Jaden (Jaded #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I awoke in a hospital bed, and my hands were interlaced with Corrigan’s. He was sleeping in the chair beside mine with his head resting on my bed. I became aware of two things right away. One, my body felt like it was being burned alive and two, I was damn thirsty. I looked around, but the movement had me gritting my teeth. Pain sliced through me. I was afraid to even think about moving, and I sighed in frustration. What the fuck? The room was dark. The door was open, and I heard soft conversation from down the hallway somewhere.

Call lights.

I was in the hospital. They had those magical buttons.

“You’re awake.”

I glanced back to the door. Bryce was there now. He ran a hand over his face, then let it drop to his side with a heavy thud. In his hand was a coffee.

My nose twitched. “If you wanted to torture me awake, you’re spot-on. Coffee’s the way to go. And you look like death.”

He grunted, moving around my bed and perching on the window frame. “Speak for yourself. You got stabbed by a crazy woman.”

“Hey.” I tried to smirk. It hurt too much so I grunted instead. “I took that bitch down.”

He laughed softly. “Uh, Mena took that bitch down.” The grin fled, and he grew somber. “Of which I’m always going to be grateful to her and I,” he cringed, “can’t believe I just said those two words in the same sentence. Mena. Grateful.”

“Hey. She turned out okay.”

He nodded, lifting his coffee for a sip, but he stopped. Then he put it on the nightstand between us. “She did.” He gestured to the door. “Do you need me to get a nurse or something?”

“No.” I glanced around, saw that I was hooked up to an IV pole and knew this was going to be a new form of torture, but I peeled back my bed sheets and started to push myself to the edge. “But I’ve gotta pee. Badly.”

Yep. I gritted my teeth again. Pain. Agony. I was being stabbed all over again. Then the cold air blasted my back, and I wanted to groan. First things first: pee, then complain. That’s what I did. When I came back from the bathroom, Corrigan was gone. I frowned. “Where’d he go?”

Bryce’s shoulders lifted in a silent breath.

I knew, but I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to do this now, not yet. “The door is shut. The door was open a few seconds ago.” An anchor dropped to the bottom of my stomach.

“It’s time.” He didn’t sound happy about it.

I knew what had happened. Replaying everything in my head, I knew what I had thought and waking up with my hand in Corrigan’s—I grimaced as I asked, “Did I say something?”

He nodded, looking down at the floor for a moment. Then he spoke, his voice gruff, “You called out for him a bunch.”

“I didn’t—”

He confirmed my fear. “You told him you loved him.”

Oh. Fuck. Horror filled my limbs, paralyzing them for a moment. I hadn’t wanted that. Not ever. My throat swelled from emotion and I whispered, “I’m so sorry, Bryce.”

He lifted a shoulder, but he couldn’t hide the agony. “Yeah, well . . .” He couldn’t finish the sentence. Then he cleared his throat and said, raspy, “What can I say? I mean . . .” He let out a loud sigh and turned away. I saw his jaw trembling; he was fighting to control his emotions. “I get it, Sheldon. I do. I—fuck. There’s no easy way to do this, right?”

“Yeah,” I bit out. “If a crazy person hadn’t attacked me, then I wouldn’t have been high on drugs or whatever, and I wouldn’t have blurted that out.” I grew quiet. I hadn’t known. Not really. I didn’t know until I thought I was going to die. That was when I knew. Corrigan was the one.

I felt tears on my cheeks. Goddamn. I was crying again.

“I’m sorry, Sheldon.”

“For what?”

“For not being the guy you wanted.”

Another wave of sadness rolled over me. “Bryce,” I started to say.

He shook his head, stopping me. “We went wrong. I don’t know where, exactly, but maybe I should’ve pushed harder for you. I don’t know. I lost you when I left for soccer. I keep trying to blame Marcus and what we did. Because that means it’s not my fault. That I didn’t do anything wrong. You know, the whole thing about what we did and how you didn’t want to deal with it so all those emotions you have about that moment got swept up with us, you and me. All of it got locked away in you, but it’s not true.”

I was crying. I wasn’t even going to try to stop. So I just let the tears fall.

“I lost you when I left, didn’t I? When I went to Europe for soccer. That’s when it happened. I left you then.”

I whispered, “I followed you.”

He shook his head. The pain was radiating off him. I felt it. It was choking me at the same time, and my god, I didn’t want this to be said. I didn’t want to choose. It wasn’t—how could I love two men? How . . . I couldn’t push past the pain. It was suffocating me.