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“Hey, you’re safe here now. No one can hurt you here. You can’t think of anything at all?”
“No. Maybe God was just punishing me for being so bad.” I sniffed and tried to wipe my face.
He was there with a soft cloth, doing it for me. “Don’t say that, Alexia. God isn’t like that.”
“He isn’t?”
“No.”
“I don’t know. I’ve done bad things. A lot of bad things. First Peter and now myself. Maybe I deserved this. Can I sleep now?”
“Not yet.”
“Will you tell them not to turn off my light. I’m afraid of the dark. And tell them to leave the door open, okay?”
“Okay.” He held my hand.
I wanted to sleep but he wouldn’t let me. I begged and pleaded with him. Finally, they came to take me up to my room. I reminded Pearce to tell them about the lights and the door. It freaked me out to be trapped inside of a small space.
* * *
The ride up to my room was a lost memory, but I woke up later in the day, hurting like all get-out. The pain prevented me from sitting up, so I plopped back down on the bed. I wanted to call Terri or Lisbeth. I knew they’d be worried about me. I didn’t even know what day it was. My manager at Camellia’s needed to be notified too. Locating the button on the bed to call the nurse, I finally found and punched it.
A nurse came in and I asked her if she could help me out of bed because I needed to go to the bathroom.
“Sweetie, you don’t need to worry about that. You have a catheter.”
“Huh?”
“You have a catheter. You just go whenever you want. You don’t have to get up.”
I picked up the sheets and saw that tube shooting out of me. “Eww! That’s really gross.”
“Well, it does the job. Now, on a scale of one to ten, how’s your pain?”
“Maybe a twenty,” I groaned.
“Let me get you something, then. I’ll be right back.”
She left before I had a chance to ask her about my purse.
She was back in a jiffy and stuck something in my IV line. Then I asked her about my purse. She said she’d check on it. I told her I needed to make some phone calls and she showed me the phone. Duh, it was right there, next to the bed. She also told me that I was supposed to call Pearce the minute I woke up.
“He’s been checking on you every hour. Never seen anything like it, hon. I’ve known that man for a few years now and he’s never shown an interest in anything that’s the opposite sex. But with you, it’s another story. Do me a big favor and call him right away. If you don’t, I’ll get a good butt chewing from him. Here’s his number.” She handed me a slip of paper.
“Yes, ma’am, I will. And thank you for taking such good care of me.”
“Just doing my job.”
* * *
What would I say to him? I wanted to hear his voice and he’d been so honest-to-goodness sweet to me. God, no one had been that great to me other than Terri. But there was too much at stake. I wanted to wrap myself around him and never let him go, but he deserved much more than some nasty sleaze like me. Why couldn’t I be someone else, just for a day? Someone who was normal just for once?
I quickly dialed Pearce’s number before I lost my nerve. He picked up on the first ring.
“Middleton.”
“Hi. It’s Lexi,” I murmured, as my heart thundered in my ears.
