Page 128 of Finding Fate

“Isabel?” He sounded as though he wasn’t sure he had heard her, but she could detect relief in the question. It just made her more confused.

“Tuck?”

She felt him take her hand. It felt so warm on her fingers. “I’m right here, love.”

“Jet and I are here, too, sis,” Annie said from her other side. She felt her sister squeeze her leg gently.

“What’s going on? Why is everyone in our room, Annie? And what’s that beeping sound?”

“We’re not in our room, Izzy.”

“Not in our room?” What was Annie talking about? Where else would she sleep?

“No, you’re in the hospital,” Annie replied, sounding unsure, like she was afraid of how she would react.

Isabel didn’t like it. Something felt off.

“The hospital?” As she said this, she recognized the feel of tubes across her face and the hand Tucker held. What was going on? The explanations confused her even more than their muffled conversation. She tried to recall why she’d be in the hospital, but it was difficult to think with her head throbbing.

“Isabel?” Tucker said softly. She felt her heart flutter at the sound of her name coming from those lips.

“Hmmm?” she replied.

“Can you open your eyes, love?”

For him, she’d try, but it was like she had to drag them open. Taking a few seconds to adjust to the light, she looked around the room.

To her right, she saw a small table with a lamp. The light from it lit up her sister’s face in the chair next to her. Jet was standing behind her with a hand on her shoulder. They were both smiling down at her, but their expressions seemed sad. Her brow furrowed at the confliction, but she looked around some more.

Past Annie’s shoulder, she could see a built-in seat in front of a window, the blinds closed along with the door slightly off-center from her bed that she recognized would lead out of the room.

She glanced to her left, behind where Tucker sat, to see a door next to a sink and decided it had to be a bathroom. Near her head, there was a machine lit up with various numbers and lines. Still slightly dazed, she realized that this must be what was causing the beeping just as another one sounded in her ears.

Her gaze shifted to Tucker’s face, anxious to look into his eyes. She had saved the best for last, or so she had thought. He smiled down at her, but it wasn’t a true smile. It didn’t reach her favorite pair of brown eyes. All she saw there was pain and sadness.

She furrowed her brow again and lifted her hand from Tucker’s to place it against his cheek. The movement was harder than she expected it to be. She was so sore, but why?

“What’s the matter, Tuck?”

He ignored the question. “How are you feeling?”

She thought about the throbbing in her head and how it hurt to move, hurt to breathe. “Like I’ve been hit by a truck.” She didn’t want to mention that something else felt very off. Partly because she wasn’t sure what it was, partly because a piece of her told her she didn’t want to know.

She heard Jet’s soft laughter in the background. Tucker just gave her a wry smile.

“Where’re Mom and Tyler?” she asked, slowly turning her head towards Annie. It wasn’t like her mother not to be here if she was hurt or sick.

“She took Tyler over to Chris’. He was here most of the afternoon but needed a break. Mom will be back in a bit. We didn’t think you’d be up just yet.”

“Up just yet?”Something in the words caught her attention. “How long have I been out?”

“A few days,” Jet answered.

“A few days?!” “Holy!” she thought as she paused. “What day is it?”

“Wednesday.”

She felt her eyes widen as she stared at Jet. “Wednesday?”

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