Page 47 of If You Never Come Back
“Mom, I don’t need you to come here.”
“You need to go to the hospital,” she says with absolute certainty, as if she hasn’t heard me at all.
There’s no use in arguing, so instead I opt for a little white lie. “I’m already going, you don’t need to come. The doctor will examine me and send me home to rest. I promise I’ll let you know if I need anything.”
“Who’s taking you?”
“A friend.”
The hard clank of her car keys hitting the side table near the entryway of her front door signals that I’ve stopped her. Thankfully.
“Okay. That sounds fine then.”
I thank her, and she tells me she whip up somebikofor me and drop it off tomorrow. When I hang up, Wes points his frown at me. “Now are you ready to go?”
“I’m not going, Wes. I just said that to keep my mom from freaking out.”
“Shay, don’t be stubborn.”
“Then don’t be ridiculous, Wes.”
My voice is harsher than I mean for it to be. But it’s barely eight a.m., my ankle and wrist are throbbing, and I’m staving off my worried mom all the while standing across from my ex-boyfriend when all I want is to be alone. I’ve got almost no patience for this.
“I’ll be fine. I just need to rest.” I take a long breath. It barely soothes me.
He raises a judgmental eyebrow at me. “That’s not going to fly with me. Or your mom.”
“Fortunately, neither one of you is in charge of me, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
I take a final gulp of coffee, set the empty mug on the counter, and twist myself around to walk into the living room, but Wes’s gentle hand on my arm stops me. “Just listen to me for a sec, okay?”
I shrug out of his grip, but stay in place.His chest heaves with the slow breath he takes, like he’s just now remembering that I get notoriously impatient when I’m fussed over.
“I understand that you don’t want to be around me. But you’re hurt, Shay. You’ll be a million times worse off if you ignore your injury and try to power through it. Think about how that will slow you down with your workload.”
I squint at him. “How do you know about my workload?”
His expression softens. “I um, I heard about how your business blew up while I was away. I saw Mari Dash’s Instagram post about you.”
I purse my lips to keep my jaw from dropping to the ground. How in the world would he know about that? He’s been off-the-grid hiking for six months. Instagram, social media, all that should have been the furthest thing from his mind.
“How? Weren’t you in the mountains with no cell service this whole time?”
He opens his mouth, then clamps it shut. “I was, but…” he shakes his head. “I’d go into town sometimes. I looked you up a couple times.”
Warmth hits my chest as he speaks the words. I must have been on his mind a tiny bit if he knows about my business blowing up. But another thought sinks in. He put in the effort to check up on me online, but never called or texted me.
I shake my head, swallowing back the quip I ache to unleash on him. The last thing I need is another blow-out in my apartment.
“I managed just fine without you for the past six months,” I mutter, eyes on the ground. “I’m sure I can do it again.”
All that follows is a sharp intake of breath. “Shay.”
The softness in his tone compels me to look up at him. “I know you hate me right now. You have every right to. But don’t make your work suffer because of me.” He clears his throat. “You’ve been commissioned for a bunch of projects, right? Which means you have loads of packages to mail every week, emails to keep up with, orders to take, and keeping your home studio organized, right?”
I nod.
“You can’t do all that work with an injury, especially if you refuse to treat it. The sooner you get checked out, the sooner you can dive back into work. Tell me that’s not what you want.”
