“Don’t fall asleep,” Oliver whispers in my ear.
After Luna checks me in, she sits next to me with a clipboard. “I’ll help you fill this out, you okay with that?”
I give her a thumb’s up, too tired to care. A little nap is all I need, to close my eyes for a second. But Oliver elbows my arm, jolting my eyes open. “Don’t fall asleep.”
Different sounds surround my head, voices and humming of fluorescent lights. My eyes can’t focus; all I can see is blurry waves at the end of a dark tunnel. Luna’s in one ear, but I can’t make out what she’s saying and Oliver’s in the other ear mumbling gibberish. The next I know, I’m floating down a corridor and I’m stuffed in a small square followed by the squeak of metal against metal. I grab my head and wince against the sound. My face is pounding, my head is hurting, my senses are touchy. I’m being moved around in every which direction, lifted and jostled. Poked and prodded.
The shirt is removed from my face and a bright light shines in my eyes, making me squint against the intrusion. “Ms. Posey, can you tell me your name?”
“Piper.”
“Can you tell me what day it is?”
“Um.”
“Can you tell me what month it is?”
“Um.”
“How about, who is the President of the United States?”
I know I should know the answers to these questions, but I’m stumped, so I sit quietly, feeling stupid. “Sorry.”
“No need to be sorry,” the doctor says. There’s an exchange between the doctor and a nurse, an order of a CT scan, and a tray of tools to clean up the gash across my nose.
“Gash?” I ask, sitting a little straighter in the bed I was put in. “Did I break my nose? Is that why I can’t see?”
“Your nose is swollen for sure, but doesn’t appear broken. You have a nice gash across the bridge of your nose deeper than the Vredefort Dome. You’ll need some stitches.”
My eyes dart around the room but can’t catch up, not able to focus on any one object. It’s all a big haze. I groan from the pain, from the inability to see past the swollen bridge of my nose.
“All right, you ready?” the doctor asks.
Luna has been awfully silent this whole time, but the moment she catches a glimpse of a needle, her hands fly up, waving in front of her. “Nope. Nope. Nope. Time for me to step out.” She disappears around the other side of the curtain, leaving before I can demand for her to stay.
I hold my hand up, stopping the doctor from coming at me with whatever is in his hand. “Wait, what do you mean? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to numb you then clean the wound before I stitch you up. By the time we’re finished, radiology should be ready for you.”
It’s a good thing my vision is impacted by the swelling. I’d pass out for sure if I saw the needle I’m about to be stabbed with. Through the film in my eyes, I can see Oliver catches sight of the needle and does his best to keep his face passive. He isn’t successful, so in an attempt to keep me from freaking out, he takes my hand and squeezes. “Hey, remember that time when we were like eight and I poured chocolate milk in your lunch box.”
I giggled. “You ruined my lunch and I went hungry.”
“I shared my lunch with you.” Oliver laughs.
“Ha! You chucked a bag of fruit snacks at my face and told me that’s all you’d share with me.”
Oliver shrugs with a smirk. “At least I shared something.”
The needle is shoved into the wound and I squeeze Oliver’s hand as tight as I can, crying out in pain. The burning has my eyes watering and I shut them tight, pressing out tears from the corners.
“I did do nice things for you, too, you know,” Oliver keeps talking, trying to take my mind off the agony. “Every picture I ever drew I drew for you.”
“And they were all stick figures that looked like skinny penises with hair,” I mutter through a deep breath. When the tingling of numbness starts, I open my eyes, the tears clearing more of the clouds that have been fogging my vision, and I shoot him a side grin.
“Hey, I can shred a guitar better than the rest of ‘em, but I never claimed to be a good artist.” His smile fades. “Seeing better?” Oliver asks as I continue to blink away the haze.
“Sadly, yes. Having to see your ugly mug makes me wish I was temporarily blind.”
