Chapter Forty-Seven
Blair
I spent the next two days in the same chair, eating the hospital food they brought up for her.I never understood why they kept bringing it for her, knowing she couldn’t eat it.
I held onto her for most of the day, just rubbing her hand and repeating the same phrase.Please come home. Please come home. Please come home.
I washed her face and watched as the doctors came in and checked her every so often. Every time, they gave me pitiful looks before leaving.
Kaia came by yesterday and sat with me for a while. She had closed down the store for the day, which she didn’t think Drea would be happy about, but I told her she would get over it.
Fallon came back to check in. She sat with her while I took a shower and got some real food.
Mackenzie had offered to run me home to pack a bag and made sure to keep Fallon on the phone the entire time in case something changed. It didn’t.
For four days, her status never changed. She never got worse, but she never got better, and every second longer, I was filled with guilt. I knew accidents happened, but she wouldn’t have been a part of it if I had stayed in Seattle. If we had worked things out sooner, maybe things would be different.
Cara hadn’t come by while I was there, which I wasthankful for. I wasn’t ready to see her, not like this. I had Fallon send her text updates. Apparently she saw her before I arrived.
I had just gotten out of the shower when I could have sworn I saw movement. Fallon and Mackenzie were sitting on the couch on their phones, so I couldn’t ask one of them.
I sat next to Drea and took her hand, waiting to see if it happened again. Sure enough, a minute later, I felt a twitch in my hand and jumped.
“What?!” Fallon yelled.
“I think…” I stopped when I felt her finger twitching. “Call a nurse!”
Mackenzie got up and yelled for the nurse, who came in quickly after.
“What’s going on?” one of the nurses asked as the other checked the machine.
“I was coming out of the bathroom when I thought I saw her hand move. I sat down and felt her fingers twitch in my hand.” It sounded crazy to my own ears, but I knew what I saw.
The nurse walked over and checked all the monitors and then checked Drea. When her hand twitched in mine again, I jumped. “There!” I yelled, pointing to her hands. “They twitched again!”
The movements became more frequent, enough that the nurse took notice and paged the doctor. I couldn’t have stopped the tears if I’d wanted to. I was sure she wasn’t going to wake up, and there she was, alive. Drea was alive, and she was coming back to me—to her family and friends. Not to me.
With everything going on, I had forgotten what I was to her, or what I wasn’t. I was happy she would be okay, but that didn’t change that I meant nothing to her.
A few other nurses had come in just in time for Drea to start waking up. She was blinking slowly a few times, and trying to give her eyes time to adjust to the bright hospital lights.
When she finally opened her eyes, mine were filled with tears as I held her hand.
“Blair?” she groaned.” She winced at a pain she must have been feeling, and I squeezed her hand.
“Hi.” I smiled through the tears. I couldn’t believe she was awake.
She looked around the room and saw Fallon and Mackenzie, who were both crying and holding each other. “What’s going on?”
We sat and listened while the nurses told her everything that had happened, and her face went pale. “Did I kill anyone? Oh my God, how could I have been so stupid? I should have?—”
“Drea, relax,” Mackenzie soothed. “There was a bad storm, and it was an accident. It’s not your fault. These things happen.”
She turned to me, and I grinned, forgetting the past hurt, forgetting the things we’d said, at least in that moment. I was just thankful she was alive. We could resume the real world later.
“Blair, I am so sorry. I was so stupid. Everything I said, I was scared. I should have told you sooner. I lo?—”
“Don’t.” I stopped her. “Just work on getting better. We can talk later.”
