Chapter Five

I didn't remember getting out of the car.

One second I was driving, the next I was pushing through the hospital's sliding doors, my heart slamming so hard I could feel it in my throat.

"I'm looking for Marcus Reyes," I said to the woman at the desk. "He was in an accident,someone called me an hour ago and I just need to see him, please."

"Are you family?"

"No,I'm his emergency contact. Please."

She typed something without really looking at me. "Third floor room 314. He's stable."

Stable, I held onto that word the whole elevator ride like it was a railing.

When I got to his room, I stopped in the doorway, because it wasn't what I expected at all,I'd pictured tubes, machines, his eyes closed. Instead Marcus was sitting up in bed, one arm in a sling, a dark bruise blooming along his jaw, scrolling through his phone with his good hand like he was killing time in a waiting room.

"You're on your phone," I said. "I thought you almost died."

"I'm bored," he said. "Nobody warns you how boring almost dying is,you'd think there'd be more going on.”

"That's not funny, Marcus."

"A little funny."

I crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, not sure where it was safe to put my hands,he solved that for me, reaching out with his good arm, and I leaned in carefully, like I might break something if I moved wrong.

"You scared me," I said into his shoulder.

"Yeah, well…you should've seen it from my side of the windshield."

I pulled back to look at him properly. "Tell me what actually happened."

"I was driving home,a car came out of nowhere and ran me straight off the road. That's it and that's the whole story."

"Did you see who was driving?"

"No,it was a dark SUV that's all I got before I was in a ditch wondering why my ribs felt like they'd lost a fight."

"You think it was Elora."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to."

He didn't argue, which told me everything I needed to know, and my stomach dropped the same slow, sick way it had all night.

"This is my fault," I said. "If I hadn't said what I said at that dinner table…."

"Stop."

"I'm serious."

"So am I." His voice was quieter now, steadier than mine. "Whoever did this made a choice,you didn't make it for them. Don't hand her an excuse she doesn't deserve.”

I wanted to believe him,I was working on it.

A nurse came in then, brisk and unbothered, checking something on the machine beside him, adjusting a line taped to the back of his hand.

She asked him to rate his pain out of ten and he said four, and I almost laughed because I would've believed six just from looking at him.

"Four?" I said, once she'd stepped back out.

"I'm not telling her ten,she'll make me stay longer."

"Maybe you should stay longer."

"Maybe you should stop worrying so loud,I can hear you doing it from here."

That got a small, tired laugh out of me, the first real one all night, and for a second the room felt almost normal, like we were just two people talking instead of two people waiting for something to go wrong then my phone buzzed in my lap.

Nathaniel.

I let it ring twice before I picked it up.

"Where are you," he said. Not even a hello.

"Out."

"The police were at our house this morning, Elena. Over a restraining order I never asked for."

"I already told you I didn't file that."

"Then who did?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know," he repeated, like the words personally offended him. "Two years,two years and I don't even know if you're capable of telling me the truth anymore."

"Ask your mistress," I said.

Silence….long enough that I checked to see if the call had dropped.

"Don't," he said finally.

"Don't what? Say her name?"

"She has nothing to do with this."

"You don't actually know that,you just don't want it to be true."

"Elena…"

"You didn't even ask if I was okay," I said, and my voice cracked and I hated it. "You called because the police embarrassed you in front of the neighbors and not because you were worried about me."

He didn't say anything to that,I hung up before he could try.

Marcus was watching me when I set the phone down on my knee. "He doesn't know you're here."

"No."

"Keep it that way."

"I'm trying."

"You look like you're about to throw that phone across the room."

"I might."

"Denise will make you pick it back up,she's very particular about her floor."

I laughed again, softer this time, and let my shoulders drop an inch then the phone buzzed once more,not a call.

Unknown number….He knows where you are and he's already on his way.

I read it twice,my stomach dropped straight through the floor.

"What," Marcus said, sitting up too fast and wincing for it. "What's wrong?"

"Someone just told me Nathaniel is coming here right now."

"How would he even know you're here? Nobody knew except…."

He stopped,I already knew where that sentence was going, and from the look on his face, so did he.

I stood up fast, grabbed my bag off the chair, didn't even know what I planned to do with it, just needed my hands to do something other than shake.

"Elena, sit down you don't need to run anywhere…"

The door opened before he could finish.

Nathaniel stood in the doorway with his coat still buttoned to the collar, keys still in his hand like he'd driven straight over without stopping to think,his eyes moved slowly, first to me, then to Marcus in the bed, then to the small, careless gap of space between us where I'd just been sitting a second ago, close enough that anyone walking in would draw their own conclusions.

Nobody moved the machine kept its slow, steady beeping, the only sound in the room.

"What exactly," Nathaniel said, quiet in a way that was worse than shouting, "am I looking at.”