My skull feels like it’s in a vise, and my eyelids are growing too heavy to keep open.
“Is it okay if I text them that you woke up for a few minutes? Derek has been messaging me for updates every ten minutes or so.”
I let my eyelids fall closed. “I don’t know.”
“They’re still here, you know? In the waiting room. I can go get them instead of texting?” Oakley offers.
But the thought of having them all in this room while I feel like trash and am at their mercy, unable to leave if I want to, makes my stomach twist on itself, which doesn’t help my overall sense of wellness. “No. Just text. Go away.”
Oakley’s pause is so long that it’s quite possible I’ve fallen asleep again. “You want me to tell them to go away?”
I swallow and nod with my eyes closed. “Don’t want them here. We’re over.”
I’d thought I was playing their game and winning. When, in reality, they took all the pieces off the board and my power with them. I’ll never forgive them for that.
So, no. I don’t want them here. I don’t want them anywhere near me. I don’t want to breathe the same air as them. And I especially do not want them touching me, ever again. Pretending to care. Pretending they actually want me. When all they really wanted was a stupid, naïve little girl who they could control because she thought she had found her place in life.
They just wanted to be able to use my body, take my submission and burn me with it.
Fuck all that bullshit.
No. I’m better off on my own. Just me and my future cats.
And maybe Oakley. I might keep her too.
Chapter 7
Emery
The silence in my room is weirdly comforting. The little stick-on monitors that covered me from chest to toe were taken off yesterday around lunchtime and were replaced with the little finger clamp thingy. As long as it doesn’t come off my finger, then the screen stays quiet. Which means I’m protecting the clamp like my life depends on it because that high-pitched,techy-sounding beep makes my head feel like it’s going to explode.
There is still no hope for being able to watch TV to pass the time. All the noise and light filters through my brain like a bratty little kid running up and down a grocery store aisle, knocking things off displays. When I asked how long that delightful little side effect was going to last, I was told it should clear up within a few weeks.
Weeks.
I don’t have time for that shit. I need to get my life back on track.
But honestly, even if they discharged me right now, concentrating on anything at all is exhausting. Oakley brought me my phone, but even attempting to doomscroll to pass the time has done nothing but make the headache worse.
I have no idea what this is going to mean for all my schoolwork, but I’m sure if I play the “I-was-kidnapped-and-almost-sex-trafficked-then-hospitalized” card, I should be able to get extensions on whatever I miss.
And if Oakley is to be believed about my ex-daddies saving me, then two out of three of my teachers are aware of my situation. If you want to get super technical about it, they are part of the cause for this whole shit show. Tray, being as desperate as he was, would have found me eventually, but it wouldn’t have been last night. If they had just chosen to come to me instead of handling their secret plan, I would have been safe with them in the apartment.
I’d been playing Snakes and Ladders while they’d been playing chess.
But that’s fine. They can play whatever the fuck games they want now; it just won’t be with me.
I roll onto my side, cradling my wrist against my chest, and stare out between the slats of the horizontal blinds on thewindow that looks out into the hospital corridor. I’ve already spent two nights in this hospital bed. Every time I’ve asked someone about billing or mentioned that I don’t have insurance and would like to go home as soon as possible, I’m told I don’t need to worry about that right now and to concentrate on healing.
How the fuck is someone supposed to heal while every single minute they lie in this bed, they are racking up thousands of dollars in medical bills? If all I need to do is rest, why can’t I do it at home in my own bed that’s paid for by the scholarships I’m endangering every minute I’m away from my textbooks?
Just thinking about it makes my headache spike. I should probably take the medication they offered me earlier, but even though it’s merely a painkiller, I can’t do it. If they were offering me over-the-counter stuff, I’d be taking it as often as they allowed, but it’s not.
The little white tablet is prescription codeine. I saw way too many good people start out on the “soft” stuff and then slowly slide down to the harder options. Just look at Tray. I will not go down that path.
I’ve been clean my entire life, and I plan to keep it that way.
Thinking of Tray…I have no idea where he is. Now that he has popped back up in my life, the familiar tension of not knowing what he is up to or whether he is making more promises my body is going to be responsible for cashing in, is back. All I want is to be left alone, to be allowed to move on with my life.