Page 76 of Fractured Constellations
Susan laughs as she walks in. “Someone’s been busy.”
“Only the best for our girl, and it’s a day to celebrate, right?” Thorn answers. He ties the balloons to the end of my bed, then comes and sits on one side. He’s looking a bit better, less in pain, and when I find Chase and Blade, I notice the same. They all look, well, not quite normal but less shitty than they have for the past week.
“Definitely a day to celebrate,” Susan agrees, coming over with what looks like a blood bag. “This is it, your liquid gold,” she tells me, and my brows drop.
“Doesn’t look like much,” I rasp, thinking about all the crap we’ve dealt with just to get to this point and it looks like a normal blood bag.
She laughs. “That’s what they all say.” She sets it up so the blood goes through a central line and that’s it.Huh. “I’ll stay here just to monitor things, but it should only take between thirty and sixty minutes.”
Once she’s done, she takes the chair next to the bed, Thorn getting on next to me and snuggling in that way of his which Ilove. Blade takes the other chair, Chase on one by the table with his laptop.
There’s something ritualistic, almost sacred, about this moment. The atmosphere is heavy with meaning as we all watch their cells flowing into my body. They are becoming part of me, part of my very DNA, their blood forever in my veins now.
“How many boyfriends does it take to change a lightbulb?” Thorn asks out of the blue, and my eyes widen, flashing to Susan, who just gives me a wink and a smile. I shake my head at him, and his grin grows. “None. They just compliment you in the dark and tell you how beautiful you look!”
I huff a laugh, too tired and sore for much else, but he leans in anyway, placing a chaste kiss on my lips. What feels like only a minute later, the bag is empty and Susan is unhooking it all.
“All done. I’ll leave you to rest but someone will be in and out over the next few hours to check up on you, alright?”
“Thank you, Nurse,” Chase replies, and Susan leaves. His gaze finds mine. “You’re ours now, Star,” he tells me, his tone unwavering, and my heart thuds inside my chest. “Have been since that first day, though we were too blind to see it.” He gets up, coming to sit next to me on the chair Susan was just in, his warm palm cupping my cheek.
“I don’t belong to anyone,” I whisper, even as I lean into his touch. It’s a lie, I do belong to them, wholeheartedly, but the idea still scares me a little.
“No,” Blade agrees, reaching over Thorn and taking my hand on the other side. “You choose us every day. That’s different than belonging.”
Thorn completes the circle around me. “And we choose you. Cancer and all.”
With their warmth surrounding me, my eyes close, knowing that I’m safe and loved. That I’m chosen.
When I next open them, I find the room dim and Blade sitting beside my bed, saying nothing, his gaze on the machines surrounding me, monitoring every one, every number on the screen. Thorn is asleep next to me, his warmth a comfort, while Chase is on the other bed, having a nap.
Chase would fill this silence with plans and promises, Thorn would chase it away with jokes and stories, but Blade lets it exist between us, and somehow, his silence feels more honest than any words could be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“BORDERLINE” BY SØD VEN
LUNA
The next few days pass by in an exhausted, agony-filled blur. The pain meds help when it gets too much, but leave me so drowsy that I sleep for most of the time, waking only for a few moments before the darkness claims me again. I have complete immune suppression at this point, to help my body accept the triplets’ blood, so it’s the highest infection risk period.
I end up with a TPN, my nutrition through a vein, because I can no longer eat solid foods. My mouth, throat, and GI tract is so badly inflamed that even swallowing is hard. Talking is a no-go for me, but the guys still chat to me when I’m awake. Thorn telling me his terrible jokes, Chase explaining all the plans he has in place for our return to The Cottage, and Blade giving me all the praise.
One day, as I’m unable to speak through the pain, Thorn settles on the bed, careful of my IV. He pulls out one of my favourite romance books, a dark romance with a stepbrothertrope, which has my dry lips twitching. He begins reading, and somehow, it feels more intimate than a kiss at this moment. Every time I’m awake, he continues, the sound of his voice soothing. I love that he knows what I need, this small touch of normalcy in such a trying situation.
After about two weeks, I start to get a little more energy, apparently the triplets’ cells are beginning to produce new blood cells, which is supported by my white blood cell count recovery. I’ve got a low-grade fever, but I’ll take it, especially when my mucositis—my throat and mouth sores—start to heal.
Chase helps me to the bathroom on the fifteenth day—I’m beyond the point of worrying about peeing in front of them—and I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My body is a battlefield now—parts of me missing, other parts marked. It’s not easy to look at myself, to see the journey I’ve undergone so viscerally and in all its stark horror. It’s this more than the pain, more than all the other symptoms that has a moment of doubt flickering in my mind, a dark voice whispering it’s time to give up.
“What if I don’t—” I start, but Chase presses his finger to my lips.
“Don’t. We already lost someone we loved once. It won’t happen again. You are getting better, Star, everything else will follow.”
“And we’re choosing this, choosing you,” Blade adds from the bathroom doorway, his certainty unshakable as his eyes catch mine in the mirror, unflinching at the wreck that is my appearance.
Thorn appears by his side, his eyes holding mine. “Every moment. No matter how many we get.”
I meet Chase’s green eyes again, the gold inside them almost sparkling. His gaze dips over me, heating every place it touches as he looks at me, his eyes dark with want despite everything that I can see. When Chase looks at me like this, when any ofthem look at me with a banked heat making their eyes burn with green fire, I feel whole in a way medicine can’t achieve.
