12. Olivia
Ialmost died.
Though it all felt like a dream, I knew Ronan had entered the bedroom.
At some point, my body gave in, and resisting it began to feel like a punishment. I wanted to give up, to cave in. And perhaps I did—I”m not sure—butI was gone for a while. And then I wasn’t.
However, as I was giving up, all I could think about was the things I wished I had done and the one person I wished I had done them with.
Life has been tough. Things have been happening, and I keep spinning, trying to get by everything and multitask my way through life. But with Ronan, I always get to slow down. I want to do things with him. I want to do everything with him.
As much as I would love to… I know we can’t go back in time, but I know we can start now, make new memories. I know I want to. I just don’t know how to tell him. Especially now with everything that’s been happening. But I feel clarity for the first time, now more than ever. I know I want to.
He showed me once many years ago how to be in the moment and enjoy every bit of it. He showed me what love was truly made of. He showed me how I should be loved. And ever since, I’ve been unintentionally comparing everyone to him.
No one even came close. And this is not to say that I have not met good men, but it is to say that I have not met anyone as good for me as Ronan.
I sit up on the bed and rest my back on a stack of fluffy, lightweight pillows.
I wince, feeling as light as the pillows behind me, if not lighter. My head hurts, and my throat still burns. I feel like I have cobwebs stuck somewhere between my chest and stomach, not to mention the constant need to sleep.
In all of this, my eyes keep going to the door, and I want to delude myself that I’m expecting a nurse or a doctor to come in, but I know it is Ronan I cannot stop looking forward to seeing.
I’m tempted to complain about why he is taking this long.
I roll my eyes, but the movement causes another jab of my headache across my head, and I wince from the sting. Then the door swings open.
I sit up, still wearing the expression of trying to curb the sting of my headache on my face, when my eyes fall on Ronan standing by the door.
“Ronan.” I would have gone to him if I didn’t have restrictions like the pipe connected to the back of my hand for fluid to run into me.
“You are alive,” he takes no more than one step, and I nod as slowly as I can manage.
I’m alive.
“It will take more than choking on my favorite soup to get rid of me,” I smile faintly, and he breathes, then slinks a hand into the pocket of his black jeans.
I have seen him in jeans more times than in anything else, but it never loses its charm. He never loses his charm, no matter what.
And right now, I can tell something is wrong.
“What is it?” I try to hold his stare, but he keeps slipping away, “Ronan?”
“It’s…” he grinds his teeth and starts taking careful steps towards me, “it’s something about what happened.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. I think I was eating too fast…” I begin to explain myself to him but he shakes his head, dismissing me.
“It wasn’t that,” he sits on the side of the bed. “The test results came in and…”
“I had an allergic reaction? Because I never h?—”
“You were poisoned,” he blurts, and my body goes numb, then a wave of cold washes from my head down to the tip of my toes, “I don’t know how it happened and how anyone was able to do that under my roof, but I just fucking…”.
“Ronan,” I clip, shoving the revelation to the side.
I will get back to that later. I will try to understand why anyone would try to poison me, what I did to earn the hatred of anyone so badly that they would seek to kill me.
But for now, I need to stop what he is doing to himself. I know Ronan, and this is one of those moments where he hates himself and feels responsible for something he had no control over.
How could he have known?
“Ronan, it’s not your fault,” I state firmly.
He nods.
He stands, grips some of his hair, tugs at it, and then begins to pace back and forth.
“I should have done something. Mount better security, bring the food to you myself, or do fucking something,” he growls, and I flinch, “I’m sorry,” he breathes, then comes back to sit beside me but this time closer.
“It’s not your fault,” I maintain my initial stance because, in all fairness, it’s nobody’s fault. A lot has happened to lead me to this point.
He nods again, “I should have been more careful with you,” he lets go of his hair, “I should have known I couldn’t trust anyone…”
I stop his spinning by taking his hand in mine. I wait to see if he will flinch or react to it in a way that tells me he doesn’t want to be touched by me, but he does nothing.
When we were together, Ronan could never keep away from me.
“I want you to take one deep breath for me,” I lift his hand to my mouth and press a kiss on the back of his. “Just one,” I press another kiss on the back of his hand, and just like that, he nods, this time for real, because I see the instant his shoulders relax.
This takes me back to high school. Ronan had a temper, but he listened to me even amidst the heat of it.
“Another one,” I manage a small smile for him and press another kiss on the back of his hand. He gives me another breath, but this time, it”s much deeper than the previous one.
We are getting there.
He drops his eyes to where our hands join, and I tug at his hand to indicate for him to look at me instead.
He is a good person—always has been. I know he is involved with a lot of… dubiously legal businesses, but I would never be able to see him as anything other than a good person. He is my protector. He always cares about me and about the people he loves.
“It’s not your fault,” I hush out, and he drags his butt on the clinic’s bed to sit closer to me.
“Keep doing that,” he gulps.
“Keep doing what?” I chuckle.
“You know what I mean,” he clicks his teeth, and I shrug.
“You tell me, I don’t know,” I feign ignorance.
“Stop fucking around, Olivia,” he slings his eyebrow, and I laugh, but not as hard as I would want to because of the pang in my head.
I feel lethargic but can keep doing what he has asked me to because I want to anyway.
I want to be here for him—not just for now, but always, like in the old days.
I want to be his Olivia again.