Oliver barks a laugh. “Good to know your humor isn’t as busted as your face.” His eyes dart to the side, watching the doctor, then asks, “How’s the pain now?”
“Numb.”
“Numb is good,” the doctor interjects, wheeling a metal cart over to the bed. “All right, rest your head back against the pillow for me.” He lifts a sheet of cottony paper with a hole in the center and places it over my face so my nose is still exposed. “We’re going to wait another minute here then get started on sewing this baby up.”
I’m sarcastic in my response. “Great.”
Oliver doesn’t let go of my hand. He’s talking to me the whole time, telling me all about Apollo and his mad guitar playing skills. I don’t talk back. It’s hard to when my face is covered and I’m concentrating on every tug and pull across the bridge of my nose. It doesn’t hurt, but the pressure is enough to make me want to come right off the table. When I think I can’t take anymore, the paper comes off my face and the doctor’s face is in mine, inspecting his work. “Looking good.”
The doctor was right, a radiologist was waiting to wheel me to the radiology room to do the CT scan. I have been in this machine for what seems like forever, and if the technician asks me to hold my breath one more time, I’m going to faint. I’ve had twenty minutes to think about how I’m going to tell Luna and Oliver where I’ve been this last week. But all I can focus on is the constant throb between my eyes.
I’m wheeled back to my room where Oliver is still waiting for me. He’s hunched in the chair, his elbows resting on the tops of his knees, and his head hanging down. He looks in deep concentration, but he tilts his head up when the technologist parks me next to the bed. The woman asks if I want help into the bed and I politely decline, letting her know I’m fine in the chair.
Alone, Oliver and I don’t talk, the playful banter muted for the time being. Neither of us want to be the first to start a heavy conversation, especially in a hospital room. I’m relieved when the doctor comes in to ease the tension. He sits down on the stool and wheels over to me, spinning his computer in his lap so I can see the screen. With a few waves of a stylus over the screen, the doctor points out every part of my brain. He goes into depth of medical terminology I do not understand only to say everything appears normal, but I do have mild a concussion.
“So rest,” the doctor says. “Rest is the main treatment. Also, no sports or too much television. I’m not taking you for a video game girl, but if you are, lay off those, too. You can take Ibuprofen or anything you normally would take for headaches. I’ll also give you a prescription for pain medicine for your nose. You’ll have a decent amount of pain once the numbness wears off completely. I’ll also send you home with some Zofran if you feel nauseous. And ice as needed. Any questions?”
Oliver raises his hand. “I have one.”
The doctor nods.
“Do I need to wake her up every hour to make sure she’s doing okay?”
“It’s a mild concussion so every hour is a bit excessive. If you want to check on her a couple times throughout the night, go ahead. Always better to play it safe than to be sorry.” He smiles. “Any other questions?”
I point to my nose. “When do the stitches need to come out?”
“About a week. You can call your primary to schedule with them.”
I nod. Thankfully, everything is documented in my discharge papers because, by the time we get outside, I’ve already forgot all I’m supposed to do or not to do.
“Where’s Luna?” I ask as we leave the hospital.
“She went back to the tour bus.”
“Figures.” I snort. “She�
�s always the first to ditch me.”
“Nah, I told her to go. She put up a good fight, but I promised I’d take care of you and not slam your face into any more stairs. Besides, there wasn’t much hope getting her to come back in once she saw that big ass needle the doctor put in your nose.”
“True.”
I’m about to step off the curb, but Oliver cuts me off and steps in front of me, putting his back in my face. “Hop on, small fry.”
“That’s okay. I can walk.”
Oliver shoots me a look over his shoulder. It’s a look I know well, one to not disobey, so I grab his shoulders and hop on as he wraps his arms under my legs. It doesn’t take long for my head to grow heavy and rest against the crook of Oliver’s neck.
“Sorry about your shirt,” I whisper.
“No worries, Chucky. I have plenty of shirts.”
