Page 134 of Wild Side
“Well, Mr. Dupris, if you never regain movement, then you would be a paraplegic.” My brows furrow. This woman is direct as hell. If I wasn’t already feeling surly, I’d appreciate it a lot more. “But that is not what the imaging shows. And if I get those bone chips out, there will be nothing left to injure the spinal cord.”
“We’re not going to think that way, yeah?” Tabitha squeezes my hand and looks down at me with empathy in her eyes.
It makes me squirm.
“Listen to your wife. A positive mindset will not hurt you or your recovery.”
My tongue presses into my cheek, and I avoid looking at them both. There’s something about being injured and laid out that leaves me feeling helpless. If fight or flight are my reaction options when I feel vulnerable, I usually pick fight.
“Let’s do it then.”
The woman nods, looking sure and satisfied. Her attitude gives me some semblance of peace.
“I will send someone in to go over the paperwork and see how quickly I can book an OR.” With that, she spins on one sneakered heel and struts out of the room.
Tabitha squeezes my hand. “Hey, you got this. We got this.”
I look away, out the window that faces the water. If Ford was involved, that explains the room upgrade I got. “You don’t need to be here, you know.” I hate myself the minute the words leave my mouth, which is why I can’t meet her eyes.
Annoyingly, she smiles. “I know.”
“You have a life, Tabby. Milo. Your restaurant. Your family. You should go be with them. You don’t need to see me like this.” I attempt to pull my hand away, but she grips me harder.
“I am with my family, Rhys. If I didn’t want to be here with you, I wouldn’t be.”
I groan. “You don’t want to be a Dupris, Tabby. I don’t even want to be a Dupris. This is going to be weeks of recovery. You didn’t sign up for this.”
She straightens, the shimmy of her shoulders and the regal way she holds her neck drawing my attention. “I did sign up for this. And I’d do it again.”
I scoff as every destructive piece of my personality rears its ugly head. The unwanted kid, the lone-wolf teenager, the intensely private man who trusts no one. They all sit down in the driver’s seat, and I’m too fucking fragile right now to stop them. “We both know you married me out of necessity. Go home.”
She jerks back, blinking rapidly as though I’ve slapped her. It’s the closest I’ve come to crying since this injury happened. Even the briefest glimpse of hurt on her face makes me feel nauseous.
Her voice is steely when she responds. “No.”
Frustration courses through me. I’ve never needed help and have never been offered it either. She’s stubborn as hell, and it makes me lash out. “I don’t want you here!”
Her hands leave mine, and I immediately want the heat of her back on me. Her eyes fill with tears and her mouth opens and closes silently. Once. Twice. Then she shakes her head, the look of defeat on her face telling me everything I need to know.
And when she gets up and walks out without a backward glance, my stomach bottoms out and my self-loathing hits an all-time high. One tear leaks out the side of my eye.
Crying over an injury didn’t seem worthwhile. But crying over driving away the best thing that’s ever happened to me seems like a worthy cause.
CHAPTER 46
TABITHA
I exit the door,turn right, walk twenty feet, feeling like I’m going to hurl all over the floor, and immediately press my back against the wall and my hands against my churning stomach. I suck in big, fast breaths, trying to regain my composure because watching Rhys hurt like this is fucking killing me.
I feel helpless. I feel useless. I want nothing more than to crawl into that bed and hold him until he’s better.
But he doesn’t want me there.
Or so he says.
Fucking dick.
“You all right, hon?” the nurse from earlier asks me.
