Page 149 of Counting On You

Chapter Forty-One

Kaiden

Iblinkin an effort to adjust my eyes, unable to make sense of the unfamiliar, off-color ceiling that’s in need of a layer of white paint. I wince as another wave of sharp, throbbing pain hits the side of my head, forcing me to close my eyes again.

Two more minutes.

That’s all I need to recover from the pain.

Several minutes pass, yet the pain doesn’t subside.

The sound of humming and whirring keeps piercing through my eardrums. Every sound feels like a sharp knife is piercing my skull open. Every flutter of my eyelids feels like cement is about to dry them close. Every thought feels like a truck is hitting me over and over again. As I lie with my eyes closed, trying to make sense of what’s happening to me, I realize my thoughts might not even be my own.

Voices are overlapping. Somewhere, a child’s crying. And then a woman’s voice, soft and low, soothing. I latch onto her voice like it’s my beacon of light.

“You need to wake up.” Fingers, soft like butterflies, touch my arm, my face. “Please, Kade. Please. I need you. I love you. I want you, but more than that, I need you to wake up. If you leave, you’ll leave my heart in pieces and it won’t ever heal.”

My heartbeat hastens, not at hearing my name, but at the way she says it…hurt, disappointed.

I’m the source of her pain. I could take it all away.

If only I could wake up. If only I could remember what happened.

Did I hook up with her, then dump her? Because that’s the only reasonable explanation as to why she’d be crying at my bedside.

She makes me feel like a no-good bastard with only his own interests at heart.

“I wish you could hear me.”

The urgency in her voice scares me. As if something terrible is about to happen and it’s all my fault that I don’t wake up to stop it.

I force my mind to remember what happened…but nothing comes.

My mind’s a black canvas, all color and images drained from it.

It’s pathetic.

I am pathetic. Useless. Trapped in this endless loop of pain.

“Even if you can’t hear me, I want you to know that I love you. I love you, Kade Wright. I don’t know when it started. I don’t even know why, but I know that I love you and I can’t imagine being with anyone but you.” She lets out a shaky breath.

I realize with dismay that she is crying.

“People say you can choose to fall in love with someone if you want, but I didn’t just fall in love. I fell into you. Into your soul. Into your body and mind. I don’t just need someone to hold me. I need to know that you’re alive and well. I would do anything to see you smile. I need you to make it, so please, wake up for me. If not for me, then do it for your family. I could never forgive myself if you didn’t.”

Desperation.

Her voice is filled with it and I realize she isn’t blaming me. She’s blaming herself. But she can’t possibly have done anything wrong. There’s too much love in her voice, too much longing, that it’s hard to imagine she might be the kind of person who’d inflict pain upon others.

My pulse thuds as I force my eyes to open. My body feels drenched in cold sweat from the effort. The pain hits me hard—harder than ever before—but strangely it becomes bearable.

I blink against the bright light.

It’s the same off-color ceiling. No one’s painted it yet, meaning not much time could have passed since I last saw it.

The throbbing inside my skull increases as I focus on the blurred images around me. I’m lying on a bed in what looks like a hospital room.

My throat is dry, the metallic taste making me want to puke. There’s a glass of water on the bedside table but my arms feel too heavy to lift.

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