Page 6 of Thorns of Lust
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The hospital machines were too loud. The room was too cold. Too dark. The scent of disinfectant filled my lungs. A buzzing in my ears.
Yet, the only thing I could concentrate on washim. I could feel him. Lingering in the shadows. Watching me.
Shifting my head to the side, I zeroed in on the double glass doors on the other side of the hospital room. Lights sparked through the glass, a clear outline of a figure standing there. It had to be a man. A tall man.
“Adrian?” I croaked, my head dizzy from that small movement.
I should be afraid. Yet, I felt safe. Maybe there were still too many drugs in my bloodstream. The door opened, barely a foot. The shadow stepped through it. I couldn’t see his face, the light behind him casting a shadow.
But it had to be him. The scent of citrus and sandalwood drifted over the antiseptic of the hospital. Goosebumps broke over my skin.
“Adrian?”
No answer. Only the beeping of the machine. But he was there. In the flesh. I couldn’t get to him, but I could see him. Hewasthere. Fog drifted around him. The buzzing of the machine was a constant noise. My hand reached for him, but he was too far away and my hand was too heavy. It refused to move, lying limp on the cold hospital sheets.
I blinked, my eyes burning and desperate to hold onto him.
“P-please.” My voice cracked, bleeding with the truth I wasn’t willing to admit. That maybe, just maybe, this man was a figment of my imagination. “Don’t go.”
Tears blurred my vision further. I could taste salt on my lips. It stung. It ached.
The man’s jaw tightened. His eyes were like two deep black pools, yet tears continued to distort my vision. I couldn’t see his face clearly.
I reached out for him again, using all my strength to keep my hand in the air. He moved closer to me. My strength was failing me. A soft string of Russian curses.
“We have to go,” someone said.
He was close, so close that I could smell him. I opened my mouth to speak, but the increased buzzing of the machines drowned out my words.
“Go to sleep, Tatiana.” The voice. I knew it, but then I didn’t. Maybe my eardrums were damaged. He turned his back on me, those broad shoulders swallowing the doorframe.
“Please don’t go! Don’t leave me!” I screamed out at the gaping loss that swallowed me whole. “I love you!” Like a deep dark corner full of shadows, the nightmare threatened to swallow me whole. The unbearable pressure in my chest.
He paused. He didn’t turn around. Gut-wrenching cries left my lips as tears flooded my cheeks. And all the while my heart bled all over the white crisp sheets of the hospital bed.
“I’ll be back, moya luna.” It sounded like a promise. “I’ll be back when you’re ready for me.”
Then darkness pulled me under once again.
FOUR
TATIANA
There was a time before you.
There was time with you.
Now there’s time after you.
I never counted on after you. I’d never be ready to deal with the time after you.
“There shouldn’t have been an after you,” I whispered as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. Two weeks without him seemed like an eternity. My fingers trembled as I reached for my phone sitting on a little nightstand.
I never got to say goodbye. I never got to say goodbye. I never got to say goodbye.
The words played on repeat. My heart thundered against my chest in a painful beat. I stared at my phone, the time staring back at me. Time was so important before. Now, it meant nothing. There was too much of it.
