Immediate relief washes over me the moment it hits my tongue.
“Better?” Gran asks.
I nod.
“Are you in pain?”
I hadn’t noticed at first, but now that she’s asked, the dull ache in my thigh starts to pulse.
My voice is gravelly, and my throat feels like I’ve swallowed a razor blade when I say, “My leg.”
“I’ll get the nurse.” She stands, quickly exiting the room.
A minute later, she comes back with a nurse.
“Hello, Ashton. How are you feeling?”
“Tired.”
“That will wear off with time. Are you nauseous at all?”
I shake my head.
She gives me a medication in my IV before leaving. My thoughts feel like sludge. Like I have questions, but I’m trudging through mud to get to them.
My mother suddenly appears in the doorway, holding a coffee in each hand.
“Oh, honey, how are you feeling?” Her voice is sweeter than I’ve ever heard.
“Um…”
“She just woke up.” Gran shoots my mother a look.
Mom hands a coffee to Gran before sitting in the chair on the other side of my bed.
“Thank God, you’re okay. We were scared half to death.”
“Brenda!” Gran bites. “I just told you; she just woke up.”
My eyes flick between the two. I don’t know what’s happening. They never get along, but they’re tenser than normal.
“What—”
Gran clears her throat, sliding to the edge of her seat. “Do you remember anything?”
It’s fuzzy. I was in Gabriel’s apartment, waiting for him.
I was afraid.
Not of him?—
No, it was something else. I ran down the stairs.
And then…
And then, he grabbed me?—
It floods back all at once—gunshots, the garage… Gabriel. Tears fill my eyes, and my chest squeezes.
