Page 2 of Cluelessly Yours

It feels like ripping a stuck Band-Aid off a fresh scab, and my vision could easily be described as legally blind, but I’ve done it—I’ve forced the hard start and woken up. Everything is muddled and mashed together, and light forms glowing orbs that distort my surroundings.

I blink what feels like one thousand times to clear the warped fog so I can get my ass moving, only to find that I’m not in my bed…or my bedroom, for that matter.

I’m not anywhere that I recognize at all.

Okay, scary.

I take inventory.

Stark white walls reflect unforgiving fluorescent light, and a scratchy white sheet rubs like sandpaper on my body. There’s an incessant beeping from somewhere to my right, but when I go to slap it like I do my alarm clock, a painful cord tugs at my arm.

Ow.

Shit. Is that…an IV?

Am I in the hospital?

I move my head to the left, and pain shoots down my side and around, right into the length of my ribs.

Ow, jeez. Okay, maybe it’s good that I’m in a hospital. That really fucking hurts.

More carefully this time, I continue my perusal of the room. My heart lodges itself in my throat when I seehimin a bed a few feet away from mine.

An onslaught of tenderness, of adoration and affection, floods into my veins.

I want to go to him. But I can’t find the strength to move a single one of my limbs.

But wait…his eyes are closed, and there’s a white bandage stretched across his head.

Is he okay?

My ribs pull again, and I wince.

Areweokay?

Footsteps fill my ears, and I slowly turn my head to the right again. A woman walks inside. Her belly is rounded with pregnancy, and it reminds me of my sister, Brooke.

The woman doesn’t look at me. She goes straight to his bed and sits down in a chair beside him. But when she looks across the room, her eyes meet mine and she startles.

“Oh!Oh!Oh my God!” She hops up from her chair and grabs something, tapping her fingers against it maniacally.

In a few seconds, a voice fills the room.

“Can I help you?”

“Uh…hello? Uh…hi…Uh…I think she’s awake,” she fumbles to answer. “The woman…the woman beside my…boyfriend is awake. Her eyes are open.”

Boyfriend?

“I’ll send the nurse in,” the voice replies, but all I can think is,boyfriend?

How could he be her boyfriend when I’m in love with him? When he’s told me he’s in love with me?

“Hu—” I try to speak, but my throat is so dry it’s like my vocal cords are stuck together. I swallow against the blockage and try again, but all that comes out is a rough, squeaky sound—one that doesn’t sound like anything at all.

The woman stares at me with longing in her eyes as she grabs his hand andsqueezes.She’sholdinghishand. Everything inside my body wants to revolt against the gesture.

With her free hand, she nervously rubs at her rounded belly, and that movement triggers a memory to break the surface of my consciousness…

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