: Chapter 36

Gray is the ugliest color. I can’t believe I’ve never noticed before. Gray is drab, bleak, and depressing. Gray means questions that may never get answers. And I need answers.

I’ve walked these exact halls too many times to count, and I never once noticed. That gray is ugly. Gray chairs, gray fixtures, and a dingy gray linoleum floor. It does nothing to console, comfort, or create hope. It seems like I’m doomed to drown in a never ending sea of gray for the rest of my life.

Here I am, stuck in this dull, gloomy waiting room at Columbia Memorial Hospital, where I used to call home. The thought that Samantha is somewhere in this ugly gray building all alone is absolutely maddening.

I’ve given up on sitting. Instead my feet are wandering aimlessly along the row of hideous chairs, but I never stray very far. Callum sits in a chair silently, his attention only ever leaving me to very briefly respond to an email or a text. Roscoe had been on the plane too, but somehow he didn’t end up in this unbearable waiting room with us.

“Lexie.” Mia’s voice reaches me only seconds before she does. I barely have time to open my arms before she’s in them, pulling me into a giant hug. We embrace each other tightly, just her presence already helping to ease some of the weight off my chest. She lets out a harsh breath of relief heavily, causing tears to prick behind my eyes.

“Damn, one hug and I’m getting emotional.” My words are muffled by her hair, the tight, brown curls tickling my face. The sound she makes is half laugh, half sob. It’s a good two minutes before she’s finally pulling back to look at me. “Hi, bitch.”

“Hi bitch,” she repeats with a smile, brushing away a stray tear from fluttery lash extensions. “It’s been way too fucking long.” I’ve missed her gorgeous face, with her alert mocha brown eyes that see more than I want her to, and her full lips that deliver brutal honesty and always make me laugh. Her navy blue scrubs do nothing to hide her full hourglass figure, and her curls are pulled away from her heart-shaped face by a clip in a half updo.

“I know,” I agree. “I almost forgot how much prettier you are than me.”

“You’re such a liar. Damn, I miss you.” she grins. Her eyes look over my shoulder, focusing on something behind me. Lowering her voice so I’m the only one who can hear her, her tone shifts to approval. “Hot tattoo guy is right.”

Following her gaze over my shoulder, I turn to look at Callum. Our eyes collide, his gaze fixed solely on me. Even now, when I’m so angry that I can barely stand to look at him, the passion in his eyes sends warmth flooding through my veins.

Our six hour flight was spent in silence, the tension between us growing with every passing moment. Sitting in the waiting room wasn’t much better. The constant feeling of Callum’s eyes on me every waking minute just added fuel to the fire, causing friction dangerously close to bringing us to the point of destruction. Mia’s presence has only dampened the flame temporarily. But no matter how long it lasts, it’s a nice little vacation from the complicated whirlwind my life has become since moving to New York.

“This is Callum. I work for him in New York.” My matter-of-fact introduction has disapproval flashing in Callum’s eyes. His expression is unreadable, but I can still hear the question his eyes are practically spearing me with. How much longer do you think you can deny what’s between us? “This is my best friend, Mia.”

“Nice to meet you, Callum.”

“I wish it was under better circumstances.” He’s turned on the charm, his mask of calm back in place. His comment brings us back to why we’re here.

“How’s Samantha?” The words tumble out of my mouth a little too fast. Mia’s face grows serious with the expression I’ve seen her use for the families of patients. I have one of those looks of my own as a nurse. It’s fucking awful being on the receiving end of it.

Mia lowers to one of the chairs, motioning for me to sit next to her. Callum takes a seat across from me. “She’s in post-op. Her spleen ruptured, causing severe internal bleeding that we were able to catch. Her left femur is broken, she’s going to need surgery to get plates and screws. But she should recover fully without risk of paralysis. There was minimal swelling in her brain, but there’s no way to know the extent of her head injuries until she wakes up.” I nod, absorbing and processing the information that’s coming at me.

“So she’s going to be okay.” I don’t realize how much I need to hear her say it until she’s nodding.

“She’s going to be okay,” Mia confirms with a small smile. The breath that leaves me in a sigh of relief, happy tears pricking behind my eyes and a little bit of the weight lifting from my chest. I glance at Callum, getting caught in his gaze for a few long seconds. He sits silently, running a hand over his beard while he watches me carefully.

“When can I see her?” Pulling my focus from him, I look back at my best friend. Mia glances between me and the man across from us like she noticed our little moment—it’s something I’ll be hearing about later.

“As soon as she’s set up in her room you can go sit with her until she wakes up.”

