Chapter 49
961words
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
That was all I kept hearing. The sound wouldn't fucking leave my head.
I tried to open my eyes, but they remained firmly shut. My lids felt like two lead weights and lifting them felt like a herculean task. When I finally did, I must have been looking straight at the sun because it was so bright, I winced and shut them immediately.
The second time when I opened them, I did so slowly, and that was when I realized that I hadn't been staring at the sun. The room I was in was bright, painted with white all round, but it shouldn't have hurt my eyes like that.
The fact that it had meant only one thing; My eyes had been closed for a very long time.
Swallowing past a painfully dry throat, I looked around. There were machines connected to my body and the steady beep I'd been hearing was from one of them.
The room...
The machines...
I was in a hospital. What the hell was I doing in a hospital?
Bracing my hands on the pillow, I made to sit up on the bed, only for me to gasp at the sheer magnitude of pain that coursed through me.
It felt like there was a sledgehammer slamming against my skull from the inside. My entire body hurt in a significant number of places, the main one being my head.
What the he—
The accident!
That car had been driving towards me at high speed without showing any signs of slowing down and Alex's car brakes had failed to work.
A fresh wave of pain and regret shot through me because I knew that I had probably damaged Alex's car.
Where was he?
With great effort, I turned my head to the door and as though I'd summoned him with my thoughts, the door cracked open quietly and he stepped into the room.
"Alex?"
He had his head bent when he came in so he didn't see me at first. On hearing the sound of his name, his head flew up and surprised eyes landed on my face. "Laura? You're awake?"
Pushing the door shut, he hurried towards me, looking for all the world like he wanted to lift me off the hospital bed and crush me to him, but then he clenched and unclenched his hands by his sides. Then he pushed a lock of hair away from my face with shaky hands.
"How did I get here?" I forced out, my voice coming out small and scratchy. "How are you here?"
Alex exhaled shakily.
He dropped onto the chair beside the bed and took one of my hands in his. "Laura, you..." He swallowed, looked away, then looked back at me. "You got in an accident, Laura."
"Yeah, I—" I coughed.
In a flash, Alex shot up from the chair and placed a bottle of water against my lips. I drank a little, then drank more, only now realizing just how thirsty I really was.
Before I could take in any more, Alex took the bottle away. "That's okay for now."
He placed the bottle on the table beside the bed and retook his seat, jerking it closer to the bed until he was close enough to brace his elbows on it, right next to my waist.
Alex's eyes were blood-shot red and his hair stuck out in every direction like he'd been running his hands through it. Said hands were shaking and he looked so weary and tired, like he'd aged an extra ten years in the past—
I blinked. "How long have I been sleeping?"
"Sleeping?" He asked, incredulous. He got up from the chair again and stabbed his fingers through his hair, pulling on it so roughly that it had to sting. "You've been unconscious for five hours, Laura."
My stomach bottomed out.
What?
I searched around for a clock but couldn't find one. "That's impossible. You're telling me I just, like, slept off for five hours in the middle of the day?"
He swiveled around. "You didn't sleep off. You were unconscious!" The blast of anger surprised me and I stared at him, eyes wide. "You left the house and I got called less than an hour later that you had been involved in an accident. Laura, I felt fear unlike anything I had ever felt before. I thought I was going to lose my fucking mind!" He was breathing hard, his face flushed. "When I got here, you were unconscious, Laura." His voice broke on the word 'unconscious' and I felt my heart breaking right along with it. "You were unconscious and I couldn't do a damn thing. I felt so fucking—"
"Come here." I cut him off, opening my arms and praying like hell that he would come to me because, once again, I was being a bitch.
I'd just come out of an accident where I should be glad that I hadn't lost my life and instead, I was focused on the fact that I'd lost five hours of my day.
Alex loved me.
God help him, but he did. And I could only imagine the emotional toll this had to have taken on him.
I felt a tightness loosen in my chest when he closed the distance between us and dropped onto the chair, placing his head on my stomach. It hurt a little bit, but not very much and besides, having him with me like this made me feel ten times better than I felt before.
We stayed like that for a while with me running my free hand through his hair, soothing him and apologizing without words for my behaviour, because as it turned out, I wasn't very good with my words.
