“I keep saying all the wrong things, don’t I?” she asked quietly.
I sighed and looked at the ceiling. I didn’t know how to alleviate her concerns. I wasn’t sure it was my job to do that. I was the patient. I was the one that was supposed to receive care. I wasn’t supposed to be comforting my friend becauseI’dbeen the one to live through hell.
“Mia is in the waiting room,” she said after a long moment of silence. “So are the other Old Ladies. Do you want to see them? Do you want one of them to come sit with you?”
I shrugged. I would be alone whether someone was in the room with me or not.
Safety was nothing more than an illusion, I realized. Because all it took was one moment, one wrong turn, one accident, or one attack and everything in your life could change.
Life wasn’t safe, no matter how you tried to convince yourself it was. Dangers lurked around every corner. Shadows oozed in the night.
Some nightmares were real.
What I’d endured…I would never be the same again. Like clay shoved into a kiln, forever altered.
“I don’t mind visitors,” I said. “As long as it’s not Boxer. He’s not allowed in here. Do you hear me, Peyton? He’s not allowed in here.”
“Yeah, I hear you. Loud and clear. He’s not welcome.” Her gaze was somber again, but she didn’t try to dissuade me.
For the moment, I had my emotions under control. The anger was at bay, as was the hysteria. But seeing Boxer…talking to him…it would send me off the deep end.
Peyton examined my IV bag and made a few quick notes on her tablet about my vitals. And then she left the room.
What more was there for her to say?
I stared at the TV with the blank screen, watching nothing. A few minutes later, the door opened.
“Can I come in?” Mia asked.
“Sure.”
She stepped inside the room, carrying her shoulder bag. Her brown leather coat was slung over an arm as she waddled her very pregnant body toward my bedside.
“I’m sorry,” she said, as she plopped down in the chair.
“What do you have to be sorry for?”
She bowed her head. “I didn’t think you’d react that way. When you saw him.”
“How do you know how I reacted?”
“He told me. He told all of us. Everyone’s in the waiting room.”
“Why? Did you all drop everything and drive here only to camp out indefinitely?”
“That’s exactly what we’ve done. And we’ve booked some rooms at The Rex so we don’t have to drive back home tonight.”
“Why? Why would you do that?”
She stared at me. “You really don’t understand, do you? You’re family, Linden.”
Her words were shards of glass eviscerating my heart.
“That’s not the only reason I’m sorry,” she went on, completely unaware of what her casual declaration did to me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t hold it together when I found you in the parking lot. You didn’t need me to fall apart or hear me panic when I spoke to Colt. I let my emotions get in the way of what you truly needed. You don’t have to talk to me, Linden. But if you do, I’ll listen.”
“Why do people keep apologizing to me?” I asked after her impassioned speech. “Do you feel better saying everything you just said? Because it doesn’t make me feel any better. It’s not like it erases the past. An apology is just empty words.”