Losing Him (Mitchell Family #8)(42)

Maybe I was being irrational about the whole situation given my lack of sleep, but I was starting to understand why Heather would be okay with walking away and never coming back. Something felt wrong about it though. Her mother’s house was the only tie she still had to her. I didn’t want her to lose that.

I don’t know why the thought ran through my head, but as the elevator opened all of my thoughts disappeared.

When I arrived up to the floor Heather was on, I heard loud beeping and dashed towards her room. The nurses were running inside and I wedged my way in with them. I feared the worst as I approached where I could see what was going on.

My mouth dropped when I saw Heather’s eyes open. She had tried to sit up and the cord on her finger had fallen off. A few seconds later, the beeping slowed and I couldn’t take my eyes off of hers. She was looking right at me and I wanted her to know that I wasn’t going anywhere.

Chapter 23


Heather


I don’t know how I willed myself to open to my eyes, but it finally happened. Just like when I was dreaming, Jessie was there, looking at me with a big smile on his face. I tried to smile back, but that was too hard to do with a big mask across my face.

While the medical people did whatever they had to do to me, I kept looking at Jessie. I saw hope in his eyes and didn’t want to look away in case it wasn’t real. I still couldn’t remember how I’d gotten in the hospital, but Jessie was with me and that was all I cared about.

He looked tired, standing there with his arms crossed. Maybe he had been up all night worried about me. I wondered where Jacob was and immediately started to worry that something bad had happened to him. My heart rate jumped up and I’d created a new reason for the nurses to stick around.

Once that all settled and they’d pumped me full of clonazepam, I was left in the room with only Jessie. He walked over to my bed and grabbed my hand. “Hey. I was starting to think you weren’t going to wake up.”

Talking was hard since my mouth was so dry. He handed me a cup with a straw and I took a sip of water before being able to continue. “How did I get here?”

Jessie shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re going to get out of here and come home with me, where you belong.”

It was almost surreal to hear him saying that. I wanted to smile and celebrate, but instead I tried to reach for his hand, realizing that my arm was in a cast. “What’s wrong with me?”

He touched my cast. “You broke your arm, part of your neck and dislocated your hip. You had a contusion on your head and that’s why you were bandaged up. Are you okay? Does anything hurt?”

I felt his hand grabbing mine and I squeezed it. “I can’t move, but I guess it because all of this shit they have on me.” My neck brace was this giant collar. I hated it immediately. “When can I go home?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a couple of days.”

“How long have I been in here. You look tired.”

Jessie shrugged. “You’ve been here a few days. This chair isn’t the most comfortable thing to sleep in.”

I couldn’t turn my head that far to see the chair, but from working in a hospital, I could imagine what it looked like. “Jacob?” I just wanted to know he was alright.

“He’s at my sister’s. He got to fly on a plane with me to come here. You should have seen how excited he was. The pilot showed him around the cockpit after we landed. I think he wants to be a pilot now.”

If Jessie had to fly to be with me, that meant that he’d left already, just as I remembered. Whatever happened to me occurred after they’d left. As upset as I was, I couldn’t imagine inflicting any harm on myself. Something horrible must have happened. “I need to know how I got here. How did you find out I was in the hospital?”

He looked away from me and cleared his throat. “You really don’t remember?”

I tried to shake my head, but it was impossible. “No! I don’t remember anything.” I could tell that he didn’t want to talk about it, but I had every right to know how I’d gotten myself so messed up.

“After Jacob and I left, you must have lost it and started drinking.”

This was already not sounding like me. “I didn’t have enough wine to make me drunk. You have to be mistaken. Who said I was drinking? Did I fall down the steps?”

Jessie shook his head. He reached up and rubbed my cheek through my awful brace. “Heather, you were in a car accident. Baby, you got drunk and drove to the Mitchell farm.

My eyes must have come flailing out of my head. “I what? Are you joking with me, right now?”

“No, baby, I’m not! Jacob and I stopped at a motel. We tried calling you over and over again and you wouldn’t answer. When I ran out of options, I called Amy’s shop and was going to ask them to go and check on you. I had no idea that they’d been with you and knew where you were.”

I was in shock and still unable to remember anything after Jessie leaving me. What was wrong with me? Why would I even consider doing something so stupid? “Oh God, did I hurt anyone?”

“Only yourself.”

I was so relieved that I hadn’t hurt anyone. If that had happened again, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself. “Did I damage their property?”

“You totaled your mother’s car.”