“Oh thank god,” I sigh, the corset strings loosening around my chest ever so slightly. Samantha’s not out of the woods yet, there’s still so much up in the air until she wakes up. But she’s stable, and not paralyzed.

The sound of a phone ringing pulls my attention to Callum. He glances at his phone and stands up to excuse himself. When his eyes meet mine, the air between us is charged with everything going unsaid. “I have to take this.”

I nod to him, barely maintaining eye contact before turing back to my best friend. I can vaguely hear Callum’s deep voice answer the call while he walks down the hall in the search of some privacy.

“How long do you think it’ll be before Samantha wakes up?” I ask Mia.

“I really wish I had an answer to that, but there’s no way to be sure. It could be a few hours or a few days. We just have to wait and see.” Mia’s not telling me new information, I know that’s how brain injuries work. But somehow being on the patient side of it feels different—like maybe the rules don’t apply to this case. To my case.

“I’m so glad you’re here. You got here a lot faster than I was expecting. I thought it would take you at least a day to get tickets.”

“Callum has a private jet,” I explain, knowing exactly how wide I’m cracking open this can of worms. Some things just can’t be explained away, and this subject is something we’ll have to bring up eventually.

“Of course he does. Hot tattoo guy would have his own plane.” She reaches up to reclip her mess of curls back from her face. Her hair has gotten longer since I’ve last seen her, the tight ringlets reaching past her collarbone.

“Yeah, I guess I’m lucky he was willing to bring me,” I reply vaguely.

“Speaking of Callum, what’s going on between you two?” Mia asks intuitively. She has no idea how loaded that question is. There are so many different ways to answer, but all of them result in more questions that I can’t answer. Not honestly, anyway.

“It’s nothing.” I hate to lie, especially to Mia, but the truth isn’t an option. She flashes me a dirty look, the one telling me she’s about to call me out on my bullshit.

“Did you really just lie to me like that? Even a blind idiot could see the way you two look at each other. Not to mention the fact that he can’t seem to take his eyes off you.”

“He’s just like that.” I’m cherry picking now, and Mia knows it. Shit, she’s known me too long.

“So you’re seriously trying to tell me nothing has happened between you and Callum?” It’s basically impossible to lie convincingly to someone who knows you better than you know yourself. There’s really no point in trying to keep this up. I’ve got to give her something.

“We’ve had sex,” I admit. Her face lights up like a child on christmas at the nugget of info, before her brown eyes narrow at me.

“I knew it! How many times, more than once?” I knew she wouldn’t be satisfied with that one vague bit of info. The girl is addicted to gossip and finding out all the juicy details. Details I would usually tell her before I met Callum and signed that damn NDA.

“More than once.” I really can’t get into this with her right now, if ever.

“Damn, girl. I knew there’s something with you and him. He hangs on your every word. It must’ve been a good more than once. And he’s hot too.” Mia’s both scolding me and giving me props. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. Why didn’t you?”

“It’s complicated.” Tip of the fucking iceburg.

“You haven’t been telling me a lot of things lately,” she says, getting worked up. “Look, I’m not enough of a bitch to try and have this conversation right now. But we are going to talk before you leave—starting with why you never came back from New York.” Mia wants answers, and she does deserve some sort of explanation. I just need to figure out what I’m going to tell her.

What I can tell her.

“Okay.” I agree. “We’ll talk.”

“Good.”

***

My sister looks completely different. Outside of the bruises and swelling, she cut her hair to her shoulders and dyed it black. Samantha has always kept her golden brown hair long and wavy. As surprising as this new hairstyle is, it’s good to see her making changes.

Since she’s a few years younger than me, she was stuck in my parents’ house alone for a while after I moved out. It’s been a long process for her, but she’s slowly getting past the trauma from our upbringing. This haircut is one step closer to her finding herself.

They had to remove all of her jewelry before surgery, but there are multiple gold hoop earrings in various sizes in the bag of personal items Mia gave me when I sat down at Samantha’s bedside. I also recognize a dainty gold septum piercing in the same bag. It hasn’t been that long since we last talked, but she’s turned into a bad bitch since the last time I had her on video chat.

It’s almost five hours of waiting before Samantha’s eyes flutter open. I straighten in my chair, pressing the nurse call button. “Hi,” I say gently, allowing her to absorb her surroundings.

Samantha’s eyes dart around the room, taking in her IV and the hospital equipment surrounding her. Her gaze drifts from her hospital gown up to me. “Hi,” she rasps. “What happened?”

“You were in a car accident,” I tell her, easing her back against the pillows when she tries to sit forward. “Don’t try to move, you just got out of surgery.”

