Offside (46 page)

Greg looked over his shoulder.

“I’m hoping to get her in here very shortly, but your Dad doesn’t like the idea too much.”

I thought about that for a minute. Yeah, I was pretty sure he didn’t like it at all.

“He hasn’t let her visit, has he?”

“She was here in the beginning,” Greg said, “but she and your Dad had a bit of a…confrontation, shall we say? He’s denied her access since then.”

“I want to see her,” I told him. “Tell her that, okay?”

“I will, son,” Greg said, “but we need to talk about the accident a little so I can really say I’m here on official business and not just because I wanted to thank the man who saved my daughter’s life and almost cost himself his own in the process.”

“Worth it,” I said quietly.

His hand lay on top of mine, and he gripped it for just a second.

“Thank you, Thomas,” he said, and his voice faltered a bit on my name. “I’ll never be able to say it enough, but thank you.”

I looked up at him and saw his eyes were shining just a bit in the harsh, fluorescent lights. I nodded to him once, and he nodded back to me.

“Now let’s get down to business before you need to rest some more, okay?”

“Okay.”

“First question,” he said as he pulled out a mini clipboard and a pencil. “What the hell is a
Rumple
?”

If he kept up questions like this, we were literally going to follow Shakespeare’s words and “laugh ourselves into stitches.” Somehow, just having him here made me feel better.

Now how was he going to get Rumple into my room?

CHAPTER 26

PLAY ON

After a quick explanation of the origin of
RumplestiltSkye
and the painful laughter that occurred along with it, Greg gave me the details of the accident. As I had pretty much already figured out, the brunt of the impact from the car was on me, and the trajectory of Nicole's body and mine when we were hit resulted in her being partially shoved underneath a car parked at the diner entrance, which kept her from suffering much harm. She had to get stitches in her right shoulder from getting caught on something under the car and had a mild concussion but was otherwise okay.

The whole conversation lasted maybe a half hour, and when it was done, I was completely exhausted. The idea that just lying there and talking could wear me out was frustrating
,
to say the least. Greg was still talking when I dropped off.

I could feel soft, warm fingers over my cheek and temple and then through my hair. Instinctively, I turned my head toward the sensation, and when I awoke, I was met with her beautiful blue eyes.

“Hey there,” Nicole said softly.

“Hey,” I managed to croak out. Nicole picked up my cup and held it up to me. With the bed lying back too far, the water just managed to dribble down my chin, and we played around with the bed controls until I was more upright.

Once I was settled comfortably, I just looked at her—taking in her appearance and noticing a lot of changes. She was thinner, no doubt, and she looked tired. I also noticed she was wearing one of my practice shirts, and I wondered where she got it. Would she have gone to ask Dad to let her take one? Maybe she got it out of my locker or my soccer bag.

“You look good in my shirt,” I said with a smile.

She blushed and looked down at her hands, which held one of mine.

“It needs to be washed,” she replied. “I kind of wear it a lot.”

I thought about that and decided I definitely liked it.

“Thomas?” Nicole said softly.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

I looked from where she held my hand to her face and saw there was a tear running down her cheek. I tried to raise my hand to brush it away, but it just kind of flopped back down on my stomach. She seemed to understand, and with a small, sad smile, she picked up my hand and brushed it over her cheek.

“Anytime,” I said, and I meant it. I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat.

“I knew it, you know,” she said.

“Knew what?”

“That you didn't…say what you said because you wanted to say it. I knew it was
him
.”

I looked away, focusing on the IV needle puncturing my skin. I was glad she knew but upset about it at the same time.

“What did you say to him?” I asked.

She let out a short, sharp laugh.

“Which time?”

My eyes turned back to her, and I shook my head a little.

“You shouldn't do that,” I told her.

“Well, sometimes shit just comes out of my mouth,” she told me, “and I don't control it.”

I chuckled a little.

“So what did you say?” I asked again.

“The first time?”

“Sure.”

“Well, it was about three days afterwards,” she said. “I was in the hospital the first night—just for observation—but I had been coming back every day to sit with you in the ICU. You had already been through…um…three surgeries, I think. They were still keeping you in the coma on purpose then, and I read somewhere that people in a coma might still be able to hear you if you talked to them. So…I talked to you.”

“What did you say?”

“Um…” She blushed again. “I told you I was here and that I was thinking about you. I think I thanked you for saving my life about four hundred times, kind of alternating that with being pissed off that you did it because you were hurt so bad. I told you I needed you…and that I loved you.”

She said the last part very quietly.

“I love you, too,” I told her.

She smiled and bit her lip.

“I know.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, he had been in there, mostly looking over your chart and whatever between his rounds,” she continued. “He told me there was no point in talking to you—that the whole idea you might be able to hear me was ridiculous, and I should just go home.”

Yeah, that sounded like him.

