Unwrapping Love (Looking For Love #8)

Prologue

“Can I go home today?” Saylor asked the nurse practitioner who came in to check on her.

This was her third hospital stay, excluding when she was diagnosed. She was over it.

“Good,” she said. “I’ll text my mother. She should be here soon, I hope.”

It’s not like her mother was with her for the two days she’d been here already. Just a stupid kidney infection that any other person would get antibiotics for and be on their merry way.

Not her. Her blood sugar was too high to be brought down on her own and she was overrun with ketones. Ketoacidosis. Hence the hospital yet again!

Michele came over to sit on the side of the bed and patted her leg. “You need to take better care of yourself.” Michele’s voice was soothing even if firm.

“I’m trying,” she said. “It’s hard.”

“Saylor. I know. Are you measuring your food for the proper dosing with your pump?” She shrugged and looked away. “I’ll take that as a no. How come?” Michele rubbed her leg a little. She knew she was going to get a lecture, but it’d be a gentle one.

“The scale broke last year,” she said.

“A scale is great, but you can use measuring cups for most things. Or just count out portions. The label on the package gives you that information.”

“Labels?” she asked.

Michele’s shoulders dropped. “You and your parents were taught all of this when you were diagnosed.”

“I don’t remember much from that week,” she said.

She remembered being so sick and barely able to stand, the ambulance arriving, her admittance into the pediatric ICU and spending four days there wondering if she’d die.

Knowing her pancreas was dead and she’d be caring for it the rest of her life felt like a death sentence to her.

She only wanted to be normal like the rest of her friends and never would be again.

“Well,” Michele said. “I know it’s hard. And it sucks.” Saylor snorted. “But it’s part of your life, and you can’t change it. Do something about it. You’re damaging your organs by not caring for yourself.”

“I’ve been telling her that for years.”

She turned to see her grandmother come into the room. “Hi, Grandma. Is Mom or Dad on the way?”

“They should be right behind me.”

“Good,” she said, smiling. “Michele said I can go home today.”

“Saylor and I were having a discussion about her diabetes management and the importance of long-term care. What she does now will affect her in the future.”

“She’s a stubborn one,” Grandma said and sent her a grin. “But we’ll get to work on her. Maybe I can reach out to you for some help?”

“I’d love that,” Michele said and stood. Her favorite nurse practitioner pulled a card out of her lab coat and handed it off. “Please do. Anything to get Saylor on the right path. It doesn’t matter who does it.”

A shot at her parents who had been hands off for at least two years now.

Not always on purpose. Her father wasn’t home much because of his job, her mother working a lot, dealing with her sister’s dramatics and then trying to care for her and the house at the same time.

When Michele left, her grandmother sat in the chair. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. Michele said that my ketones are almost gone and the infection is under control. I just need to continue with the antibiotics and drink a lot.”

“Water,” Grandma said. “No more of those sports drinks unless they are sugar free.”

“Mom doesn’t buy the sugar free ones because Sandy doesn’t like them.”

It was always all about her younger sister and giving in to avoid tantrums. If her mother bought her anything special, Sandy would eat, drink, or throw it out for spite that someone got something she didn’t.

Been like that since Sandy was born fifteen years ago.

“Your mother should be more concerned about your health and providing for you than if your sister screams and stomps her foot or threatens to lock herself in her room and destroy it in a fit of jealous rage.”

She shrugged. “You can tell her that.”

Grandma snorted. “I’ve gone around the block enough and your mother doesn’t listen. I’m embarrassed that my son doesn’t take more control of the situation.”

“Dad isn’t around much,” she said. Her father was a truck driver and gone several days a week on the road, leaving their mother to all but raise them alone most times.

When her father was home, the house was calmer, him being more in control. Sandy listened, surprisingly, but it was always short-lived until he left again.

“It doesn’t make it right,” Grandma said.

“Yeah, well, I learned life sucks and I’m stuck in that section of it.”

“Is Saylor having another pity party?”

She turned to see her sister standing in the doorway delivering that sarcastic comment. Nothing new there either.

“Leave your sister alone,” Grandma said. “She’s been through a lot in the past few days.”

“Mom is talking to the nurse now to get you discharged faster. I’ve got plans with Lucas today. It’s a joke I couldn’t stay home with him,” Sandy said, flopping in a chair next to their grandmother and flipping her hair over her shoulder.

“It’s because you can’t be trusted alone with a boy,” Saylor said.

