Page 20 of Jax

I laugh. “His attitude knows no bounds. I swear he hates everyone.”

“Sounds like it got worse after you.”

My hands turn to fists.

“No offense,” she adds.

“None taken,” I whisper. “Are you here just to suss me out or what?”

Leenie shakes her head. “No, I’m here because I saw a girl in trouble. A creep beat up my best friend, and call me crazy, but I don’t like to see that happen to anyone else, even if the girl is a gigantic liar who ruined someone’s life.”

I go to run my hand through my hair but I end up stopping when the tubes pull against the side of the hospital bed. “Sounds like you’re a lot more forgiving than Jax.”

“Well, you didn’t send me to jail, did you?”

I smirk. “Well, we don’t know each other well enough for that.”

The joke falls flat and silence enters the room, covering us like a shroud.

“You loved him,” Leenie states.

“More than anything.”

And those are the truest words I’ve spoken in years.

10

An hour later, I finally get discharged. I never see the male nurse I yelled at again, and he certainly got right on the letting me leave thing, didn’t he?

Leenie escorts me out into the waiting room where Finn stands from one of the faux leather upholstered chairs. I glance from him to Leenie. “I thought you said they weren’t here.”

“No, I said Jax left. Finn didn’t want to leave me here alone.” The guy in question leans over to kiss his girlfriend on the top of the head, and if I wasn’t so cynical, I might melt inside.

“You doing okay?” he asks, voice somewhere between hard and curious. He’s certainly not welcoming though, not that I expected he would be.

“I feel wonderful,” I deadpan.

He looks at me doubtfully, rolling his eyes. “So, I’m guessing you don’t have anywhere to go?”

“Still family-less if that’s what you’re asking. But that’s not your problem.”

“Youhada family once.”

I snap my mouth shut so hard I hear my teeth crack against each other. He really knows how to cut straight to the quick. “Exactly. So I’ll just see my way somewhere else.”

Finn catches up with me when I start to walk around him. “You can’t expect us to be nice to you.”

I peer over my shoulder. “I’m not asking you to be. Hell, I’m not asking you to be anything. You’re the ones who insisted I come to the ER and then waited for me.”

“Hey. Guys,” the receptionist calls out from behind a piece of glass. “Can you take it outside?”

I walk toward the automatic doors, and they slide open in front of me. It’s pitch-black outside, clouds covering the night sky. The only light is from the neon sign above us and the streetlamps in the parking lot.

Leenie and Finn talk in hushed whispers behind me. I hear something about her brother and then Finn insisting that I can’t come back to their house because Jax will kill us all.

He’s not wrong.

She whispers to him again as I turn to face them and wait until I have their attention. “Thanks for everything. I mean it. I don’t need your help anymore. I’ll be fine. I’m sorry I inconvenienced you.”

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