“What’s wrong with me?” Samantha’s voice is just barely above a whisper, her eyelids heavy as she fights off the anesthesia.

“You lost your spleen, your femur is broken, and you have a concussion that caused some brain swelling. Mia is your doctor, she’ll be in here to talk to you later,” I say, reaching for her hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Do you remember anything?”

“I remember… my car rolling. That van came out of nowhere,” Samantha responds slowly, waiting for the memories to come back to her. It’s a relief that she remembers anything at all, head injuries are terrifying. I was half expecting her to open her eyes with no idea who I am. “Was anyone else hurt?”

“It was a hit and run carjacking. The other driver fled the scene after the crash. The police should be coming by later to get your statement.”

A petite Filipino nurse enters the room to answer my page, her ID badge says her name is Tala. I remember having seen her around the hospital when I worked here, but I don’t know her personally. She seems sweet, if a little shy, while she checks up on Samantha.

After checking her pupils, vitals, and adjusting her meds, Tala talks Samantha through a few tests; asking her name, what day it is and if she knows where she is. Samantha passes with flying colors and Tala assures us she’ll be back around later to check on her again, before leaving me alone with my sister once more.

“Your hair is so different,” I comment. “It looks really good.”

“Thanks, I decided it was time for a change. I got my nose pierced too,” Samantha replies.

“I bet it looks hot,” I announce, making her smile. The sparkle is slowly returning to her eyes—they’re blue, just like mine.

We don’t have a lot of similar features—I’m short and round, with huge tits, a stomach, and a big ass. My sister is all willowy and streamlined with legs for days and a long graceful neck. Plus, she’s taller than me by several inches, which seems to be the universal rule for younger sisters. Her new hair makes us look even less related than before, but we have the same eyes.

“Damn, I’m so glad you’re okay. You have no idea how scared I was when Mia called and said you were being rushed into surgery.” My words have her perking up with a look of urgency.

“Wait, how long have I been here?” she asks. I check the clock.

“Almost twenty-four hours. You were brought in yesterday morning.”

“Did they find my phone?” she asks, looking around. I look in the bag of her personal belongings and pull out her cell phone. The screen is cracked and it’s covered in scratches, but the screen still lights up when I press the power button.

“It’s a little banged up, but it looks like it’s fine.” I hold up the device.

“I need you to call someone for me.”

“Who?”

“My boyfriend.” Her answer shocks the hell out of me. “I was on my way to see him when I got hit. He must be freaking out that I never showed up.”

“Wow, you have been making some changes,” I add. “I’ll call him, what’s his name?”

“His name is Noah, but his contact in my phone is under ‘Sparky’.” I flash her a questioning look. “I’ll tell you later.”

Taking a step out into the hallway, I press Sparky’s contact. My heart warms at the kissy face and heart emojis after his name. The phone only rings once before it’s picked up.

“Baby, where are you? I’ve been going out of my mind.” Concern is Noah’s immediate response when he answers the call.

“Hi, this is Samantha’s sister, Lexie.”

“What happened?” Panic is creeping into his voice like he can sense something is wrong.

“She’s going to be okay,” I start. “Samantha was in a bad car accident. She just woke up after surgery.”

“Surgery?”

“Samantha’s going to make a full recovery, but we’re at Columbia Memorial Hospital and she’s going to be here for a while.”

“Fuck,” he mutters, and there’s movement on his end of the line. “I’m ninety minutes away, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Drive safely, we’ll see you when you get here.”

“Thanks for calling.”

When I hang up, I step back through the doorway to see Samantha drifting off to sleep. Lowering myself into the seat by her bed silently, I place the phone on the adjustable bedside table.

“Were you able to reach him?” Her eyes peek open, fighting the drowsiness.

“Yeah, he’s on his way,” I assure her, scooping my hair into a high ponytail. She seems determined not to give in to sleep, so I ask my question. “How long have you been together?”

“I’ve known him for a while, we’ve been friends since last year. We’ve been dating for six months, and he started trying to make it official after three. We finally became boyfriend and girlfriend last month.” That sounds just like her. She and I have matching commitment issues.

“He sounded nice on the phone.”

“Noah is nice, he’s the best guy I’ve ever met.” The smile that appears on her face when she’s talking about him is really sweet. Her eyes drift past me. “Who’s that?”

I follow her gaze over my shoulder. “That’s Callum.” As if feeling my eyes, Callum looks up from his phone from where he stands in the doorway. I avert my eyes and turn back to my sister before we get caught in another staring contest. “He came with me from New York.”

“Is he your Noah?”

“I don’t know.”

“Looks like we both have a lot to talk about.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Get some rest, we can talk later.”