Page 108 of Open To Negotiation

I held up my uninjured hand to stop him. “Please don’t. Whatever you have to say, I just can’t right now.” I closed my eyes and rested my head against the pillows.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, forcing me to look at him. He wasn’t one for apologies. He stood at the foot of my bed, jaw tight and hands clenched so hard on the frame that his knuckles were white.

“You being here doesn’t change anything, right?” I hated how hurt I sounded.

“I needed to make sure you were okay.” His voice was rough, dark circles under his eyes.

I squeezed my eyes shut as silence fell over the room. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t find the words to ask him to leave. But after what felt like an hour, I heard shuffling. I dragged my heavy eyes open to see him walking out of the hospital room.

It was exactly what I expected him to do.

Yet somehow it hurt more than any of my injuries.

30

Quinn

I’d been discharged from the hospital the day after the accident. The doctors determined that I was stable and would just need to get the cast off my wrist in the next four weeks depending on how it was healing.

Despite everyone trying to convince me otherwise, I refused to leave, instead sitting at Aubrey’s side trading off with her parents. I guess Oli had made some calls so we weren’t being held to visiting hours.

The first twenty-four hours had been touch and go, they’d had to rush her back to surgery for a bleed but she’d been stable since. She’d finally woken up last night, two days after her second surgery.

Her parents had been in the room when she opened her eyes, she’d been weak and groggy. I cried with relief when I’d walked in to see her eyes open. A bunch of doctors had been in and out, asking questions, doing tests and scans, but now that it was evening, things had slowed down. I’d convinced her parents to go to the hotel for the night and get some sleep.

Now I was sitting beside Aubrey, flipping through my book without actually seeing what I was reading.

Theo had been keeping his distance, practically a ghost, but I knew he was around. I’d caught sight of him sitting in the waiting room when one of the guys said they brought me a coffee or another drink. I saw him passing a bag of food to Noah who brought it to me a few minutes later. When I’d gone home to shower yesterday and have a nap, Theo’s truck had been following behind as Arthur drove me back and forth from the hospital.

Each time I got a glimpse of him, I looked away. I was pissed off, hurt, and had other things to put my attention into. I didn’t even know how to deal with him right now.

“Hey.” Aubrey’s croaky voice pulled my attention back to the room.

I quickly stood, grabbing the water off the table beside her and held the straw close to her mouth so she could take a drink. Her throat had been raw since they'd taken her intubation tube out.

“How are you feeling? Do I need to call the doctor?” I asked.

“I’m fine.” She let out a sigh and looked up at me. Her eyes were tired, the bruising and stiches they had to do on her forehead hadn’t helped. “Did Mom and Dad leave?”

“Yeah, they’ll be back in the morning.”

“That’s good,” she replied softy as she shifted to get more comfortable in the hospital bed with all the tubes coming out of her arm.

I bit my lip trying to figure out how to broach what we needed to talk about as the steady beep of her heart rate monitor filled the room.

“You’re—”

“I’m—”

We both started at the same time, both of us stopping.

“You go,” I said, waving her on.

She nodded, playing with the corner of her blanket. “I’m so sorry about Max. I shouldn’t have gotten in the car, I don’t remember much from before the accident, but I do know that you didn’t want to get in the car.”

“You weren’t the one driving drunk, Aubrey,” I said firmly, sitting forward in my chair.

“I know.” She smiled sheepishly at me. I could tell she still felt like it was her fault, nothing I could say right now was likely to change that.