Chapter Eighteen
Hospitals are a funny thing. They tell you you’re all good to go, but then when you leave, make you leave in a wheelchair. I pushed Law out the front double doors to where Tony was waiting in a rental car.
The rest of the team had taken everything back to Alabama, but we were going to drive home in the little car. I pulled Law up to the side of the car, but instead of getting the front seat, he pulled at the back seat door.
“What are you doing?” I questioned him, closing the door and opening the front door.
“You need to sit in the front.” He opened the back door again and pulled himself into the back seat. The doctor was true to his word on no broken bones, but it was even more true about the bruised body. Law had a hard time getting out of bed this morning, that I had no idea how he had just pulled himself into the car. “I can’t have you getting sick on me again.”
I rolled my eyes and pushed his door closed. He buckled his seat belt and then lay across seats, which still didn’t fit his large stature. A nurse who had followed us out took the wheelchair and I got in the car to start our trip back home.
We barely made any stops, with Law sleeping most of the time. I had the cold air turned toward me on full blast for the whole ride. There was only one time I thought I was going to get sick, but it turned out I was just hungry.
Later in the day when we finally made it back home and when Tony pulled onto the farm and Law woke, it felt like we had never felt. I looked behind me to see Law’s sleepy smile and I couldn’t wait to get him in bed and to wake up tomorrow morning to the Alabama sunlight and move forward.
I had come to the conclusion on the drive back home that I wasn’t going to let this accident affect me in the way most people thought it was going to. I couldn’t let it or it was going to eat me alive.
I got out of the car to help Law get inside. I shooed Tony away because I needed to do this. I couldn’t call Tony every time something happened or if he left and Law needed to get up but his body hurt too much to move. I had to do this not just for Law, but for myself.
Moving forward.
“Lawson.” Tony said his name and we stopped our ascent on the porch.
Law turned back to look at his friend.
“I know,” Law said to him and I wondered about the look that passed between them. What were they telling each other without me being able to know?
“Good.” Tony nodded to me and then left in the car.
“Let’s get you inside, superstar.” I led Law up the rest of the steps with my arm around his waist and one of his arms around my shoulder. He wouldn’t put too much pressure on me, but when he winced I knew we wouldn’t be able to get him up the long flight of stairs. “Couch it is!”
“I’m fine, Anya.”
“Lies.” I laughed at him and sat him on the couch and pulled his legs so that he was lying down. I tried to walk away, but Law’s hand reached out to grab mine. I looked back down at him and saw a look I’d never seen before and I had no idea what it was.
“Don’t leave.” Law could barely say the words, but from just two words and how his eyes shined in the darkness, I knew what the look meant. He was scared. He was just as scared as I was and had waited until we were alone and together to let it show.
“I won’t.” I tried to release my hand from his, but he wasn’t having it. I laughed and tried again. “I want to get a glass of water and some blanket.”
“I don’t need them.”
“You do and I’m getting them.” I yanked my hand out of his and made quick work on what I had already promised to get him. I didn’t want him to feel like I didn’t want to be there, but if he was going to be staying on the couch, I needed to make it comfortable enough for both of us. Law always had a glass of water by his bed and I always needed at least three blankets.
I came back to the couch as fast as I could to an already sleeping Law. I looked down at the man who had begged me not to leave the room and placed a blanket on top of him and then tried my hardest to move his body to the back of the couch, so that I could lie with him. When he didn’t budge I made due with the floor. It wasn’t so bad and Law’s hand was still flopped over the edge of the couch, so I reached up after making a semi-bed and held on to his hand. I could barely get him to move on the couch, but the second my hand came in contact with his, it was like a death grip. One I knew I wouldn’t be able to get out of.
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I rolled over at some point in the middle of the night. Not because of Law still holding my hand, not because I was cold, not because of anything normal, because truthfully, I wouldn’t call waking up to grunts normal.
I propped myself up on the ground.
No Law on the couch. Another grunt came from the other room and I got up, the light I had left on in the kitchen still shining through most of the house. Another grunt. I walked toward where the sound was coming from and there was Law, halfway up the stairs, a horrid look of pain racing across his face and he tried to get up the stairs himself.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded from him, standing at the bottom of the stairs in the jeans and shirt I had worn to the race. I hadn’t even changed out of anything, just stayed like this, hoping to forget all that had happened.
“Just”—Law let out a breath as he tried to take another step—“help me.”
“No.” I walked up the stairs and put an arm around Law’s waist and then tried to back down to the bottom steps.
