AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He pulls me close. “You want some Xanax too?” He makes a sound like a chuckle, but it’s darker. His face, when I draw away and look into his eyes, is tight and pale.
“I don’t want Xanax. I don’t want your help!” I run blindly down the hall, and I don’t stop until I’m outside in the parking lot.
THIRTY TWO
GWENNA
Kellan is crazy. You couldn’t pry me away from Bear right now to save the planet. Also, it’s not true what Kellan said. What he implied. That we can’t see Barrett right now.
We can if we want. Even I can. All the doctors are saying is they want him to have a solid night’s rest because sleep is important for healing of the brain, and if we want him to stay conscious, he needs to sleep.
Did Kellan think I would run into his room and make him more upset? The thought fills me with fury until sometime in the wee hours when I’m dozing in the waiting room—and I realize that if Kellan hadn’t kept me away, maybe I would have burst into Bear’s room and made a fuss.
So what?
I can still be mad at Kellan.
I can still be mad.
I look out the window in front of me, out at the Smoky Mountains, green hills wreathed with blue-gray fog, and I wonder what I’ll do if he doesn’t remember me. Doesn’t remember us. How will I cope with that?
How is this even happening right now? After everything…
I shut my eyes and think of myself up there on stage last night at the Bluebird. How good it felt. And how I thought of Barrett the whole time because I knew how proud he’d be of me.
Once his friends told me how he felt, and I saw that pig tattoo, everything shifted back to normal in my head. Even if it had been me he hit… It would have been weird, yeah. Of course. A sensitive subject. But I think we’d have learned to joke about it. I think we could have gotten through it.
What kind of universe—what kind of God—takes that kind of love and just…erases it?
Tears fill my eyes. I need to get up. Walk around a little. Breathe, before I go into hysterics and the woman at the waiting room security desk makes me leave.
She’s talking on her phone as I elbow through a one of the double-doors, bound for the cafeteria. I give her a tight smile.
“Ma’am?”
I look over my shoulder.
“Gwenna, right?”
I nod.
“They need you down the hall.”
My stomach flips. “Which hall?”
She laughs. “The other way.” She waves across the room, toward the other double-doors. “The one with all the patients.”
I push through that set of doors with clammy hands. Is something wrong? I’m met mid-hallway by Nancy, one of the nicer nurses. When I see her face, my head goes airy.
“Gwenna.” She looks troubled. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m not exactly sure.”
I grab out for the wall, leaning against it as her dark brows draw together. “Barrett is awake, which is phenomenal, but he’s…”
“What?” I snap.
