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“As long as you’re comfortable,” I answered. Inside, my heart was doing cartwheels.
“But what about you?”
“Baby, you could scoop out my guts with a scalpel and eat them while I watched, and I would like it because it’s you.”
“That’s disgusting, Ben.”
“Still the truth.”
She settled against me again, and my fingers found their way into her hair, combing gently through the length.
A little while later when I thought she was asleep, her voice stirred the quiet room. “I won’t have any more nightmares tonight because you make me feel safe.”
My eyes opened, and I stared into the dark. Two days ago, that sweet confession would have made me high on life.
But now? It made me feel like the world’s biggest bastard.
14
Jess
Follow your normal routine, they said. Do familiar things, they said.
Excuse me, but who is they? I suppose, in this case, it would be the doctors, nurses, and even the fun-time therapist they had drop by my hospital room.
They clearly never had retrograde amnesia because, if they did, they would slap themselves in the face for being stupid.
Okay, that was mean. I’m grumpy. You would be too if nothing was familiar, you didn’t even know what your “normal” routine was, and you had a broken ankle that made it hard to walk.
They also wanted me to keep calm. Totally easy considering everything I said above. Not. In the past forty-eight hours, I had learned that not all anxiety is created equal. That just when you think you’ve reached the peak, a fresh batch of trepidation would present itself.
It was a lot, you know? A head injury, a body full of bumps and bruises, and a cast on my leg. What was worse than the physical pain, though, was looking at it all and not having a clue as to how any of it happened. What was I doing? Did I fall? Get into a car accident? Did I have a car?
I gasped.
Ben’s feet dropped from the side of the bed as he sat up, pushing the lid of his laptop down at the same time. “Jess?”
“Was anyone else hurt?” I asked, a fresh wave of consternation overtaking me.
See? It was endless.
“What?” he questioned, sliding the partly closed MacBook onto the end of the bed so he could give me his full attention.
Tears welled behind my eyes, creating pressure in my head. “Whatever made me like this,” I said. “Was anyone else hurt too?”
Ben made a soft sound, wrapping one hand around mine while his other slid beneath my hair to cup the back of my neck. Something inside me quieted almost immediately. It caught me off guard every time he touched me. How my body overruled my empty brain and reacted to his touch like it was the best thing since sliced bread.
Oh God, I didn’t remember how bread tasted.
The realization made me whimper.
Still anchored at my neck, Ben shifted from the chair to the edge of the bed. The hand he wasn’t holding automatically gripped his forearm. I didn’t know anything since opening my eyes, but one thing was very clear.
Ben made me feel safe. To be honest, if it weren’t for him, all that turbulent stress presenting itself in new and oh-so-fun ways every ten seconds would probably have sent my assigned therapist into a tizzy.
He hadn’t left my side at all. I’d been here for two days, and he was a constant in a universe of unknowns.
“Look at my girl.” His voice was slightly gruff. “So sweet she’s worrying about people she doesn’t even know.” His thumb stroked across the pulse hammering in the side of my neck. The repetitive action was soothing.
