I can't believe that I was attacked, that I've been in here a week, that my father is trying to drag me back to Chicago, and that I have no way of contacting anyone without my phone.
I can't check on Tahnee to make sure she's okay and ask her what she knows about what happened that night after she left.
I can't check if Jolene has been managing okay without me at the store . . . the store. Maybe if I get the number to Peaches, I can call her.
I don't see any phone in here, but I could ask the next nurse that comes in here where I can find one.
And then there's Jacob. I never got his number. But I probably wouldn't have it memorized even if I did. Plus, he rarely uses his phone anyway, usually leaving it on the boat.
How am I going to get in contact with him? My heart hurts thinking about how we left things. I know that he didn't mean the words that he said, but does he know that Ididn't either? I wish I could see him right now and tell him.
The town was so concerned about him being a threat that they didn't pay attention to the actual threat they had lurking in their midst. Although admittedly, I still don't know if it was a local or not. I just hope that they back off of Jacob now.
God, I cannot go back to Chicago with my dad. I just can't.
I need to figure a way out of it.
A nurse comes by a short while later, does her thing, and tells me that I'm being discharged tomorrow.
Before she leaves, she kindly searches the number for Peaches in Googleand then lets me know that there is a payphone down the hall and around the corner.
Instead of going straight there, I shuffle into the small private bathroom and take a long hot shower for the first time in a week apparently, making me feel a hundred times better. I didn't realize just how awful I felt beforehand.
Food is waiting for me when I step out of the bathroom, which has hunger pangs hitting me like a ton of bricks. I devour everything regardless of the bland taste.
As much as I've slept over the past week, the shower and the food leave me feeling drained. Like I need to lay down again.
Once I've rested, I'll go make that call.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
A couple of hours later, I'm making my way down the empty corridor of the hospital, toward where the nurse said the phone was when I hear angry hushed voices from around the corner.
One I recognize as my fathers, and although the other one sounds kind of familiar, I can't quite place it.
“It was too much, and you know it,” my father says.
“It all went according to plan,” the other guy answers in a bored tone.
“You almost killed her. I didn't pay you for that,” my father practically hisses.
“No. You paid me to move there. Follow her around. And when I told you she was hanging around with that scum, you made me set this whole thing up so that he'd get arrested, which is what I did. And she's fine. Shit, besides her having a reaction to the drugs, it went perfectly. I couldn't have timed his walking by to go see her any better.”
The breath I was exhaling freezes in my throat. It suddenly feels like a vice just tightened around my neck, making it hard to breathe.
No way did I hear that correctly. No way did my father have someone tailing me around and then set up this whole attack to have Jacob arrested.
Oh, god. Jacob.
I inch forward to peek around the corner, hoping and praying that I'm wrong. That it's not even my father speaking, but someone else who is talking about something else entirely.
But when the two men come into view, that hope shatters completely, and my insides revolt against me.
There stands my father, hands stuffed into his pockets with a frown on his face, and the guy he's talking to, is none other than Grant.
Thoughts of how I always felt uncomfortable around him come to mind. How whenever he came into the store to buy a single pack of gum or candy bar, it must have been him just keeping tabs on me. Then there was the figure in the window of that house, the figure in the window at the bar, the feelings of being watched . . . it was all him.
This is real.