Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 136791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
I wrap my hand around January's, offering her a little of my strength. She's so out of it and afraid, confusion and fear evident in her eyes. I hate seeing her like this. I just want to pick her up and hold her until she feels safe, but I know I can't do that. She's still healing and doesn't need to be moved around. My arms still ache to feel her in them again, though.
"I'll bring you some pain medication and let Dr. Becker know you're awake," Dee promises.
"Need to pee," January mutters, her cheeks turning pink.
"No can do, hon. You have a catheter in. It'll make you feel like you have to pee, but it's doing all the work for you. You just gotta lay there and let it."
January turns wide eyes to me, silently pleading for me to help her out a little.
"The bullet pierced your kidney, baby girl," I murmur in a gentle voice, trying not to freak her out. "They had to go in to repair the damage and remove the bullet. You're going to be okay, though. Trust me?"
She nods instantly, which mends another piece of my heart.
Fuck, I love this girl.
"Sleep, sweetheart, and know that I've got you. That's all you need to worry about right now." I run my free hand through her hair, tugging gently when it catches on snarls. I've been giving her sponge baths, and Mariah's been brushing her hair out for her, but it's still tangled up. Doesn't matter, though. Still feels like silk in my rough hands.
Her eyes flutter as Dee slips from the room.
"I love you, January."
"Love you," she mumbles, and then she sleeps.
"Can I ask you something?" January asks me two days later, watching from her hospital bed with a sleepy look on her face as I strip my t-shirt over my head and pull on a clean one. She's been more alert today. They adjusted her meds to stay ahead of the pain without leaving her completely out of it like she has been since she woke up. She's feeling better. They think she may get to go home in a few days.
"Anything," I say immediately, tossing my shirt into the plastic laundry bag hanging on the closet door.
She bites her bottom lip, her green eyes filling with worry. She twists the corner of the thin blanket covering her and then untwists it, only to start all over as soon as it's flat.
"Talk to me, baby girl," I murmur. "What's wrong?"
"Was I pregnant?" she blurts out.
I stumble mid-step, shocked by her question. It's not one of the thousand or so I've been expecting. Hearing it throws me off.
"No," I rush to reassure her when her face pales. I take two quick steps back to her bedside and drop to my knees, turning her face until she's looking at me. Those bright emerald eyes are full of worry. "You weren't pregnant, baby girl. They ran a pregnancy test as a precaution." I don't tell her that it would probably have been too early for the test to pick it up if she was pregnant. That's not a worry she needs to live with.
"Okay," she whispers, still staring at me.
"Would you…did you want to be?" She always wanted a bunch of kids. I always wanted to give them to her, but I didn't think about getting her pregnant when we were together. Putting on a condom simply never crossed my mind. We've had so much between us for so long that I didn't want to think about putting another barrier between us. But I should have thought about it. We should have talked about it.
She shrugs a shoulder, her gaze darting away from mine. "I don't know," she whispers, her voice barely loud enough for me to hear. "We didn't use protection. I'm not on anything. I was worried."
"Worried that you were pregnant or that you might have lost the baby?" I ask, needing to know where her head is at. We haven't talked much since she woke up. She's been so out of it I didn't want to push too hard.
"That I might have lost the baby," she says after a breathless moment.
I take a minute to process her response and the way it makes my heart race. I don't know if this means she's thought about a future with me, if that's something she still wants. I know what I want—the same thing I've always wanted. Her.
I choose my words carefully, wanting to get this right. "Here's the thing," I say, playing with a strand of her hair. It gleams like gold in the fluorescent lighting. "Mariah told me what happened the day I told you the truth."
"Oh." She swallows hard, rapidly blinking those emerald eyes.
"It kills me to know you wanted to die," I whisper, my voice hoarse. My heart aches when I say the words, the same way it always does when I think about her wanting to give up and die. Losing her would destroy me. "I hate that you've been feeling like that for so long and had to face it alone."