Page 32 of Love is Strange
“Are you a nurse?” I ask her groggily.
She nods, the smile still on her face, as she leans down and presses her hand against my forehead.
“What happened?” I ask her when she pulls her hand away.
“You almost overdosed, honey,” she explains quietly as she picks up a clipboard she had lying on the bed next to me and jots something down. “Any particular reason?”
The way she looks at me now is almost accusing—as if I thought it would be fun to end my own life because I didn’t have anything better to do.
“I was thirsty,” I bark at her. When she bites her lip and lowers her eyes to her clipboard, I almost feel bad for being such a bitch, but it’s in my genetic make-up to mistreat those around me. “Sorry.”
She forces a smile onto her pretty face for my sake and smooths out the edge of my blanket.
“It’s okay. I’ve been told worse reasons,” she replies making a face. I laugh despite myself, then wince. Even the sound of my own laughter is grating on my nerves right now.
“Do you have someone you’d like us to call for you, sweetheart?” she asks in a gentler tone.
I close my eyes and shake my head. The only two people I want to talk to about this clusterfuck would end up in hospital beds of their own if they got too close to me right now, and I don’t think getting arrested is in my best interests.
Not before I can get my hands around their throats first, anyway.
“No, I’ll be okay,” I finally say to her. “Any idea how long I’ll be in here, though?”
“Seventy-two-hour mandatory psych hold,” she replies quietly.
I roll my eyes and sit up as much as I can. “Listen, I didn’t try to kill myself—I really didn’t. My life may not be a bed of roses, but it’s not a raging thorn bush either. It was a stupid mistake on my end and I’ve obviously learned not to take candy from strangers anymore,” I say, gesturing around the room.
“I know, honey, but it’s hospital policy regardless of the situation. There’s nothing we can do about it but think about it this way—you get free T.V. and three-square meals a day just for laying in bed,” she reasons as cheerfully as she can.
I sigh loudly because I know I’m defeated. There’s no point in arguing something that obviously isn’t going to go my way. I’ll do my best to look at this Susie Sunshine’s way and I’ll take the time off from the real world and rest up.
Seventy-two hours of being watched, and more than likely interrogated, over less than a thirty-minute conversation with someone I barely know.
Serves me right, I guess.
I’m the one that fell for those pretty eyes belonging to the boy that I knew I should have just turned away from, and I almost did.
But something in his tone stopped me. Something in the way those eyes took me in made me feel almost safe.
Safe enough to go home and almost die,I think with a scoff as I roll on my side and pull the blanket up tightly.
I should have remembered the hard-learned lesson from my childhood. Boys are only made to break your heart. They’ll toy with you, tell you they love you—or some similar bullshit lie, just to get what they want, and when they see you’re at your most vulnerable, they strike.
The test of a true woman is if you’re willing to strike back and move the pieces along the game board with them, and if they’re worth it, you will.
Three days.
I can do this.
I’ve done longer time in the prison of my own mind.
Closing my eyes tightly, I sigh again and pray for a dreamless sleep because the last thing I need right now is a nightmare on top of what I’m already dealing with.
I’ll find out if Silas is worth anything more than the anger he’ll be on the receiving end of shortly by the way he handles it.
Chapter Five
“Thanks,”I call out to the cab driver as I drop a twenty-dollar bill onto the front seat and climb out of the vehicle.
