Page 19 of What Goes Around

Voices I couldn’t hold onto.

When I finally woke fully, the world felt wrong. Heavy. Muffled. Like someone had stuffed cotton into my senses and sealed the edges shut.

Bandages wrapped half my face and chest. My left eye was sealed under layers of gauze.

“Try not to move,” a nurse murmured beside me, her voice soft. “You’re stable now.”

My throat felt scorched when I tried to speak. “Where…?”

“You’re at St. Andrew’s Hospital,” she said. “You were brought in Sunday night. You’ve been sedated most of the time. Your burns were severe.”

Sunday night.

How long had I been drifting in that void?

“What day is it?” I asked, my voice rough.

“Thursday,” she said gently. “You’ve been under for four days.”

Four days.

I swallowed, the movement sending a bolt of pain down my neck. “And my eye?”

She hesitated. Just for a second, but I caught it.

“The doctor’s on the way,” she said. “He’ll explain everything.”

When the doctor came, she explained the bandages. How they were protecting the skin. Protecting my eye while everything tried to heal.

The ophthalmologist said it was too early to know the full extent of the damage.

Words like chemical burns and skin grafts blurred together, fragments trying to push through the rising panic buzzing in my head.

Tears slipped from my good eye.

When the doctor finally asked if I needed anything else, I managed a single word. “Painkillers.”

The nurse touched my arm gently. “We’ll keep you more comfortable now that you’re awake.” She adjusted my IV, then paused. “Oh. I should tell you. You had visitors while you were unconscious. Your parents came the morning after your surgery. And a man came by, separately.”

My heart reacted before my mind could stop it.

Nick.

Maybe he had come. Maybe he had realized—

“Did he… say his name?” My voice cracked.

She nodded. “Thomas Hale.”

The breath left me in a slow, hollow exhale. Something inside me sank.

Of course it wasn’t Nick.

Of course he hadn’t come.

Why would he?

“We told him you weren’t awake yet,” she said softly. “He stayed maybe ten minutes. He looked… very worried.”