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Something inside of me rebelled at that.
I couldn’t leave them. Not when I just go them back. Not again.
“No,” I denied, my heart weeping at the thought of never having them to hold again.
God, I’d prayed and prayed for this day. For the time when I’d be reunited with them. And now they were telling me I had to go back?
“You have to,” Judd said from in front of me. “She’ll be all alone.”
“She?” I asked, my brain not quite working right, otherwise I would’ve never forgotten her.
“Sunny,” Joe said. “She needs you. She won’t be able to function without you now.”
That was…horrifying. The thought of leaving her behind was just as abhorrent as leaving my children. But when you had kids, you made this commitment that superseded anything else in the world. Even the love of your life.
“She has a family,” I said, feeling sick for even thinking about her when this was all I’d ever hoped for. “Y’all will be left alone if I leave, too. And I made a promise to y’all first.”
Joe giggled. It was music to my ears. A sound that I’d begged for many a night in the past seven years.
“We’re okay,” Joe said as Judd confirmed with a head nod against my own. “We want you to go. Time doesn’t pass the same as it does with you. You’re the one who has to live with the heartache. We only have to pass the day, and you’ll be back.”
If that wasn’t a kick to the heart.
“But…”
But before I was ready, I was being forcibly yanked away from them.
The scream of anguish that left my lips once they were out of my arms was enough to follow me right back into the real world.
That perfect contentedness was gone, and I was being thrown back into my body like a sack of potatoes spilling all over the ground.
I woke with my heart hurting, and the knowledge that I’d left something very, very important behind.
CHAPTER 21
Shutting the fuck up is gluten free. Add that to your diet.
-Text from Crimson to Winston
WINSTON
Stomach aching something fierce—either because of all the antibiotics in my system or the fact that I was standing on two legs that had just been shot—I stared at the doctor as he recited every single thing that was wrong with my Sunny.
“A shattered left hip. She’ll need to be immobilized for a solid eight weeks. Which coincides with her shattered left femur,” the doctor said. “She’s got some bruising around her torso where her ribs were cracked—none of them are broken, though. And her neck wound from the gunshot graze will be the fastest of it all to heal. As long as she doesn’t strenuously activate any of those muscles for about three weeks, that’ll heal perfectly.”
I felt like I’d just gotten the same damn lecture from my own surgeon a couple of hours ago when they’d released me from the hospital—against hospital advice, might I add.
I wasn’t going far, though. I just wanted to go up to the ICU where my girl was staying, but they wouldn’t allow me to. So there I was, ten hours out of emergency surgery, checking out of the hospital against medical advice, and now listening to another surgeon tell me all of what was wrong with my ‘wife.’
The name change worked really well, though. I was able to fib and tell them I was the husband, and as we spoke, LaDerrick was hacking into the county courthouse to make sure that the family didn’t kick me out like they’d tried to do twice now.
Sure, they were only doing it because they wanted to spend time with their sister, and she was only able to have one visitor at a time if I was in here, but that didn’t matter to me.
I was here to stay until she woke. Then, when I was sure she was safe, I’d go back home and shower off the last three days of my life.
Only then…
“Her hip,” I said as Keene looked down at his hands beside me. “Is that going to be back to normal?”
“It was a very clean break, and although it’s somewhat unfortunate seeing as all the healing and immobilization that’s required to heal this type of break, she should make a full recovery with absolutely zero issues,” he answered.
He. Felix.
“Dr. Kent,” a nurse said from the door. “You’re needed…”
“You can wait outside until I’m done with this patient and her family,” Dr. Kent reprimanded the woman.
I looked at her nametag.
T. Wilkes.
Making a mental note to have LaDerrick do some digging, and possibly letting the hospital know about her unprofessional behavior, I dismissed her.
“What about her?” Nurse Tammy asked sulkily. “Isn’t she supposed to be working?”
I looked at where her finger was directed and saw it was focused on Val.
Then I narrowed my eyes, squared my shoulders, and said, “Get the fuck out of here!”
