Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
“Uh…hello? Uh…hi…Uh…I think she’s awake,” she fumbles to answer. “The woman…the woman beside my…boyfriend is awake. Her eyes are open.”
Boyfriend?
“I’ll send the nurse in,” the voice replies, but all I can think is, boyfriend?
How could he be her boyfriend when I’m in love with him? When he’s told me he’s in love with me?
“Hu—” I try to speak, but my throat is so dry it’s like my vocal cords are stuck together. I swallow against the blockage and try again, but all that comes out is a rough, squeaky sound—one that doesn’t sound like anything at all.
The woman stares at me with longing in her eyes as she grabs his hand and squeezes. She’s holding his hand. Everything inside my body wants to revolt against the gesture.
With her free hand, she nervously rubs at her rounded belly, and that movement triggers a memory to break the surface of my consciousness…
We laughed and smiled and kissed as we walked toward his apartment. We stumbled down the hallway, anticipation coursing through our veins, hands greedily grabbing at each other’s clothes. We couldn’t get close enough.
Everything felt like bliss.
Everything felt perfect.
Until we reached his door, and she was there.
“I’m pregnant,” she told him.
Agony rips through every part of me as it all comes flooding back, and I let out a scream I didn’t know I was capable of. Doctors and nurses and what feels like a million people flood the room at once, and right in the middle of my cries, everything, once again, goes black.
It feels like a metaphor for my life.
Where Sammy Baker goes, disaster and chaos follow.
“Why did you do that? She was waking up!” I hear Brooke shout, her voice escalating from somewhere close to me.
“Brooke,” Chase says softly before the third voice I now realize is Noah’s doctor friend Kendall replies, “No, it’s okay. It was just a mild push of morphine because she was screaming in pain. I promise she’s coming around again.”
And that I am. I blink a few times to clear my eyes, and a tear falls unexpectedly from the corner. Brooke looks like herself, if not a little weathered, as she rushes to my side and brings a finger to my face to catch the salty liquid. I just barely spot a ball of fur standing behind her, the fur I know belonging to her sweet Benji.
“Oh, Sam,” she whispers, her voice breaking on my name. Her head drops to my chest, and a bolt of pain makes me moan.
She reacts instantly, pulling back and shuffling into Chase’s waiting arms. But the entire time, her eyes are fixated on me, and fear and worry and concern are a crushing expression on her pretty face.
“What’s…” I lick my lips with a dry tongue, trying to make my mouth work. “What’s going on?”
Kendall steps forward then, placing a gentle hand to the edge of my bed. She’s wearing hospital scrubs, and I have the vague realization that she’s not here as a visitor. She’s here as a doctor.
She’s my doctor? But why would I need a doctor?
“Sammy, do you know where you are?” she asks, and her hands are busy with a small light that she’s shining near my eyes.
“The hospital?” I question, my voice croaking from the dryness at the back of my throat.
Another tear falls down Brooke’s face. Chase’s mouth is pinched into a firm line.
But Kendall nods, her eyes expectant. “That’s right. You’re at St. Luke’s.”
“W-why am I here?”
“You and Noah were hit by a cab,” Kendall explains. “Do you remember that?”
A cab? We were hit by a cab?
I suck my lips into my mouth on a near sob. No, I don’t. I don’t remember anything after stepping off the curb.
All I can do is move my head just slightly in the negative.
“It’s okay. I’m not surprised you don’t remember. You took quite an impact.” Kendall reaches out to gently caress my hand. “And you’ve suffered a pretty severe concussion.”
“How…how… How long?” I try to formulate a question that I can’t quite find the words for, but somehow, Kendall manages to answer.
“You’ve been out for thirty-six hours.”
Thirty-six hours?
My tearful eyes jump to Brooke’s, and she nods through her own cry.
I look back to Kendall, whose pretty face is clouded with both sympathy and anguish. Because I’m not the only one hurt.
So is her good friend Noah.
I look around the crowd at my bedside to the other side of the room. Noah is still unconscious, and Ashley is still at his side, clutching his hand.
It’s only when she looks up to see me staring at her that that changes. She stands quickly and hustles out of the room past us, offering, “I’ll just give you some privacy,” as she does.
I’m at war with myself—knowing she must be stressed to capacity and freaking hating her at the same time.