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“Thanks,” she mumbled, turning her back on me and pulling the sheets up under her chin. And that’s when I knew. Something had happened while I was out of the room and she was struggling with it because she hadn’t kissed me or touched me or invited me to share her bed and that was not my girl.
I watched her until her breathing lengthened into a rhythm that told me she was asleep and I snuck out of the room to find her doctor. The nurse I found in the corridor paged him and while I waited, I typed out a message to Lea.
Me: You heard from Nee tonight? Did she seem ok to you?
Lea: She was trampled today so I think we can give her a pass for one bad mood.
Me: She saw the doc while I was getting coffee and she’s been in a weird mood since. But apparently he told her there was nothing to worry about.
Lea: Come to think of it, she was a bit weird on the phone. She was giving me love advice, telling me life was short.
Me: I’m waiting to see her doctor now. Something is off.
Lea: She would tell you if it was. I’m sure she would.
Me: I’ll let you know. Oh, and Lea. Talk to Fox. Please. I can’t stand his moping anymore.
Lea: Sigh.
“Mr. Walters? You asked to see me.” Ionee’s doctor stood in front of me. Tall, with black floppy hair, his white coat and stethoscope giving him an air of authority, despite his stupidly young age.
“Hi. I just wanted an update on Nee… Ionee. I was out of the room when you came back to talk to her and she seems upset, even though she told me there’s nothing majorly wrong.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Concussion, broken ribs, bruises.”
“Right.”
“Right?”
“Yes, they are her injuries from today.”
“And she’s okay otherwise.”
“Mr. Walters… Archer. Whether she was or she wasn’t, I couldn’t talk to you about it. She’s my patient and I can’t discuss her results or history with anyone else.”
“So, there is something wrong?”
“I didn’t say that. I said that I couldn’t discuss it with you either way. If there was something else wrong, it would need to come from Ionee.”
Slumping back against the wall, I let out a defeated huff, not sure if I was reading into her being tired or whether there was something way bigger going on.
Chapter 22
Archer
“Heyyou,Igotback from my meeting and you were gone. You had me worried.”
“We’re not joined at the hip, Arch. I went for a walk.” Ionee slipped off her jacket, dropping it along with her bag onto the counter before pouring herself a glass of water.
“Okay,” I said, letting it roll off my tongue. She’d been like this since she was discharged from the hospital a couple of days before. Snappy, aloof, vanishing without giving me any details about where she was going. I knew she’d been through a lot, but this all felt wrong. No matter what we’d been through in our relationship, trust and being able to communicate had been the very foundation of who we were.
I walked slowly toward her, not wanting to make her mood any worse. “Look, I know getting hurt was a lot. Are you rethinking us? Don’t you want to marry me anymore?”
Ionee’s head flicked up, and she looked at me properly for the first time since her accident. She looked exhausted, her eyes red and sunken, her skin missing its usual glow. “Archer, I would do anything to be with you forever. Anything that was in my power.”
“Why doesn’t that make me feel better? You know you can tell me anything, Nee. No matter what it is. Don’t shut me out, beautiful, please.”
