Chapter 139
Ellie POV
The days blur together in the hospital room.
Morning light, afternoon light, evening dimness. Healers coming and going. The same questions asked in different voices. The same careful hands adjusting blankets, checking vitals, murmuring reassurances they don’t quite believe themselves.
Turns out, I can’t leave. I can’t do much of anything without Dominic…which is kinda the worst thing to ever happen to me.
Sarah comes often with flowers, bright ones, like she’s trying to bring any type of life back into the room. She talks about school, about gossip I don’t have the energy to care about, about teachers who keep asking when I’ll be back. I smile in the right places. I even laugh once. It exhausts me.
My family comes too. My mother sits close, always too close, her fingers tight around mine like she’s afraid I’m close to death.
Who knows. I could be.
My stepfather stays near the door, pacing, muttering about healers and incompetence and how this never would have happened if people had just listened to him. That and maybe I should just accept Dominic and stop suffering.
That part doesn’t surprise me.
But even with all the pain, it feels…wrong to let some karmic bullshit tell me what to do.
The healers do what they can. Pain dampeners. Cool cloths. Breathing techniques. The relief always comes in shallow waves, just enough to remind me what it feels like not to be drowning before the pain creeps back in again.
The only time it really stops is when Dominic is here.
He offered, awkwardly, to come every day after school. I said yes before I could think too hard about what that meant. Considering it’s the only time I felt…normal.
Now it’s routine.
He slips into the room quietly, like he doesn’t want to startle me, even though I always know the second he arrives. My body reacts before my brain does.
It’s terrifying how it just all goes away when he’s around.
He usually sits in the chair beside my bed, long legs out, shoulders loose. Sometimes he brings my or his own homework. Sometimes a book. The frist time, he didn’t bring anything and pretended very hard that he wasn’t just sitting there bored so I
wouldn’t hurt.
We didn’t talk much then. I guess not too much now either. What is there to say? ‘Oh, sorry, I can’t even eat without you here. Mind just being with me 24/7?”
Pathetic.
I usually do my assignments while he reads. Occasionally, he glances up, checking on me without making a big deal out of it. I catch him watching my hands, my breathing, my face, like he’s trying to force the illness from me.
When the sickness surges, when my vision blurs or my hands start shaking or the room tilts, he doesn’t panic anymore.
We were told touch helps. It’s humiliating, but he just reaches for my hand, grounding me until the worst of it passes.
It’s the worst, yet best thing I have ever felt.
One afternoon, when I’m alone, the pain hits harder than usual. It creeps through my joints, settles deep in my bones, leaves me shivering under blankets despite the late-spring sun. Sweat beads at my temples. My teeth chatter
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I curl inward, arms tight around my stomach, trying not to cry because crying only makes it worse.
And that’s when the thought slips in.
I hope Dominic comes soon.
My chest tightens, not from pain this time, but something colder.
Is this it? My new reality?
What kind of life only functions when someone else is nearby? If I keep saying no… how long will I last?
This doesn’t feel like living.
My fist clenches in the pillow. Stupid moon goddess. If this is what freedom looks like, counting minutes until someone else shows up to make me whole, then what was the point of fighting so hard?
I turn my face into the pillow, breathing shallow, trying not to spiral.
Then the door clicks open.
My heart lifts instantly, stupid and hopeful.
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