Page 96 of Her Sloth

“You’re alive,” I whisper back.

“You came back,” she says with a croaky voice, and she seems to have trouble breathing, but her eyes are smiling at me.

Those blue eyes.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “I always will.”

She grasps my hand and squeezes it softly, as she closes her eyes.

“Addy,” I say, fear consuming me.

“She’s exhausted,” says Doctor Chang with a hand on my shoulder. “Give her some time. She’s alright. She will be alright.”

She is alright, I repeat in my mind. She will be alright.

“Here,” I tell Addy as I feed her her favorite ice cream, pistachio. Something that makes me want to vomit just from the smell of it.

She sits in the hospital bed, finally on a normal station after the skin grafting happened and everything else she had to go through. We’re in a VIP section of the hospital, and I feel weirdly strange walking into it, but even I understand the necessity of it by now.

There had been a very uncomfortable moment, because the vultures—that’s what Addy calls the paparazzi—have been hovering at all entrances of the hospital, with some of them trying to sneak into the hospital to get a photo of Addy on multiple occasions. One even went so far as to get admitted as a patient.

What happened four weeks ago is no secret. Every media outlet has covered our story. From the projection, to the wild chase, the accident, and the following takeover by Lilian Knightley of Whitney-Morgan.

What happened afterward can be described as massive uproar, wide speculation, heavy accusations, and even admiration. All things I can’t deal with. People tried to get to me, tried to follow me and all of the rest of the family, and we have been under attack from all sides.

It made me partially more understanding of the pressure Addy must have been under, because she tells us this is just a normal day for her.

Otherwise, many arrests happened. Arrests of well-known people, not that I would care.

We got interrogated and are probably facing charges for illegal street racing and everything else that comes with it, but it is safe to say we couldn’t care less.

“I don’t know how you get that down,” I tell Addy. “It tastes like dung.”

“Your taste buds are dumb,” she says like a child—with an attitude.

“Just because they didn’t grow up in caviar and truffle doesn’t mean they are dumb,” I shoot back at her.

“Someone probably drowned them in motor oil,” she says with a chuckle.

“I can’t wait till you’re healed up so I can kick your ass.”

“You two are complete idiots, you know that, right?” says Nikki, who lies upside down in an armchair with legs up the backrest and her head hanging down.

Illy and Joy sit on the other side of the room with chairs we stole from the waiting room.

“No,” we both say unanimously, and then laugh altogether.

In that moment, my brother’s face appears in the door.

“Fuck me, those paps are the pest,” he says, shaking off something we cannot see.

“Told you,” says Addy. “They’d eat your soul.”

“Meh,” says my brother. “Anyway, I smuggled in some beer. He hands everyone a beer. “Alcohol-free for you,” he says to Addy.

“That sucks,” she says flatly.

“Yeah,” he says, “But I’m not going to be murdered by my darling sister for jeopardizing your healing.”