I’m in and out of sleep, hearing the quiet murmurs of Luna and Nash talk when Oliver walks by them on the bus. He gently lays me down on his bed and covers me with a blanket that smells like him before he exits the small room. He returns a minute later with a bag of ice. “This might hurt.” Oliver places a towel over my face then carefully sets the bag of loose cubes over the bridge of my nose.
I wince against the cold but settle back to sleep when my skin becomes numb. Jetlag has officially caught up with me. Add the concussion to already frazzled emotions and I’m ready to hibernate for a month. But one night will do, and I can’t be any more grateful for Oliver and Luna to give me tonight before they interrogate me. Tomorrow, it will all be hashed out tomorrow.
No amount of playful banter will right all the wrongs. Oliver will either forgive me or hate me forever.
Twenty Nine
Oliver
I haven’t slept at all. All I want to do is stare at her, and so far it’s been six solid hours of watching Piper sleep. It’s taken all my willpower to not wake her and demand an explanation. But I don’t. Not yet. After her falling flat on her face, which really was my fault because I was being a dick, I don’t have the heart to make demands. Whatever bullshit she has to say can wait until tomorrow. She looks peaceful. Beautiful, even with crusted blood smudged across her face. And I hate that I think so.
Piper shifts and rolls towards me, and I still my breathing until she settles. She moans, not a pleasurable moan, but a painful one, and her brows push tightly together before her eyes slowly open. “Ouch.”
She lifts a trembling hand to touch her face, but I cup it in mine and tuck it under my chin. “Don’t touch, Pipe. Can I get you anything? Pain meds? An alcoholic beverage? An alcoholic beverage to wash down the pain meds?”
The corner of her lip lifts slightly, but it fades when the pain stabs her face. “As much as that sounds like a good bad idea, we didn’t fill the prescription.”
“I did. After you passed out, I held the bus until I could fill it.” I let go of her hand long enough to reach over her to grab the cup of water and bottle of pills from the little side table. After she swallows the pill, I take her hand and place it back under my chin.
Her eyes stay closed, but she scoots closer so we’re brushing noses. With the smallest extension, our lips could be touching.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Shh, we don’t need to talk about it now,” I assure her. Piper’s eyes open, glassy. I have to let go of her hand to catch the falling tears with my thumb. My hand stays cupping her face, swiping away the drops as they trickle down her cheek. “Shh, Pipe, don’t cry.”
As much as I wish I had big enough balls to yell at her, tell her she was wrong for leaving the way she did and to not answer mine or Luna’s calls, I’m weak when I look at her. Piper has my heart in her hands. Always has and always will. I could lose my breath going over all the reasons why I think she made a dick move, but why? It doesn’t matter. The love is still there and it doesn’t seem to be fading. So I console her instead, gently kissing her forehead and telling her everything is going to be all right.
But she’s stubborn and has to get it all out. “It’s not all right, Oliver, it’s not. You have to understand none of it was in my control. Fletcher kidnapped me.”
I push back from her, lifting myself up on my elbow, my other hand dropping from the side of her face. Her eyes blink open, swollen and all shades of black and blue. They plead with me to listen to what she has to say, and all I can think about is how I’m going to beat that motherfucker’s ass.
“He wouldn’t take me home after the press conference, instead taking us to his house. He closed the gate around the property and wouldn’t let me out. Then when we got to the airport, I tried to run, but he caught me and forced me on to the plane. He took my cell phone so I couldn’t contact anyone to let them know where I was or that I was safe.”
“Where were you?” I ask, harsher than I intended.
“Fiji.”
I snort and roll my eyes. Of course he takes her to Fiji. And I’m supposed to feel sorry for her?
She lifts her hand and rests her palm over my forearm, but I jerk it away. “Fiji? Wow, how horrible.”
Piper sits up and crosses her legs. “Don’t do that. I didn’t want to be there with him, so yes, it was horrible.” She goes quiet before adding, “At first.”
