Page 68 of Chasing You

“Alright,” I say. “Anything else?”

“You’ve got some pretty severe bruising to your ribs, but those will heal up on their own. And I’m sure you can feel the split just above your eye there.”

I give the slightest nod, I could feel that one when it happened earlier in the night.

“Now, you can take your time with your answer about the surgery, you don’t have to decide right now, but in my opinion, it’s your best option for a straightforward recovery. Reinjury can be common with collarbones, especially if we don’t treat it right in the first place.”

The chance of a reoccurring injury, and the thought of bone fragments floating around where they aren’t supposed to be, is enough for me to decide here and now.

“Let’s do it,” I say. “I wanna do it.” I hear a collective sigh of relief coming from the side of my bed.

“Okay,” the doctor nods. “I’ll leave you all to it then, a nurse will be in to check on you regularly.”

“Grazie.”

Isla shakes his hand. “Thank you so much.”

Just as he’s about to walk through the door, he says, “Oh, and next time, maybe fight someone your own size.”

chapter twenty-nine

MARINA

PRESENT

I never thoughtI could feel this level of worry in my life.

Maybe when I thought about either of my parents getting hurt, or when we found out that the cottage caught on fire last year, and found out May was inside. That was worry.

This is an agonising panic, one that’s left me sleeping in this stupid hospital chair for the last two nights. One that has had Miles’s nurse bringing me multiple cups of coffee from the staff room—not even the shitty stuff from the machine.

His surgery was two days ago now, he spent the entire first day and night sleeping, but I couldn’t get used to it. Seeing him so helpless in this bed, tubes and needles attached to him, monitoring his vitals as he laid there still as ever. He’s always been so solid, the strong and steady one. But seeing him like this is…jarring.

He was in and out yesterday, but he was never awake for long. Only long enough to let me give him some water and some of the pink jelly the nurse left for him. He said he couldn’t stomach anything else.

Isla and Caio have been in and out too, they spent the first daytrying to convince me to go home and get some rest, but it didn’t feel right. Leaving Miles here while I went home to the comfort of my apartment. I felt sick at the mere thought of leaving him. By day two, they brought me a bag of clothes and my toothbrush.

Three days spent watching over someone gives you a lot of time to think. And all I can think about is us.

When I finally find sleep, I don’t rest, because my mind keeps showing me things I don’t want to see. Images of Miles getting beaten, getting hit so hard I can hear the cracking of his bones from where I’m sitting in the crowd. Of his limp body in the boxing ring. It sends shockwaves through my body, surges of the emotions I felt that night. Sickening fear, confusion, overwhelming grief for the time I’ve spent away from him.

Nothing but pure adrenaline got me to this hospital. Miles was right, it wasn’t safe, but all I could think about was that I needed to get here as quickly as humanly possible. I could barely stand that I wasn’t there in the first place. That I couldn’t ride in the ambulance with him and hold his hand and tell him he was going to be alright.

The only conclusion I could reach in these last three days is that I’m so tired. So tired of fighting this man who I would drive erratically on a motorbike in the middle of the night for.

I can’t sit here and pretend he doesn’t still mean everything to me. I can’t pretend I’m not so fucking mad at him for putting himself in a situation where with one wrong move we could have lost him.Icould have lost him. I can’t pretend that it doesn't gut me every time I think about it.

I don’t even know what that means, or what he plans to do over the next six weeks. If not being able to work will eat him alive, if he will leave again as soon as he gets the chance. I’m just tired, and I don’t want to be tired anymore.

“This lighting does nothing for you, princess.” My gaze jumps up at the raspy sound of his voice. He’s got a pitiful attempt at a smirk on his face. “You look sickly.”

“You don’t look too great yourself, hotshot.” The jab is half-hearted, I just scoot my chair closer to his bedside.

“What time is it?” he asks. His eyes blink against the cool lights.

“It’s around three, I think,” I say, looking for the phone I’ve barely touched in the last three days. I would feel bad for not texting my parents, but I know Caio will be keeping them updated.

“Have you been here all day?”

---