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46
KATE
My body aches from head to toe, but my skull? Yeah. It takes the cake. The nurse told me I hit it on the hostess stand when I started convulsing. It makes sense, even if I have no memory of it.
Mack’s here. In the hospital. He won’t stop looking at me. I feel like I’m under a microscope, and I don’t like it.
“Stop staring at me, please,” I whisper, resting my throbbing head against the ice pack a nurse delivered earlier. The sheets feel itchy against my skin, but I’m too exhausted to care. I just want to go home.
“Kate,” Mack starts.
“Did you call my parents?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t think you’d want them to worry.”
“They’re my parents,” I remind him dryly. “A wise man once told me it’s what they’re supposed to do.”
His mouth lifts in a ghost of a smile, but it looks forced as he pushes himself to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”
The familiar beeping from the machines keeps me company. Mack returns a few minutes later. At least, I think it’s a few minutes. For all I know, it could’ve been an hour or a year. Honestly, I have no idea. I pry my eyelids open and look at him.
“They’re on their way,” he tells me.
“Thanks.” I close my eyes again. It’s weird. Having Mack here after how we left things. The nurse told me he hasn’t left my side since Butter and Grace. But even that’s fuzzy. I have no idea why he was at the restaurant or why he decided to ride with me in the ambulance. I have no idea why he reached out to Blake and asked her to drop off a change of clothes at the hospital or why he’s waiting for my parents to drive here so I won’t be alone.
I also have no idea what he expects me to say or if he spoke with Hazel while I was busy seizing on the floor.
I’ve gathered he’s spooked. Unlike the last time he saw me have a seizure.
It should piss me off, should make me feel guilty, but it doesn’t. Right now, I’m too exhausted to care.
“I love you, Kate,” he rasps from the edge of the hospital bed.
My lips part as I register his words, convinced I’m still lost in la-la land. “W-what did you say?”
“I said I love––”
“Stop.” I fight the heaviness of my eyelids as I hold his gaze.
He pauses. “What?”
“Don’t tell me. Not now. Not after today.”
“But––”
“I scared you,” I mumble. “That’s all.”
He reaches for my hand, tangles our fingers together, and brings them to his lips. The heat from his mouth warms me as he presses a kiss to each of them. “I loved you before the seizure, Kate.”
He should know this isn’t fair. The way he’s kissing me and how much I need it. Especially after today. The way he’s looking at me. Like he really does love me. It isn’t fair.
“Mack,” I breathe out his name. Exhausted. Emotional. Burnt out.
“Yeah, you scared me,” he adds. “Because loving you is scary. You have the power to break me, Kate.”
