Page 83 of Landlord Wars
By the time I got home, my arms were covered in goosebumps and my teeth were chattering. I crawled up the last steps to my apartment and entered the darkened living room, not bothering to turn on the lights. Inside my bedroom, I kicked off my shoes and fell facedown on the bed, hiccupping before the tears finally came.
The sound of my moaning filled the room. Even if tonight had been one huge mistake, being cut daily by these people would slowly kill me.
I couldn’t do it.
My head pounded, and eventually a wave of exhaustion took me under.
* * *
“Sophia?”
Someone was shaking my shoulder lightly. A second later, the shoulder nudge grew stronger. “Sophia, are you okay?”
Jack. I opened my eyes, and the blurred room oriented itself until I could see tuxedo-clad legs beside my bed.
I pushed up on a shaky arm, still wearing my dress.
Jack crouched in front of me. “You okay?”
“No.”
“Elise called me.”
I didn’t know what time it was. A dozen hours could have passed or none. “Is everything okay?” Elise was avoiding Jack like the plague. She’d never willingly call him.
Jack rubbed his eyelids like he’d been up half the night. “Elise contacted Max when she couldn’t get a hold of you. She got his number the night we all went drinking.”
That’s right. Elise had drunkenly demanded Max’s phone number because she “needed someone to pay for drinks while she was in school.”
I leaned forward and sank my pounding head in my hands. No matter if it was twelve hours or one, it felt like only minutes had passed since I’d fallen asleep. After a moment, I crawled across the floor to my workbag and dug for my phone.
I’d missed twelve text messages and six phone calls from Elise. Max had called me four times. “What’s going on?”
Jack let out a low sigh and ran a hand through his rumpled hair. “I’m sorry, Sophia. You’ll have to talk to Max about what happened earlier tonight.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe Gwen did that.”
“I mean with Elise.” I tugged the skirt of my gown where it was tangled in my legs, frustrated and wishing I’d bothered to put on sweatpants when I got home. “What happened with Max doesn’t matter. It’s over.”
Jack’s expression went from tense to sad. “It’s not over. Not for Max. But you’re right to worry about Elise. You need to get to the hospital. Your mom had an accident. That’s why we’ve been trying to reach you. Max said he pounded on the door earlier, and when you didn’t answer, he rushed off to the hospital, thinking you’d gone there.”
* * *
Still wearingthe green ball gown, I ran into the emergency room of the University of California San Francisco hospital, half my eye makeup running down my cheeks.
I searched frantically for the front desk while Jack parked out front.
The nurse behind the counter looked to be in her thirties, her hair pulled into a messy bun, with blue scrubs and a cream sweater to combat the freezing hospital air conditioning.
I flattened my hands on the counter of her station. “Can you tell me the room number for Brenda Markos?”
The nurse took me in, her eyes widening slightly before she looked down at her desk. She ran her finger over a clipboard. “Room 224. But there’s already someone in there. One person at a time.”
And that was when I saw Max walking toward me, his bow tie undone, hair perfectly kempt. He was fucking gorgeous, and I hated him.
“I don’t want to see you,” I said, rushing toward the door of my mother’s room.
He grabbed my shoulders gently, and I flinched.
Max dropped his hands and took a step back, and that was when I noticed the strain in his eyes. “Your mother is stable, but she’s with the doctor right now. She had a stroke, Sophia.”
