle as if he can’t believe how it all panned out. “How is our boy doing?”
“This is the second time he’s gotten hurt because of me.”
“No, this is the second time he’s gotten hurt because of Tessa,” Anders answers.
“So the break in was part of Tessa’s plan? Do you know who it was?”
“Apparently there had been an upgrade to something that required a password change, and since you had left them out before—”
“She thought she could just steal them again and it wouldn’t interrupt her access. But unlucky for her I hadn’t left a convenient sticky note like the first time, so she needed to look a little harder. Or I guess in this instance, send someone else to look.”
Anders clears his throat before he asks again, “Any update on how he’s doing?”
Perfect. My girl is here. I’m perfect.
“He’s recovering. The scans came back clear, but it was a pretty nasty head wound. He lost a lot of blood and a pretty severe concussion.”
“You seem awfully worried about your employee, Ms. Mathers.”
Because she’s my Sunshine.
“As do you, Anders.”
Aw, look at them being friends and shit…
The fucking beeping is back. I roll my head towards the sound, trying and failing to open my eyes. It feels like trying to open a jar when the lid is on too tight. Is the effort to open my eyes really worth all this? When they clearly want to stay shut.
Maybe it should be like pulling off a Band-Aid, all at once, to get it over with. I muster all my strength and open my eyes wide. Light pours through, the brightness burning as they shut tight again.
Okay, so, bad plan.
This time when I try to open them, I go slowly, letting a sliver of light in at a time, until the details of the room are no longer lost to the bright whiteness of a burning cornea.
I look around the room slowly, taking in first the machine on my left, the fucking thing beeping as a slow drip falls from an IV bag down into a thin tube. I follow the tube down the metal pole it’s attached to, all the way down to where it flows into the needle sticking out of my arm.
I lean my head forward to see the thin plastic band attached to my wrist, adorned with my name and birthdate.
I scan to the center of the room, where my feet stick out at the end of the blanket, clad in bright blue grippy socks with little paws on them.
If the socks and I.V. weren’t giveaways enough that I’m in the hospital, there is a whiteboard hanging next to my bed that lists out the doctor assigned to me and the nurse currently on duty.
I start to lift my arms when something smooth and soft slides over my right arm.
I turn my face towards the unexplored side of my room, and my breathing stops.
Harper is sitting in a chair, leaned over the side of my bed, hand under her head while she sleeps with her hair fanned out around her.
I lean back as I watch her and get a painful reminder why I am, in fact, in the hospital.
I hiss when the back of my head connects with the pillow, kind of wishing I was still unconscious.
Harper’s head snaps up at the sound, looking around frantically as if she’s expecting a threat to be standing in the doorway. She doesn’t see anyone, and her body relaxes as she turns back to the bed.
Her eyes connect with mine, and I think this panic might be worse than a threat.
It’s like she’s stuck between happy and overwhelmed, her face not knowing what to make of the mixed emotions.
She jumps up, starting to turn away from the bed, muttering something about needing a nurse, when I reach out and catch her pinky in mine.
“Colton…”
I try to talk but only an embarrassing squeak comes out. She shifts again, and my hold on her tightens. I’ll never speak again if she just stays.
She covers my hand with her other, “I’m just going to the end of the bed to get you water. I’m not leaving.” She emphasizes the last part with a soft squeeze of my hand as she nods to the end of the bed where a rolling cart sits, topped with a pitcher of water and glasses.
She lets go of my hand, filling a glass of water quickly and coming back to my side. She tips the straw to my mouth, and I take a long pull, hoping the cool water will make the back of my throat feel a little less like sandpaper.
“Is that better?” she asks, moving the cup back to the tray before returning to the side of the bed.
I nod, memorizing her features in case this is the last time I get to see her.
She stayed with me because I was hurt, and because she would feel responsible for what happened.
It doesn’t mean that she is here for me. It doesn’t mean anything.
I want it to mean everything.
“Okay, great. I should go get the nurse—”
“When I was fourteen, I got a boner in algebra, and I panicked that I had some weird attraction to math problems and I was scared to do my homework.”
“Colton, I don’t—”
“I love pineapple on pizza. I know people think it’s gross, but I don’t get how people don’t like it. It’s the perfect combo of sweet and savory together.”
“Oh God, you have brain damage,” she says, staring at me wide-eyed. I smile, thinking of all the things I want to tell her.
“The first week I got my license, I hit our garbage can. That night the wind was so bad that my dad assumed something had blown into it and dented it. I never corrected him.” That one makes her smile. Probably because it’s a little wicked.
“Why are you telling me all of this?” she asks, her voice softer than I’ve ever heard it.
“I don’t want to keep anything from you ever again,” I breathe out, trying to steel my nerves for the rejection that I deserve.
“I know what I did was wrong—I know that. I knew it while I was doing it. But I was—I was afraid. That once you knew, it would break us, this,” I nod between us.
“I kept thinking I could find a way to explain it, some way that would make what I did okay, but it wasn’t and now…
” I trail off when she lowers her gaze to where my pinky brushes against hers.
“I don’t know how to fix it, but I will spend every day of my life proving to you that you can trust me. That I am worthy of you.”
I exhale loudly, feeling winded. I don’t know if I sustained some kind of lung injury, but right now I would believe it.
“Why do you call me sunshine?” she asks, voice stronger than before, not harsh, just curious. She’s never asked me before why I gave her that nickname, why I gave her a nickname of the light when she thinks the only place for her is in the shadows.
“Look at me.”
She does, with no hesitation in the movement. Finally. I almost wish she had given me a small pause. I needed the extra time to prepare for the anger and loathing I had grown accustomed to over the last few weeks.
But all I see is sunshine.
“Your eyes. You have this ring of yellow in the center, and it changes throughout the day. A lot of the time it shifts with what you wear, sometimes it’s darker, like a burned gold, but a lot of the time it’s more like a sunflower yellow,” I smile, the different colors of Harper running through my mind like a perfect slideshow.
“The first time we met though, it was different. They weren’t gold or sunflower, not caramel or amber.
You were living sunshine.” I cough once, and she looks ready to grab the water again, but I keep going.
Needing to get this out before I lose my nerve.
“I knew that day I never wanted to live a day without your sunshine.”
She runs a finger under her eye, and I realize she’s crying.
“Harper—”
“I thought you were going to die,” she blurts out, and I can’t help the chuckle that escapes.
“For a while there, I thought you were going to be the one to do the deed,” I laugh, the pain shooting through my skull, but when she laughs at my joke, the pain fades away.
“I thought you were going to die with—without ever knowing that I love you.” She says the last part so fast that it sounds like one long word.
“I’m sorry, you’re going to have to say that again for me. I’ve been told I might have brain damage. I need to make sure I caught that correctly,” I say, lifting a hand to cup my ear before she bats it away and sits on the edge of my bed. She runs a hand up my jaw, pressing her forehead to mine.
“I love you, Colton Graves.”
“I love you too, Harper Mathers.”