Her sister had a reputation of being loose at fifteen already. Her mother threw a fit when she found out Sandy was talking about having sex with Lucas, who she’d been dating for three weeks.

Every month her sister had a new guy in her life. Saylor was positive her sister wasn’t a virgin, even though she kept saying she was.

“What do you know about that?” Sandy asked, her nose scrunching. Surprising her face could move at all with all the layers of makeup caked on. “No one wants to touch you with all those devices on your body.”

“Sandra Nicole!” Grandma said. “I’m ashamed of you. Tell your sister you’re sorry. She can’t do anything about that and you know it.”

Saylor’s bottom lip trembled. It wasn’t new. These doubts had lived inside her for a long time, but hearing her sister say them out loud cut deeper than the damn IV that had taken thirty agonizing minutes to find a vein in her dehydrated body just days ago.

“I shouldn’t have to apologize for something that is the truth,” Sandy said, scowling at her.

“What’s going on in here?” her mother asked when Saylor was wiping the tears off her cheeks.

“Your youngest daughter is being mean as always,” Grandma said. “And she won’t apologize for hurtful words.”

“What did you do this time, Sandy?” her mother asked, the exhaustion visible for everyone to see. Saylor hated the stress she caused as part of it, but it wasn’t as if she could control it all.

“I told Saylor no boy wants to touch her with all those devices on her body. They think she’s a robot. She acts like one anyway, so it’s fitting,” Sandy said, smirking.

Her mother pulled money out of her wallet. “Go get the donuts you wanted. Get out of here if you can’t be nice.”

Her sister grabbed the money with a pep in her step and walked out with a smile, proving she got her way once again. “I’ll eat a second one for you, Saylor, since you can’t have one right now.”

Just another thing her sister did. Rubbed it in her face about things she shouldn’t eat. Sandy would buy two, then eat them both in front of Saylor, licking her fingers and making moaning sounds when her mother wasn’t around.

Saylor kept eating the wrong things and neglecting her insulin, landing herself in this mess over and over. It was reckless and stupid just to prove to her sister she could handle it on her own.

“I just talked to the nurse at the desk. She said that Michele signed off and the doctor will be in within thirty minutes, then they will start the discharge papers. We need to get home so I can bring Sandy to her friend’s later.”

Because it was all about her sister.

“Michele was here and said that I need to read the labels on food better.”

“That’s on you,” her mother said. “You’re old enough to figure it out. You want to go to college next year and you won’t be underfoot for me to monitor everything.”

Her grandmother coughed in her hand. It wasn’t as if her mother monitored much. At least not now, but she had earlier on years ago.

“Saylor, why don’t you come home with me and stay the weekend? You need some rest anyway. School is getting out in three weeks, right?”

“Yeah,” she said. She’d be a senior next year. Just turned seventeen two weeks ago and it was already off to a shitty start with the hospital stay.

“Maybe it’d be good if Saylor lived with me for the summer,” Grandma said. “Some one on one learning to cook, what foods are better for her, reading labels. I’ll help her.”

“Can I, Mom?” Anything to not have to be stuck in the house with her sister for the summer. “I wanted to get a job too.”

She had her license but no car. Her grandmother would let her use her car though.

“I don’t care. It might be good for you,” her mother said. “It will be quieter in the house without you winding up Sandy.”

“She’s the one who starts it,” she argued.

Her mother sighed. “I didn’t mean it any way other than the two of you in the house cause problems when your father isn’t home. You’re older and should be the bigger person and you just get emotional,” her mother said. “She feeds off of that.”

Before she could say anything about her sister, her grandmother spoke quickly, “Then it’s settled. You’re going to live with me this summer and if you don’t mind working in an office, I’m positive I can get you an internship at my place. We can go in together a few days a week.”

Saylor nodded her head. “I’ll do anything,” she said. “Whatever they need.”

“How about what you need, Saylor?” Grandma asked. “That’s what you need to focus on.”

“You two work this out,” her mother said. “I’m going to see where the doctor is.”

She looked at her grandmother. “Thank you.”

Grandma got up and moved to the side of the bed. “You’ll get through this and come out a better person in the end. And if people don’t want to be around you because you’re a diabetic and they don’t understand it’s not a big deal, then that’s on them.”

She nodded again, another tear cascading down her cheek. Grandma wiped it away.

“I know,” Saylor murmured.

“You say you know, but you have to believe it. The right people in your life are going to look past it and love you for you. And they are going to understand just as much about your health and support it as you do.”

She sniffled. She doubted that day would come, but it was nice to dream.