CHAPTER ONE
Wren
What the hell?
The voice cuts through my haze, sharp and horrified.
I blink, my eyes burning from dryness, from crying, from nothing at all. I look up, and the world comes back in jarring pieces.
The bathroom tile. The sticky towel bunched under my hips. My vibrator—long dead—still beside me. My hand is between my thighs. The broken gasping rhythm I haven’t been able to stop. Tears were still leaking out of the corners of my eyes.
And then—Rob. Standing in the doorway. Mouth parted. Shock and disgust written across every line of his face.
He doesn’t speak again.
I whisper, “Help me.”
My voice is hoarse. I don’t even sound human.
He steps in carefully, crouches, and grabs the bottle on the sink. He shakes it. Empty. He exhales sharply and looks at me like I’m a problem he doesn’t know how to solve.
“I’ll take you to the hospital,” he says, already moving to grab a blanket off the bed.
I nod, or try to. But I can’t lift my arms. I’m so stiff. Like everything inside me has been wrung out and tied in knots. Theslick between my thighs is cold now. My pulse is thready and weak.
He wraps the blanket around me and lifts me—gently, but without looking directly at my face.
Everything blurs from there.
The hospital is white noise. A nurse with firm hands. An IV needle. The cool press of something against my forehead. Beeping machines. Murmured questions.
I can’t form the answers. I feel myself float. Then drop. Then float again.
And then—nothing.
I wake up slowly, as if climbing up from the bottom of a lake.
The light is softer now. Dimmer. Somewhere past dawn. The blanket smells like antiseptic. I can feel the IV still taped to my hand.
Rob is there. Slumped in the chair beside my bed, scrolling through his phone.
He glances up. “Hey.”
I close my eyes again. “How long…?”
“About fifteen hours. They gave you a sedative.”
I try to sit up, but my limbs feel like sandbags.
He shifts forward, hesitating. “I called your mom and told her you’d been admitted. She asked that you call her back as soon as you woke up.”
My stomach knots. “You shouldn’t have told her. You know I don’t like worrying her.”
He lifts his hands. “I was just trying to do the right thing.”
“Yeah, but you know how stressed she gets. You shouldn’t have called her.”
He runs a hand through his hair, a clear sign that he’s getting agitated. “She’s your emergency contact, for fuck’s sake.”
