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I drained my drink and let my mother comfort me.
I let them all comfort me during the two weeks I was in the hospital. Because once I left, everything would have to change.
CHAPTER THREE
World Spins Madly On – The Weepies
Karson was here.
At my house.
I’d told him to leave, many times. He hadn’t listened. I didn’t have the energy to fight with him. Plus, I was barely ever alone with him. Yasmin had moved in for the time being, and she was working from here as often as she could. Same with Zoe, Stella and my mother.
I was stronger now. I could use the bathroom on my own. Yasmin helped me shower. I knew the sight of me hurt her, but she hid it well. I was hard to look at. My stomach still had a swell to it, my boobs were huge, leaking, my wound had barely healed.
The round, puckered hole would be an ugly scar, even with the best surgeons in the country working on me.
The bullet had entered just below my ribs, punctured a lung then went out clean the other side.
I quickly lost blood at the scene. My body went into shock. My heart stopped twice in the ambulance. She didn’t have a chance to survive any of that.
My eyes were on the TV, but I could feel him enter the room, smell lemons as he stood close to me. I held my breath.
Hopefully, if I ignored him, he might leave.
It was cruel, exceptionally so, to treat him this way. The man who loved me. Who was caring for me. Whose heart was broken too.
But I was the villain now.
“You need to eat,” he eventually said.
His tone was barely different than it usually was. Most people wouldn’t have caught it. I wasn’t most people. So I heard the hopelessness in it. The indescribable grief. It tore at my soul.
I had to take a few long moments to collect myself before I responded. In that time, I kept my gaze level on the TV, watching carefully with dry eyes. The pills on my coffee table helped with keeping the tears at bay, keeping me wonderfully detached from my toxic feelings.
But Karson wouldn’t let me completely drift away. His mere presence was an anchor. To my feelings. To the wretched wasteland that was my life.
“I am eating.” I nodded to the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table, sitting next to the almost empty bottle of Bordeaux.
“That’s not food,” Karson replied in an even tone.
“Olivia Pope would disagree with you,” I countered, not having the strength to add any emotion to my voice.
Silence pulsed between us for a while, his stare weighing me down. I still didn’t look at him.
“You’re not supposed to be drinking with your pills,” Karson broke the silence.
I took a large sip from my glass before I replied. “Oh, I’m not supposed to mix booze and pills?” I asked sweetly. “I challenge you to find anyone in this neighborhood who isn’t doing that right at this very moment.”
“You’re not anyone.” His words came out clipped.
I sighed. “Your concern for me is ill-founded, honey. What is mixing pills and wine going to do to me? What could it possibly take from me? I’m not going to swallow the whole bottle, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
I could almost feel the clenching of his jaw without having to look his way.
“I’m worried about you, Wren,” he ground out.
“Worried?” I scoffed.
