Page 12 of Control

The deception, the dishonesty, was far too much. And the last thing I wanted to do was sit and wallow all day. Evangeline didn’t deserve that level of distress from me. I owed it to myself to find a way to move on, to forget about all of it as quickly as I could, no matter how difficult it was.

For now, that meant finding anything I could do, anything to distract me. My mind took me to the first thing that had given me a reprieve from Evangeline’s deception—the accident.

Or, more specifically, Alana.

Going to check on her at the hospital seemed like a reasonable excuse to forget about my broken heart.

And now that I was here, I was quickly learning I might get more of a distraction than I had initially anticipated.

My expectation was that I’d walk in, find her there with some family or a boyfriend, and I could simply spend fifteen or twenty minutes there while confirming she was doing okay.

I hadn’t gotten that.

Instead, I walked into a tense and uncomfortable situation that was bordering on hostile. To say I was unsettled would have been an understatement.

The woman who’d just been standing at the foot of Alana’s hospital bed had left, so she and I were the only two remaining. All I had wanted to do was find out how she was doing after yesterday’s accident, and now I was thinking I might need to be asking other questions.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to figure out how to start the conversation, because Alana broke the silence. “Ty, what are you doing here?”

After how traumatizing things were for her yesterday, I was still baffled that she’d remembered my name. “I wanted to come by and see how you were doing. I didn’t know for sure if you were going to be admitted, but on the off chance that you had been, I decided to call and asked what room you were in.”

“That was really kind of you to do,” she said softly.

I shrugged and waved my hand in the air dismissively. “It’s no big deal.”

“Well, it means a lot to me.”

When she said nothing else, I asked, “So, how are you doing? Is your foot okay?”

Her eyes left mine and glanced down at the end of the bed. After she returned her attention to my face, she answered, “Well, it is now. But I had to have surgery on it today.”

“Are you kidding? I guess you were right about it yesterday when you said something was really wrong with it. Surgery doesn’t sound good.”

She shook her head, a small smile playing at her lips. “No, I guess not. But when I consider the alternative and realize it could have been worse, it’s difficult not to feel a touch of gratitude.”

“I think it’s great you can have such a positive attitude about it. So, are you going to be in here for a while?”

“I get to go home tomorrow. Hopefully, in the morning.”

Glancing around the room, I didn’t notice anything that indicated someone else had visited other than the woman Alana had clearly kicked out of her room. “Do you have a ride home?”

Surprise littered her features. “Oh, yes. Yeah, my parents were here earlier. I sort of had to force them to go home.”

“You forced them?”

A rush of air left her lungs. “Would you like to sit down?”

I hadn’t anticipated staying long enough that grabbing a seat would be necessary, but considering this was the best I’d felt over the last day, I decided it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to stay. “Sure.”

Once I’d grabbed a seat, Alana explained, “My mom is easily the most nervous, anxiety-ridden person in the whole world. Her daughter winding up in a car accident and needing surgery as a result does not help that. So, once I got out of surgery and got the all-clear to have some food, I asked her to make me my favorite soup of hers.” Alana waved her hand toward her foot. “Giving my mom something to do to distract her from this and the reason for it helps her to not get so caught up in whatever is going on inside her head.”

Nodding my understanding, I teased, “Well, then I guess it’s a good thing I happened to be there when you got into the accident and not your mom.”

Her eyes widened as she considered the possibility. “Oh, man. I definitely wouldn’t have remained anywhere near as calm as I did. Then again, if my mom had been with me, I never would have wound up in the accident to begin with.”

My brows drew together. “Are you a bit of a reckless driver when you’re by yourself?”

She pressed her lips together in a way that made me think she’d regretted saying what she’d just said, like she had revealed far too much information. “Not exactly,” she squeaked.

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