My hand slaps the mattress as I sit up, squaring off with her. “Let me guess. You fell back in love with him. Is that right? Am I right?”
“Not entirely.”
I laugh a little too loud. “So that’s a yes. You fell back in love with an asshole who treats you like shit. You left me to—”
“You left me first,” Piper shouts back. She clamps her mouth shut, pulls in a deep breath, and calmly starts again. “I’m not going to deny we started to reconnect. It was a rough couple of days, but as time went on, and the person I fell in love with came back, all those feelings I once had for him resurfaced. And then he asked me to marry him. Again.”
I’m off the bed, heading for the door, needing air before I punch a hole into the side of the bus.
“You can’t expect me to turn my emotions on and off. It doesn’t work that way.” Piper sighs then continues. “He had the whole thing planned, Oliver. He was hoping if we were alone, without distractions, we could work on our relationship and it would be fixed in a week and then we would get married and live happily ever after.” My palm is on the knob as she says, “I couldn’t go through with it.”
I don’t want to know anymore, yet selfishly, I want to hear the pain in her voice. I want to not have been the only one suffering this last week. My hand falls to my side and my feet are rooted in place.
“I couldn’t marry someone I’m not in love with. Of course I love Fletcher. A part of me always will. It was a genuine love when it was good. But I’m not in love with him. And all the while, when we were enjoying that island, there was only one person I kept thinking about.”
I spin around slowly, avoiding her eyes, and stuff my hands in my pockets. It better be me she was thinking about because lord knows I couldn’t get her off my mind. Damn near drugged myself to forget about her.
Piper scoots to the end of the bed and dangles her feet off the edge. Even in this tiny space, she is still too short for her feet to reach the floor. As bad as I want to hit her with a short joke, I don’t. There are times where I know to keep my mouth shut.
“The only person I kept thinking about was you, Oliver.”
My eyes creep up to find hers. I have waited so long to hear those words come from her lips I almost bark, “Good,” but I don’t. Instead, her bruised face falls to a pout, and she adds, “Then Fletcher gave me my phone and I went through each message. Every single one.”
Ah fuck. I know where this is going and it’s not good.
I hold my hand out to stop her. “I can explain,” I begin.
“Stop.” Piper holds her own hand up. “You’re going to listen to everything I have to say first.” She takes a breath and swallows. “You had me in tears whe
n you were singing. You know why you are a good musician?”
I think it’s a rhetorical question, so I don’t answer, watching her with questioning eyes.
“It’s because your voice holds the weight of your emotions. You sing with passion and it seeps from your pores. It’s gut-wrenching. Then, you started talking about the carnival, and all those memories rushed back through me. I remembered how my skin was burning just by our arms brushing against each other. I can still remember the smell of sweet funnel cake mixed with the musty dirt from the ground beneath our feet. The sunset, the sounds, the textures. I remember it all. It was the most fun I’ve ever had, and it was even more spectacular because I was there with you.” I close my eyes, the sadness of his last message still on the surface of my heart. “Look, we banter, that is what we do. It has always been that way between us. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes not. But that is our thing, and I’ve come to love our thing. And then you take it to the next level and say something really hurtful. Calling me a whore, Oliver?”
The pain is evident in her voice and it hits me in the gut. I wish I never said such horrible things or at least drank enough to not remember, but sadly, I recall the message I left her comparing her to the whore from Game of Thrones. If I could take the words back, I would.
“That message did me in, Oliver,” Piper continues. “Every day, I thought of you. How I was wrong to leave you and how I ruined my chance to ever make it right between us. But that message, that message had me putting on the wedding dress Fletcher had bought me. I marched down to the beach prepared to marry a man I love.” Her voice tampers. “As a friend.”
The last time I cried was the night I left Piper, but I’m crying now. I don’t bother wiping the tears from my cheeks as they fall. I did this. She married that fucker because I’m a dumbass, and now I’ve lost her for good. It’s all my fault.
Carnival Page 16