Page 32 of Accidental Love

“Excuse me,” I said, going over to the desk in front of me. An older lady was sitting there in scrubs, typing something into the computer.

“Yes?” She looked up at me.

“My name is Jenna Howard. I came in a while ago with my fiancé. I must have fallen asleep when they moved him to another room. Do you know where he is?” I asked in a rush.

“What was his name?”

“Liam. Liam Stanford.” At the mention of the name her eyebrows raised, but in recognition. She didn’t make a remark about it, thankfully.

“They did move him about three hours ago,” she said, glancing down at her computer.

“What time is it?”

“It is three in the morning. How about you go and get some more sleep before going to find your fiancé? I presume you were in the accident as well, so you need as much sleep as you can get. I can even give you more medicine for the pain.” The nurse—whose name I read on her scrubs, Peggy—said.

“But he needs me right now,” I tried saying.

“Sweetie, I know you want to be with him right now but you need to take care of yourself first. Your fiancé will understand that. You can go see him in a few more hours if you’d like, but I want you to sleep a little longer,” she reasoned with me. She must have noticed the indecisive look on my face. “He will still be here when you wake up.”

A part of me wanted to ignore what Peggy just said and demand to know what room he was in so I could see him now. But the rational part of me was saying the nurse was right. Liam would still be here when I woke up. If what the doctor said was true about him being in a coma for three to four days, I should believe it. My internal battle went on for a few minutes before I let out a sigh.

“Okay, I’ll go and lay down for a little bit longer,” I finally said.

“I’ll come by in a minute with some medicine to give you.” She sent me a smile before heading in a different direction. I grumbled under my breath as I went back to my room and waited for her. Getting annoyed with my scarf that I somehow still had on, I unwrapped it and placed it on a chair beside the bed.

As I sat there waiting for the nurse, I replayed everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. How come one second Liam and I could be happy singing along to a stupid Justin Bieber song, and the next be in the hospital waiting for him to wake up? I pushed back the tears that were starting to form once more. I would have thought I’d be all cried out by now, but apparently not.

“Here we are. According to the chart I read on you, you have two bruised ribs and one cracked. You don’t need an IV attached to you, but I am going to give you some pain medication,” Peggy said, coming into the room. She was kind of just restating what I already knew but I didn’t comment, knowing she was just doing her job.

I looked away and clenched my hands into fists as she pulled my shirt up and got the needle ready. I absolutely hated needles with a passion. I tried not to let myself shake too much but didn’t succeed.

“There we go,” she said a second later. I hadn’t even felt the needle making me breathe out in relief.

“Thank you. Um, do you know how much longer I have to be here?” I asked, pulling my shirt back down.

“Only for a few more hours. We have to make sure the patient is fine before they can leave. I will start on your paperwork though here soon so you can be out of here in no time to see your fiancé.” Smiling, she turned to leave. “Let me know if you need anything, sweetie.”

I gently lay back down on the bed, letting out my breath. I hated this. I hated hospitals anyways, but I hated being down here alone when Liam was already somewhere else in the building. I felt hurt that no one came to get me when they took him. Adam and Lilly could have at least told me.

I knew I lied to them and they deserved to be mad, but keeping me from knowing how Liam was doing was wrong. I loved him and they had to see that. I was just hoping that by time I could go and see him Lilly would have calmed down enough to let me explain.

Although I was given medicine and physically tired, I couldn’t sleep. The dream I had a little bit ago was still fresh in my mind. All the wrong scenarios kept flashing through my head of Liam never waking up, or of him having amnesia. Even though the doctor said that it wouldn’t happen, I couldn’t help but still think of it. I wanted, no, I needed Liam to be okay.

As my thoughts kept going, I kept coming back to Lilly’s words and Liam’s from my dream. This is all your fault. What if it was? What if it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t made Liam sing for me? He wouldn’t have been distracted or wouldn’t have slowed down so the car wouldn’t have hit us. What if he was really here because I came into his life? What if everything Lilly had said was true? Was I disrupting his work? I knew he had been taking more days off to be with me, especially lately because of my mother.

But what if I really was like fire, ruining everything I touched? It had to somewhat be my fault. Why my mother left, why I had no friends, why no one would date me. Something had to be wrong with me. I had always had bad luck. What if it still followed me and was now brushing off onto Liam? He did not need my bad luck.

As the hours went on the more I started to see it really was my fault. Everything in my life had been my fault. Tired of lying there, I sat up, thankful of the medicine so it didn’t hurt. I truly wanted to believe that it wasn’t my fault, or, well, not entirely, but I couldn’t. Everywhere I went something bad happened, something out of my control. This was just another thing to prove it.

The early morning wore on and I started to feel worse. They say that the worst thing is being alone with your thoughts. That they are like poison, leaking into everything making you believe it all. Being alone at night having a million things flashing through your mind was the worst thing. Every little thing that you have ever done, thought, seen, comes right back, hitting you straight in your face. No matter what you do, they just keep coming back until you really do believe what you are thinking. Whether it be that you aren’t good enough, that it was your fault someone is hurt, or that you would never amount to anything. Soon you believe it, and it was all downhill from there.

That was me right now and I knew it but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop blaming myself. Lilly’s words ran through my head nonstop. Along with her words were kids’ words all throughout my school years telling me I’m not good enough, and that no one will love me because my mom didn’t. The thoughts consumed me until I was a pile of guilt, sadness, anger, and, finally, determination. Determination that I was going to fix this.

I didn’t know what time it finally was before I finally had enough sitting there. I got up, grabbing my scarf, and left the room. It only took me a minute to find the same nurse, Peggy. I didn’t care what the time was I had to see Liam.

“Oh, you are up. You were only asleep for three hours,” Peggy said, seeing me in front of the desk.

“I know, but I have to go see my fiancé. Can you please tell me what room he is in?” I asked. Well, more like pleaded.

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