“I’d like to go home.”
I need to go to the ranch.
“You can move into your apartment in a few days, once you’re well on your way to recovery.”
“Has Chelsea been in to see me?”
Mom and Dad share a glance, but they don’t answer me, and that pisses me off.
“We’ll be back,” Mom says. “I have a press conference.”
They both walk out, and I’m left with no answers.
“I need my phone,” I say to the nurse, who’s walked back in to check my vitals.
“It’s right here,” she replies, setting the device on the bed next to me. “You really should nap.”
“I’ve been asleep fordays,” I remind her. “I think I’m fine.”
Picking up the phone, I go right to my contacts, but they’re gone.
I have literallynocontacts.
“I was told that it’s a new phone,” she says with a wink.
Why do I need a new phone? And where’s my old one?
I’m feeling sleepy again, and that frustrates me, but I let the nurse lay me back, and I close my eyes.
It’s been two weeks since I woke up.
I’m back in my apartment, and Ihateit.
Not that I’m not in a great part of town, in a beautiful building. I have a new security detail, and no one will tell me where Richie is. No one will give me Gideon’s number, and when I tried to google it, I got an immediate call from my mother telling me to stop.
What the fuck?They’re monitoring my internet use?
Mom has been much more attentive since I’ve been back. Every minute of her day is always scheduled to the second, but she finds time to call or text me, just to check in. I know that what happened in Montana scared her, and I understand that, but why are they keeping me from Gideon?
And why isn’t he burning the world to the ground to get to me?
None of this makes sense.
Not to mention, I haven’t heard even one peep out of anyone. And it reminds me how fucking isolated I am in my life. I don’t want Chelsea back in my orbit. She’s toxic as fuck, and I’m so much better off without her.
But I miss Willow and Ryker. And oh my God, every bit of me aches for Gideon.
He’s my person.
Is it because I fucked up again? It was my fault that we went to that dinner. Willow and I talked him into it. I just wanted to celebrate my man’s birthday, and it all fell apart in theworstway. I just had to have it, he caved and gave it to me, and it blew up in our faces.
Hell, I wouldn’t want to be with me either.
But God, how I miss him.
To keep myself busy, I’ve been sketching like a madwoman, and I even decided to reach out to my favorite gallery to see if they’d exhibit some of my work under a pseudonym, and I’m meeting with them later this afternoon.
It’ll be a soft launch, since I’m not well known, but the fact that they agreed to give me gallery space meant a lot to me.
