Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
I can hear my sister. And her fiancé. I want to go to them. I need to go to them. But murky water surrounds me. It mutes the light and feels thick like swampy sludge against my skin. I struggle against it, but my fight is futile, and I drift deeper and deeper beneath the surface, despite my sister’s crying.
“I know this is hard, but you have to give her time. Her body and her brain need to rest.”
“But for how long? I need to see her eyes. I can’t have this baby without her. I need… God, Chase, I need her.”
Soft sobs echo around me, and my head swims with a throbbing vibration.
“The impact she took was significant, and honestly, she’s lucky her injuries aren’t worse than they are. We have to be patient.” A third voice sounds familiar, but I can’t seem to place it right now. I can’t make sense of anything, really.
“But what about him?”
There’s a pause of some sort. It’s weighted, but my thoughts are too sloppy to understand why or how.
“As you know…his injuries are a little more severe. Now, we’re just watching and waiting.”
“Can’t you at least put them in a room together? I feel like they need to be in a room together.”
“Let me see what I can do.”
The voices fade. Time skips a beat and drifts to blackness. I don’t even see the water anymore. The world is a concept rather than a reality.
Roaring pain in my side seems like it should make me jump, but I can’t feel myself doing anything.
“You shouldn’t be here!”
“I need to be here.”
“Are you kidding? Look at my sister. Look at him!”
“Brooke, baby, let’s step out of the room for a minute, okay?”
Everything fades away, and I fall back into nothingness. It’s such a peaceful contrast to how I normally feel. And yet still, it doesn’t feel quite right.
Everything is…missing.
Beep-beep-beep drifts into my subconscious, and I fight the pull of fatigue as hard as I can. My brain feels fuzzy, and I can’t remember what day of the week it is.
Were the kids supposed to be dressed up as something today? Or wear a special color?
I have the most nagging feeling that I’ve already forgotten something, and I’m not even awake yet.
Ugh. It’s getting harder and harder to make mornings happen, but I’m a mom. I don’t have the option. It’s time to get up for work. Time to get the boys to school. Time to start the day.
But damn, I’m struggling to open my eyes.
Did I finally try to use that new lash serum I bought off Amazon months ago? Surely I did it wrong if I’ve lost the function of my eyelids.
It feels like ripping a stuck Band-Aid off a fresh scab, and my vision could easily be described as legally blind, but I’ve done it—I’ve forced the hard start and woken up. Everything is muddled and mashed together, and light forms glowing orbs that distort my surroundings.
I blink what feels like one thousand times to clear the warped fog so I can get my ass moving, only to find that I’m not in my bed…or my bedroom, for that matter.
I’m not anywhere that I recognize at all.
Okay, scary.
I take inventory.
Stark white walls reflect unforgiving fluorescent light, and a scratchy white sheet rubs like sandpaper on my body. There’s an incessant beeping from somewhere to my right, but when I go to slap it like I do my alarm clock, a painful cord tugs at my arm.
Ow.
Shit. Is that…an IV?
Am I in the hospital?
I move my head to the left, and pain shoots down my side and around, right into the length of my ribs.
Ow, jeez. Okay, maybe it’s good that I’m in a hospital. That really fucking hurts.
More carefully this time, I continue my perusal of the room. My heart lodges itself in my throat when I see him in a bed a few feet away from mine.
An onslaught of tenderness, of adoration and affection, floods into my veins.
I want to go to him. But I can’t find the strength to move a single one of my limbs.
But wait…his eyes are closed, and there’s a white bandage stretched across his head.
Is he okay?
My ribs pull again, and I wince.
Are we okay?
Footsteps fill my ears, and I slowly turn my head to the right again. A woman walks inside. Her belly is rounded with pregnancy, and it reminds me of my sister, Brooke.
The woman doesn’t look at me. She goes straight to his bed and sits down in a chair beside him. But when she looks across the room, her eyes meet mine and she startles.
“Oh! Oh! Oh my God!” She hops up from her chair and grabs something, tapping her fingers against it maniacally.
In a few seconds, a voice fills the room.
“Can I help you?”