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“I didn’t know your team’s examination extended to getting surveillance footage of me jumping out of the building. That’s above and beyond.”
Her grip on the clipboard relaxes. “We didn’t. Your brother reported that you hit your head to the EMTs on the scene.”
Jameson’s face, washed out in red and white and red again, forces itself into my mind. He was crying, and either he didn’t know or he didn’t care. My stomach does a slow, lurching turn. Maybe I’m so sick because of the guilt. Jameson asked me to wait for him, and I didn’t.
I just can’t stay here anymore.That’s what I want to say. There are things I need to be doing. Lydia’s with Elise, and Catherine’s with Jacob, but none of us are safe until Bettencourt is out of the picture.
And it doesn’t matter to the raw parts of me that this isn’t Mason’s hospital room from all those years ago. Being in the VIP wing isn’t doing anything to keep those memories at bay. All the typical hospital sounds are killing me. The scent of the standard hand sanitizer makes my throat close up and my eyes well.
I want to go home.
It’s a hazy, powerful want, and it makes me feel like I’ve lost my grip on reality. Half the time, the home I want is the one we lived in before our parents died. We can’t go back there. Even if we could, it wouldn’t be ours.
The other half, I’m so desperate for Elise that my lungs ache.
It’s been one night. I can’t do this for another forty-eight hours. If I give in now, they’ll assume I caved to the pressure and try it again in two days.
I grip the side of the bed and look her in the eye. “I can observe myself at home. Give me the papers to sign.”
The nurse glances at the door. What now? She could call for backup, I guess. Bring five of her nurse friends in here to fight for the cause.
Then her shoulders let down. “Okay.” A couple steps closer, and she holds out the clipboard. “But just so you know, it’s my opinion that you should stay, too.”
I lift one hand from the side of the bed and take the clipboard. My balance is a mess. I have to hold on even tighter with my left hand to stay upright. The sick feeling circles back. All my muscles ache underneath the warm hum of the painkillers, but fuck it. I’m getting out.
Keeping the clipboard on my lap is another test of willpower. It slips on the sweatpants Mason had sent to the hospital sometime last night. The clothes I wore to the Bettencourt International building disappeared somewhere in the ER. They smelled like a burning building, so it wasn’t much of a loss, but at some point I woke up from a dreamless painkiller sleep and wanted to scream.
The sweatpants and matching sweatshirt are an improvement on the hospital gown, is what I mean.
In fact, I feel so fucking awful that I can’t stand the thought of a pressed shirt.
I look up at the nurse, who’sobservingwhile I try to deal with the pen attached to the clipboard. “I’m sure your opinion is more correct than mine, but I have to go. If I change my mind, I’ll come back.”
She gives a casual shrug. “Wouldn’t it be easier if you never left in the first place?’
“No more of your mind games, Stella.”
“It’s Sandra, Mr. Hill.”Sandralooks at me with huge, worried eyes.
“I need to review this paperwork, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll be just outside at the nurses’ station.
Sandraleaves.
I grit my teeth and pick up the pen. It’s too hard to focus on the individual words on the paper. I assume it says that if I die from leaving the hospital too early, it will be my own fault. Business as usual. There’s a line at the bottom of the first page. I sign my name. Signature looks a little weird.
The sound of Mason’s footsteps gets to the door just before he does. I don’t want to turn my head and look, because it’ll just make me dizzy. Convenient that I don’t have to. I’d know his footsteps anywhere. I know the too-steady cadence of Mason hiding the damage from his own fall and I know the slightly off-beat rhythm of Mason worrying so much that he forgets to cover it up.
Today, it’s the latter.
He pauses just inside the door. “What the fuck is this?”
I hold up the pen and nearly pitch myself off the side of the bed in the process. “I’m checking myself out.”
“The hell you are.”
He’s wearing jeans and a dark green sweater. I narrow my eyes at the jeans. “I thought you’d go to the office.”
