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“We’ll wake you up one way or another,” I promised.
We had to.
25
RAINA
Time marched on.
I went to school with Foster; I rode with him while he delivered pizzas; I sat in his sister’s room while he read her bedtime stories; I hung out with him and his friends when he visited them; and I lounged around the hospital when he went to see my body, exercising my arms and legs so I wouldn’t get another blood clot.
And every three days, they’d check my brain to see if it was a good time to stop inducing my coma. After the second check, they decreased my anesthesia, but I kept sleeping.
The second Friday after classes had started and exactly fourteen days after my car accident, I was poking my way around my hospital room while Foster concentrated on bending my knee and then straightening it.
“Hey, what is this?” I asked, coming upon a plastic hospital bag that was lying on a lower shelf under the machine that kept a constant vigil on my vitals.
Foster glanced over. “Looks like your personal effects, maybe.”
“Really?” I straightened with interest. “Ooh, I want to see. Can you dump it out for me?”
“Hell, no,” he argued. “It’d be like going through a woman’s purse. I can’t breach that kind of personal space.”
“Oh, my purse! I hope it’s actually in there.”
“Not doing it,” he swore.
“But I’m right here with you, giving you permission. Foster... Come on.Please.” When I fluttered my eyelashes at him, he lifted his eyebrows, not at all swayed.
“I wouldn’t even know how tobeginto explain myself if someone walked in and caught me going through your things.”
“Ugh.” Groaning out an irritated breath, I balled my hands into fists. “You’re so freaking…moral,” I muttered, not appreciating his oh-so-virtuous integrity at the moment. “It’s frustrating as hell.”
All he did was shrug. “Sorry.”
Bending down to peek through the opening at the top of the half-closed bag, I cried, “Hey, I think I can see my phone. Oh, my phone…” Missing it hard, I hugged my hands to my heart, then spun to glare at Foster sternly.
“I’m sure the battery has died after this much time,” he answered logically. “And I don’t have a charger on me, so there’s no reason to pull it out now, anyway.”
Damn. He was such a practical pain in the butt. Ignoring my irritation, he moved on to my second leg, picking it up under the knee so he could bend it; but his fingers were so gentle and scraped along my flesh in such a way that I jumped.
“Gah, that tickles.”
“Sorry.” He set my leg down and sighed, sending me a vexed, tight-jawed glance. “You’re just bound and determined to get me kicked out of this hospital, aren’t you?”
When he stepped toward me, I squealed and clapped excitedly, knowing he’d given in to my request. Foster was such a softy. He pretty much always gave me what I wanted, no matter how much he objected at first. In the last week, he’d even started sleeping without a shirt each night. I mean, I hadn’t gotten him to shed the shorts, but given enough time…maybe.
“Oh my God,” I gushed jubilantly as he approached. “Thank you, thank you,thankyou.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled with a sigh. “Go scout the area.”
I frowned. “But how am I supposed to see what’s in the bag if I’m out scouting?”
He sent me a look. “Will you just make sure no one’scoming, please?”
“Right. Okay.” I popped into the hallway, then immediately popped back beside him. “All clear.”
With a defeated huff, he dumped the bag’s contents onto the floor without preamble. “Look fast,” he warned. “Because I’m putting everything back right now.”