“I told him I'd leave when you left, and he apparently didn't like that idea. He started telling me that if it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't be here in the first place, and maybe you would wake up sooner if I wasn't there.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her fingers played with mine.

“I kept it together that time and just told him I was sorry you were hurt but that I wasn't going anywhere until I could thank you properly. He told me I should be apologizing to you instead and walked out of the room.”

“That was the first time?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed, “the second was a lot worse.”

“Go on.”

She sighed again.

“He was talking to the doctor…um…Winchester?”

I nodded.

“They were talking about your injuries and about your back, especially. That's when Doctor Winchester told your dad you, um…might not walk again. Your dad was really, really upset about that and called for a second opinion. When the other doctor said it was too early to tell, but that you'd definitely be going through a lot of rehab, your Dad kind of blew a gasket.”

That surprised me. Dad never made mistakes like that—getting upset in front of other people and showing his temper. He was always cool in public.

“He yelled at the doctors for a bit. Then when they left, he turned on me.” She gripped my hand a little tighter. “You should have come out of the coma by then. They weren't keeping you sedated anymore, and you should have woken back up, but you hadn't. When he started blaming me again, I snapped.”

She went quiet for a minute. I could feel her dread in the pit of my stomach.

“What did you say?” I finally asked her.

“That maybe if he wasn't smacking you around all the time, you'd heal faster. Something like that, anyway.”

“Holy shit,” I murmured. I swallowed hard and wished I could run my hand through my hair.

“Yeah, he threw me out then,” she said. “Called hospital security and said I wasn't allowed to visit you again. Once you were out of ICU, I managed to sneak in with Jeremy and Rachel for a few minutes, but we were caught when the nurse came in.”

“You shouldn't have done that,” I told her.

“He needed to know,” she said. “He can't keep everything a secret.”

“He has a lot of secrets to tell, too,” I whispered. When she kept asking, I finally told her he had the pictures, and that's why I had to break up with her.

“You should have told me,” she said when I was done. “We could have worked it out together.”

“I didn't want to take the chance,” I admitted. “If he found out, Nicole, he wouldn't hesitate to ruin you. I couldn't let that happen.”

“Is that why you said all that shit on the phone?”

“Yeah.” I cringed. “I'm sorry—I didn't mean any of it.”

“He was there with you, wasn't he?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought so.”

I looked back at her and just stared at her face for a while, trying to figure out how I could have been so stupid. At the time, it seemed like the best idea, but now I wasn't so sure.

“I'm sorry,” I said again and then yawned.

“Me too,” she replied. “I think you need to rest.”

I could only nod, and I turned my head so it rested against the pillow, but it was still fucking uncomfortable.

“I hate this pillow,” I grumbled, and Nicole snickered.

“I don't think hospitals spend a lot of extra cash on down,” she replied.

I wanted to respond. I wanted to tell her that despite all the shit we were going to have to go through, this was going to be a new beginning for us.

I fell asleep instead.

“I want Nicole Skye to be able to visit me,” I said to Doctor Winchester as he checked over the various tubes inserted into me.

“Hrmph,” he replied. “I heard she was here yesterday.”

“I want her to be able to come back without taking shit for it,” I told him. “I’m eighteen—I should be able to say who can see me, right?”

“Theoretically, yes,” he said, “though I don’t think your father would agree.”

“I don’t care.” I hoped I sounded more sure of myself than I felt.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said with a smile.

Dad did not agree.

“That bitch is the reason you are here in the first place!” he said after the room cleared out. “She isn’t coming in here again!”

“I want her to,” I said again. I didn’t look at him, just kept staring at my hands lying on my stomach.

“She’ll just get in the way of your recovery,” he told me. “I don’t need her distracting you!”

“She’s not,” I retorted.

We went back and forth until he got so mad, I finally just stopped responding. I didn’t really think he would go so far as to do anything here in the hospital where I was being so closely monitored, but I didn’t feel like taking the chance, either. I couldn’t move much at all. Even though my hands and arms were a little stronger, the feeling of being trapped when my dad was in the room continued to gnaw at me. The doctors kept saying I was already showing improvement, but this was the first day I had even been given anything solid to eat—if Jell-o and popsicles counted as solid. Not being able to get out of the damn bed to pee was annoying.

After Dad left in a huff, Doctor Winchester came in with a woman I hadn’t seen before. He said her name was Danielle Richmond, and she was apparently my physical therapist.

For about an hour, she just lifted my legs up and down, telling me she had been doing this the whole time I was comatose. Though I could feel everything in my legs except for the area around the scar on my right thigh, I couldn’t control the movements at all.

It was pissing me off.

“This sucks!” I nearly growled at her. “I’m not even doing anything!”

“Just think about how you would make your leg move along with what I’m doing,” she said. “Focus on how your mind would control the muscles. Letting your brain re-learn along with your muscles is the first step.”