Page 76 of Georgia: Britain's Story: Part 1
I wake up to the sound of a nurse opening the blinds in my room. I look around, Alex isn’t here anymore. I can’t believe I actually fell asleep, though. As I go to sit up, I let out a hiss. Damn, guess I did hit my head. The back of my skull stings and is throbbing. I didn’t believe them last night when they kept saying it. Dr. Rashid said this would happen, though, that I didn’t feel anything because I had gone into shock.
“Morning, sunshine. My name is Jen, I’m the A.M. shift. How we feeling this morning?”
“Like I had sixteen margaritas last night.” She just laughs. I wince, sound hurts.
“Well, visiting hours start in ten minutes and you have a whole gaggle of people waiting to see you.” There’s a pit in my stomach.
“Is one of them named Liam?” I ask, terrified of the answer.
“No, don’t think so. My son’s name is Liam, I’d remember if there was one waiting out there.” I just nod my head, searching for my phone in all the blankets. I find it finally, skimming through notifications. Plenty of missed calls and texts, but not one from Liam. I open my messages and open our conversation. The last message was the one I sent last night, time stamped at 9:36 P.M. It feels like a little piece of my soul dies with that realization. “Okay, you can send whoever you want to in then. Doesn’t matter who.”Nothing fucking matters.
“No way. You gotta pee and then eat some real food before I open the flood gates.”
“Right, okay then. Let’s get this show on the road.” I need to get the fuck out of this hospital and on a flight back to Virginia ASAP. “Did Dr. Rashid say when I’ll be able to be discharged?”
“She wants another ultrasound this afternoon, and more blood work. If everything comes back good, she’ll discharge you. Lucky for you, it wasn’t a concussion, otherwise you’d get to hang out with me a good bit longer!”
“Yeah, lucky me.”
After a large bowl of cold oatmeal, my first visitor was admitted. Alex. He doesn’t even ask how I’m doing, just gets straight to the point.
“Did he call or text you back?”
“Nope.” I hold out my phone for proof. He takes it from me, hitting the call button on Liam’s contact. I wish he wouldn’t have done that. The result is the same as last time, though. It just rings and rings until I can faintly hear his voicemail greeting,“You’ve reached William…”
“I wasn’t lying.”
“I don’t understand. Why would he ask you to marry him, then just dump you and leave?”
“I couldn’t tell you that either. Yesterday was one of the happiest days of my life. Then he overheard me talking to Damian about how hard the breakup with Matthias was on me. And when I got off the call, he asked if I’d gotten over Matt. I was honest and said I hadn’t, but I have now. But he took off before I could even finish. He said he should’ve just handed me over to Matt when I showed up at his doorstep.
He said he would meet me at Colton’s, and when he did, he didn’t say anything to me. He just took the ring off my finger and said ‘Goodbye, Britain.’”
“Does he think you cheated on him?”
“He’d be an idiot to think that. Matthias has called and texted me and I’ve ignored him every single time. I’m not interested in reliving that part of my life.”
“He’s out there, you know?”
“Liam?” My heart starts racing.
“No, Matt.” Only for my insides to drop.
“Oh, why?”
“He was the first one to you last night.” I’d forgotten. He was the last thing I saw before I passed out.
“Great, I see him for the first time in 17 years, and he found me passed out on the floor of a bar. This day just keeps getting better and better.”
“I can tell him to go away, if you want.”
“I don’t care. None of this matters. People can come see me being sad in a hospital gown, or I can sit here crying the day away until I’m discharged. Might as well let them distract me. I have the rest of my life to be alone.” Alex doesn’t try to pull me out of my pity party. He knows pain, he knows hurt. Sometimes you just have to let the person feel it.
“Want me to take these down before people come in?” He’s pointing to the sonograms hung on the magnetic whiteboard where Jen has written her name and a smiley face. It doesn’t look like much, just a lot of gray and a small circle, but it’s mine and Liam’s baby. Still in there, still hanging on.
“Yeah, please, take them down.” I don’t need Sandy coming in here making me feel even shittier right now. Not that she would intentionally make me feel like crap, but her getting excited over a grandchild right now feels like it’d be activating another level of hell, another level of pain.
He removes them, folding them neatly and tucking it in my bag. He moves to the door, but turns around before heading out.
