Page 16 of Whiskey Shivers

I didn’t know how I was going to do it, and Ireallydidn’t know how I was going to get through it without pain meds. I was already trying to wean myself off them. I didn’t request them, and I went as long as possible between doses – much to the consternation of my nurses.

It hurt. A lot. My hands perpetually shook and it was impossible to get comfortable.

“Um, I can’t use my arm so nothing that has to be pulled over my head. So, a button down of some kind – as loose fitting as you can find it. Other than that, just jeans, socks, and underwear.”

“You got it,” he said. “I’ll get it taken care of and bring it up in just a bit.

“Alright,” I said. “Thank you.”

“No problem, like I said.” He hesitated and then added belatedly, “Love you.”

The two words at the end almost felt like a bucket of cold water. I mean, the way he said them… it was almost, for a fraction of a second, like having the old Mark back. The one I’d fallen in love with and the one who had loved me enough to ask me to marry him before the new job and the big move and the chaos of all those big changes.

“I love you too,” I said softly, and I meant it. I did love that Mark. Even though I didn’t really know who he was anymore, I would always love who he was in some small part. You know? Still, I didn’t know if there was any saving us, not when I so clearly had so much to think about.

“Be there soon,” he promised.

I chuckled at the sudden enthusiasm in his voice and said, “Okay.”

“K, bye.” He hung up first and I hung up the receiver to the phone in my hospital room. My cell phone was in my purse which was locked up in my filing cabinet in my classroom, along with my house keys. I would need those too.

They would be getting here eventually. I’d asked Hex for them and he’d said he would bring them after work.

I looked at the big bouquet of flowers over by the sink and picked up one of the books off the stack that Hex had brought me unasked and unprompted.

Things I’d never read, but things he’d thought I would like because we’d talked about some of my favorite things over lunch once and he’d remembered… he’dbotheredto remember.

Talk about conflicted,I thought to myself.

I rested my good hand atop the book I’d been reading. It was, indeed, to my tastes and I was enjoying it when I could concentrate on it. It was a modern retelling of the Hades and Persephone myth. I did love my Greek mythology. Fractured fairytales were a guilty pleasure of mine and of the small pile of four books that Hex had brought me along with the flowers? I’d only read one of them before and it happened to be one of my favorites.

I thought about him. He seemed to occupy my thoughts quite a bit lately. It certainly didn’t hurt that not a day had gone by here at the hospital that he hadn’t come to see me. In the beginning, I would wake to him sitting by my bedside, either asleep himself in the chair or watching my television with whatever he could find that wasn’t boring on the screen.

Sometimes, when I didn’t wake, I would still know that he’d been here. Things would be left for me – a treat of fresh beignets or a note. The first time had been the book I was reading, with a note written on the cover page saying that if I needed anything to not hesitate and to call him, along with his phone number.

It’d been late when I’d seen it, so I hadn’t called, but I’d called to say “thank you” the next morning. He hadn’t answered the phone, so I’d left a message. He’d called me at lunch and had said he was back to work already and that everyone had missed me. He’d said there was an afternoon assembly planned to play my message to the students and that had made me smile.

Honestly, I couldn’t quite be sure the order of any and all the things had happened in since I’d come to the hospital. Not with the steady haze of pain medication and with just how much I slept. I swear by everything, the long and unregulated sleep schedule, while necessary for healing, had really thrown off my sense of time.

Now, frustratingly, the tables had turned and I spent more time awake than asleep and it felt like I could only wait. It was these long stretches of agonizing consciousness that were the worst. Being in the hospital wasboring. Even more so when your arm didn’t work and you couldn’t even have your fiancé bring you a craft to work on or anything. Not that I’d honestly thought that he would. His good mood and prompt attention on the phone just now had honestly shocked me.

Still, my hospital stay had become nothing but pain and boredom until Hex arrived to keep me company and then the time justflewby. It was maddening, and it worried me that I didn’t evenmissMark all that much and spent most of my time thinking about Hex.

I took a deep breath and ended up sucking it in sharp at the end, as the motion sent a jolt of pain through my neck and shoulder. Having a broken collarbonesucked. It was going to be hard figuring out how to do everything on my own.

And that was the whole crux of it, wasn’t it? I was about to find myself wholly reliant on Mark. Mark who was barely there since this had happened and honestly hadn’t really been there at all in the weeks leading up to my attack.

I worried about that. I didn’t have any place else to go and no one else who I could rely on. I was scared.

Truthfully, all I wanted was a hotshowerwhen I got home. In my own shower. You know? I longed for it. I wanted my own soaps and shampoos and to be genuinelyclean. They didn’t much worry about any of that here in the hospital and I still had several days to go. The sponge baths with wet wipes just weren’t doing it for me, and I would honestly giveanythingfor my hair to be clean.

It was all I could think about, to the point of obsession. Then there were the whispering doubts in the back of my mind ofwould Mark help me? Or would I just be treated as inconvenient, as I had been before all this happened?

I didn’t know anyone else, really… except Hex, and I was more than slightly cursing my introverted ways at having not made any real friends in the last year or more since moving here.

I’d somehow let Mark be my end-all of be-alls and looking back, all I could do was ask myself how I could let something like that happen? Not that Mark had really done anything to discourage it… quite the opposite in fact. He’d told me multiple times when I’d expressed an interest in going out and meeting new people that I didn’t need to do that, that I had everything I’d needed right there at home with him.

At the time, my heart had melted, but with his growing distant, now I was just angry with myself for not seeing it for what it was – a control tactic.

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