8. Winter

EIGHT

WINTER

I float above myself.

I can see the myriad of tubes streaming from my body and the thin threads of the stitches that pull my flesh back together again. The nurses take samples from my body—blood, urine—a vaginal exam.

I watch as the doctors shake their heads.

The team of nurses clean me from head to toe. They take the disposable washcloths from the warmer and scrub my body with them. They place a cap on my hair to shampoo it. A younger Black nurse comes in and conditions my curls. She detangles each knotted lock before braiding it down into two thick plaits.

I see it all from above myself.

The doctor comes in, and Hunter is there. I hear Hunter say that he is my husband. The doctor's face is grim as he details the extent of my injuries. He tells Hunter about all of it. The medicines they will give me, the tests they will run.

How they will do their best to make sure my body goes back to normal after the assault.

Normal. What does it mean to be normal?

Hunter stands stone-faced as he talks with each medical professional—until he is alone with me in the room. Then, limb by limb, he breaks.

I am not within my body, although I breathe. My heart beats. Over and over. I continue to exist.

Beep .

Beep .

Beep .

Goes the machines.

Then. He touches my hand.

Looking at Hunter is painful, so I avoid his gaze. But his hand on mine...I hold on to it like a lifeline.

It's the only thing keeping me tethered to this realm and not floating to the next.

"Winter," he says. He brings my hand to his lips and then to his cheek.

Sometime later, I say, "What happened to you?" My voice is still wrecked. It hurts to talk.

But then again, everything hurts.

"I was in a car accident. It was the night you disappeared."

"Tell me what happened," I say.

"Winter..." He closes his eyes, rocking with my hand pressed to his cheek.

"Tell me," I say with more energy. "Please," I whisper.

"Leo and I were leaving the country club. I went to tell my father to fuck off, and Blair was there. I was coming to you." He brings my hand back to his lips, pressing a long kiss to the backside of it.

I ignore his last statement. Because if I hang on to it, it will sever this thread holding me in place—holding me together.

"So I take it that didn't go well?"

He doesn't meet my gaze. Instead, he closes his eyes.

"No," he says, lips still pressed to my skin.

"Then what happened?" I ask. I'm getting tired again, and my eyes start drooping .

He presses a quick kiss, and then another, to my hand.

"We were driving for about five minutes when another car came from nowhere and rammed us. About four cars were chasing us until we could get rid of them. I got knocked around a bit. Nothing I can't handle."

A feeling settles in my chest. It's blunted, as all emotions are within me at this moment. Cognitively, I know what's happening to me: the effects of post-traumatic stress. But existing in this moment is so different than reading about it for a class or what I experienced in the past.

"My God," I say through numb lips. Tears leak out of my eyes.

A knock breaks the moment. Hunter goes to the door, conferring with whoever is on the other side before turning around to face me with an armful of bags from Target. The voice I hear is familiar. Leo? I close my eyes, praying that I won't see him any time soon.

"The nearest place with anything decent was forty-five minutes away, so I sent Leo to get all this," Hunter says with a strangely efficient tone. "You would think they'd have more than a Dollar General around here."

Hunter drops the bags on the plastic-covered sofa under the hospital window. The room I'm in has a view. Kind of. It overlooks the healing garden, as I heard one nurse describe it. I didn't respond when she told me this information.

"You'll likely be released in a few days," he says while pulling the outfits out of the bags. "I had to guess what you'd be most comfortable in," he rambles on, laying seven different types of sweatsuits on the back of the sofa.

"Thank you, H," I say, and when I call him "H," he fumbles the last piece of fabric.

"Also," he pipes up with forced cheerfulness, "I got you a replacement phone. I had them reprogram it to your old one, so the number is the same."

I grab the device from him, pressing the side button to light it up. My background is the same as my old one, even though this phone is newer than my last iPhone.

The wallpaper is a picture of cherry blossoms. Also on the screen are all the missed calls and messages over the last several days.

Hunter's is near the top.

I love you.

I fumble the phone as I close the screen down, dropping the device in my lap.

Quiet covers the room when I close my eyes.

"Do you want me here, Sunbeam?" Hunter's words are low. I hear the sadness in them.

Do I? Do I want him here?

For the first time in what feels like a lifetime, I look at him. I don't see pity in his bottomless blue eyes. Instead, I see grief. Torture. He's tortured alongside me.

I don't say anything to him. Instead, I inch toward the edge of the bed nearest my IV pole. Then I pull the blanket back.

An invitation.

He shudders, and then he lowers the railing and climbs into the bed beside me.

When his body inches toward mine, I hold still. I'm nauseous at the thread of rejection that his touch weaves through me. And then, I smell his scent—that familiar cedarwood and campfire that brings me back to Amelia Manor.

To standing in the rose garden.

To becoming his.

He puts his hand on my shoulder, then down my arm. I unravel at his touch. And then, when his arm circles my torso, I weep when he grips me.

"I'm so damn sorry, Winter," he says into my ear.

I put my hand on his and fall asleep.