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The door to the room opened and Bones strode inside. His crisp white shirt was untucked and the front of it was stained with blood.
My blood.
His face was drained of color. He looked shaken. Bones never looked shaken.
With a deep breath, he came to the side of my bed and crouched down and gently took my hand in his. “You scared the living shit out of me.”
“I—what happened?”
“What happened?” His eyes pinned me with an intense stare. “You went to use the bathroom and when you didn’t come back, I went to find you. You were on the bathroom floor and your head was cut open. You didn’t even wake up when they loaded you into the ambulance.”
“Oh.” I struggled to lift my hand, but I managed, and then I was touching his stubbly cheek.
“Yeah, oh.” He sighed. “Tell me what’s going on, Hayden. I know something isn’t right. There was that day you slept eighteen hours straight, and all the dietary restrictions, and now this? They brought you here and immediately rushed you off to do some tests. An MRI, I think. Do you have some sort of neurological disease? Seizures? What’s going on?”
I swallowed; my throat dry. “Can I have some water?”
He dropped my hand and stood. Bones went to the bedside table and poured a cup of water from the pitcher and brought it to me. I sipped from the straw and when I’d had enough, I lay back, exhausted.
“I don’t know if I have a neurological disorder,” I said quietly. “They don’t know what it is.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“This…whatever it is…started a few years ago. Whenever I get really stressed, my body sort of checks out. I faint, or I sleep for fourteen to eighteen hours. Usually, I can tell when these episodes are going to occur, but I was in the bathroom when I felt the stabbing pain in my temple. Before I knew it, my vision was winking in and out and then I fell. I must’ve hit my head on the way down.”
“Stress,” he said slowly. “Stress is what causes it?”
I nodded. “As much as the specialists I’ve seen can deduce, anyway. They’ve run a bunch of tests. MRIs and CAT scans are normal. Bloodwork, normal. Hormones, normal. The last specialist I saw recommended a strict diet—to see if that limited the episodes.”
“Strict diet,” he murmured. “It’s why you don’t drink.”
“It’s why I don’t drink,” I agreed. “And why I don’t eat sugar or eat red meat…or have caffeine.”
“Has it helped?” Bones asked.
“Apparently not,” I said. “Limiting stress is the only thing that really prevents it. It’s why…”
“Why, what?”
“Why I didn’t go to business school. Why I didn’t want to get involved with my father’s company. Why it looks like I waste my days doing whatever I want instead of something useful.”
He took a deep breath. “Christ, Hayden. Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why did you hide this from me?”
“What was I supposed to tell you? That I have this condition that’s not really a condition? I had a few doctors tell me it was all in my head. They thought it was psychosomatic. One even told me to see a shrink.”
“Well, fuck them. I’m not a doctor, I’m your husband. And you should’ve told me. I have to know these things so I can help you. So I can know what to do when an episode happens.”
“You’re right,” I admitted. “I just…”
“What?”
“Didn’t want you to look at me differently. When you’re sick, people treat you differently.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “God, I know.”
“You do?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
Bones looked down at the floor.
