Page 84 of Taming Achilles

“Let me go,” I whispered to him, trying to keep my heart rate steady. I needed to get away. Air. I needed air. I needed space. Distance. I needed to not be here.

“No.” Geordie pulled my hand tighter against him. “You will’nae pull away.”

“Let. Me. Go.” I yelled. “Get out!”

The beeping. The loud, constant monitoring of my most intimate rhythm on display. I couldn't even hide my emotions because of these stupid machines. I tugged the finger monitor, and it flatlined into a low, constant squeal. My pulse ached in my temples and I shut my eyes, trying to yank my hand from Geordie.

“Let me go!” I yelled.

“No!” He retorted.

“Please!”

The fucking tone. The high pitched, terrible noise of the machines were bringing me to madness. I needed to drown in the silence of water. Of ice cold water. My free hand came down on my thigh in a fist. Pain. The physical pain gave me relief. I dug my long nails into my flesh under the hideous, blue hospital gown until I felt the relief of blood. Fresh, warm blood.

But he wouldn’t even let me have that. Geordie grabbed my other hand. I knew it was him, despite my closed eyes. I knew it because I knew the feel of his hands. Every callous and contour. I could feel it, and I screamed.

“Pippa, stop!” His Scottish brogue. His deep, handsome, Scottish brogue pierced through me like fire.

“Let. Me. Go!” I screamed, fighting, and fighting, and fighting. I couldn’t get air. I had no air. My lungs were collapsing.

The machine turned off, and Geordie’s hands were pried from me.

Callum. It had to be Callum coming to my rescue. My ex-fiancé was more of a friend than I could have ever dreamed.

I could breathe again. I could breathe. He wasn’t touching me and I gulped down air, as though I had broken through water and surfaced again.

“Moron,” a female voice grumbled. I opened my eyes. Lea.

She had Geordie by the scruff of the neck, pushing him on the wall. Her tiny frame threatened to bring him off the ground.

“You and me?” she said to him, her eyes boring into his skull as he kept on looking at me. She cupped his chin in her small hand and forcefully turned him to look at her. “We are going for a walk.”

“I’m not leaving her!” He yelled in her face. But she didn’t flinch.

“You’re hurting her,” Lea said, her face blank. “If you can’t see that, then you need to come take a walk with me.”

Callum stood, his eyes on his wife. Concern, protectiveness, and love coloured his features as he stared at the two people closest to him having a war with each other. Was he afraid that Geordie would hurt her? Maybe he would. There was rage in his eyes again. A rage and hatred I was familiar with now. I had felt nothing but that for the last five years. Why did it sting even more now?

“I’ll walk with him,” Callum offered. “You can stay here with …”

“Stay with your friend.” Lea’s tone commanded obedience. I envied it. I envied that she didn’t have to play the airhead. “Geordie and I need to have a talk.”

Callum looked at her quizzically. “I think that …”

Lea let go of Geordie, and looked at her husband.

“My love,” she gave him a fake, saccharine smile. “If you think I believe you’re going to screw your ex-fiancé while she’s in a hospital bed, then I must not have a high opinion of you.”

Lea came to me, and put the heart monitor back on my finger. With a flick of the switch, she turned my heart monitor back on. The beeps were slower. Quieter.

“She needs a friend, not the wife of some schmuck she was engaged to.” Truly, Lea was a walking Woody Allen film. Always with the smart quips and one liners. Had we met under more auspicious circumstances, I feel like we could have been friends. We could have even been colleagues. Maybe we could have sat across from each other as equals, instead of rivals.

But fate was never on my side.

“I’m staying,” Geordie said, quieter now, sounding chastened, but still determined.

“You can come with me, Geordie,” she said, looking at him with an irritated look, “or I slice your throat and put you in the Emergency Room. Either way, you’re leaving her.”

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