“What? No.”
“Were. You. Fucking. Drinking.” I have no patience for this piece of shit standing in front of me. I know I recognize him from when I was in college, but fuck if I know his name or even care to ask it. I know Mia well enough to know she wouldn’t get in the car with someone who had been drinking, but what if she didn’t know? I’ll fucking kill him.
“I said no. I lost control on an icy road. Fuck.” He stands there staring at me, but the rage I feel is enough to pummel him across this hall and into the next room.
“Leave,” I say as I walk past him to go back into Mia’s room.
“I want to make sure she’s okay,” he says, standing his ground.
“What you want is the least of my fucking cares right now. Leave this fucking room, leave the whole goddamn hospital, and if you ever come within a foot of Mia again, I won’t show as much restraint as I am right now.” The hairs on my arms are standing up and everything inside me wants to knock him on his ass, but before my rage takes over, I hear rustling behind me and I turn to see Mia’s eyes fluttering open and closed.
I swing the door shut in his face and rush to the side of her.
“Mi, open your eyes,” I say softly.
The second I see Mia’s giant brown eyes, the ones that drew me in the second I met her, my shoulders fall in relief. I let out the deep breath I’d been holding for the last four hours and tears fall from my eyes.
“Are you crying?” she croaks, and a laugh rumbles from my chest.
“Fuck.” I sigh. “Thank God you’re okay, Mia. I should have been here.”
The sheer pain shocks me awake and I sit up drenched in sweat.
I haven’t thought about Mia’s accident in years, at least not to the extent of having a nightmare about it. The whole dream felt so real, like I was reliving the whole thing all over again for the first time. The fear, the uncertainty, the rage. That was the first time I think I truly experienced an anxiety attack. The night Mia had her accident and broke her leg, fractured her collarbone and had endless scratches all over her perfect olive skin.
Once she was cleared to travel, I all but forced her to move to Tampa to be closer to me. It didn’t take an awful lot of convincing since that was her post-school plan anyway, but from that moment on, protecting Mia became my sole priority.
Well, being pulled off a bar by my best friend was not on my bingo card for this trip, but that seems to be the trend anyway. So many—too many—baffling things are happening lately. Little moments or little actions, situations…things I never anticipated.
After Nate pulled me off the bar last night and whispered into my ear, the goosebumps spread like wildfire all over my body. He looked at me in a familiar way, and if Bree wouldn’t have interrupted us, I have no idea what would’ve happened.
My phone’s been going off all morning and I’ve ignored it for a while, but the messages just keep on coming. I know it’s the group chat with Summer and Abby. My only other friend is five feet away from me.
Abby
I can’t watch shows with blood.
Summer
It’s fake for the love of God. I would be more understanding if you just couldn’t be around actual blood in real life, but fake blood on a TV isn’t a big deal.
Abby
You’re numb to it, you’re a nurse.
Summer
Speaking of numb, why don’t you just put ice between your legs? Numb the pain away.
Abby
It’s not painful. I’m just sore.
I didn’t scroll all the way to the top of the messages, but now I guess I need to in order to understand the context of Summer’s text.
Nate walks into the room carrying a cup of coffee and he sets it on the nightstand beside me. His eyes look heavy, like he barely slept and the way his hair is darting off in different directions tells me he’s run his hands through it at least a dozen times.
“I heard you moving around in here, figured you were up.” The deep V of his stomach practically hits me in the face when I sit up because he’s standing so close to the bed. I gulp at the sight and unintentionally lick my lips.
