Lahat ng Kabanata ng Wild Enough To Heal: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

POV: Haley"I'm not doing this right now."Nathan shuts the apartment door behind him a little harder than usual. "You never want to do it, Haley. That's the problem."I stand near the window, staring at the traffic below as headlights cut through the rain."Nathan.""What?" He pulls his coat off but doesn't bother hanging it up. "When's the last time you actually talked to me instead of shutting down?""I talk to you.""No, you tell me you're fine until you're angry enough to explode."I let out a breath and turn away from the window. "You want honesty? Fine. I'm exhausted."His expression softens for half a second. "Haley—""No. Let me finish." My voice comes out sharper than I mean it to. "I'm tired of every conversation becoming about my health. I'm tired of being watched all the time. Every time I cough, you look at me like something terrible is about to happen."His jaw tightens. "That's not fair.""Neither is being managed."That lands exactly the way I knew it would.Nathan lo

POV: Haley"You've been looking at that building entrance for three minutes," Avriel says. "It's a door, Haley."I force my eyes away. "I'm people watching.""You're watching for one person."She bumps my shoulder, quick and easy. She's been doing that since sophomore year, when she and Nathan were lab partners and I was just the girlfriend who showed up to study sessions with takeout."I don't know what you're talking about."She kicks a small pebble off the path. "Nathan told me about dinner.""Of course he did.""He said Kai asked about you after you left."My hands tighten on my bag strap and I try to keep my voice even. "Asked what?""Wouldn't say." She shrugs, but her eyes are curious. "Just that you seemed different than he expected. Whatever that means."Nathan jogs over from the parking lot before we make it to the science building entrance. He's wearing a new jacket, slightly too big in the shoulders, the kind he probably bought because someone told him it looked good and he

POV: HaleyKai's mouth is on my neck, sucking at the spot just below my ear, and I arch into the mattress because here, there are no consequences. His hands are in my hair, pulling just hard enough to hurt, and the pain is perfect. I am not sick in this dream, my heart pounds from want. Not failure. I am twenty-two and alive and greedy for every second of it."Tell me," his voice, hot against my skin."Tell you what?""That you want this.""I want this."He bites my collarbone, and a current runs straight through me. His weight presses me deeper into the bed, and I cannot see the room anymore. There is only his mouth and his hands and the heat of him everywhere.Then Nathan appears at the edge of the bed. He is not angry. He is just watching. His eyes are steady and terrible.I push against Kai's chest. "Wait."Kai laughs, rough and dark, then pulls me in again. "Too late.""You chose this," he says. "You chose me."---I wake up gasping.The sheets are twisted around my legs, and my

POV: Haley "You had a visitor this morning."The nurse says it while unhooking the monitor from my finger."Around six. Before the shift change. She didn't want to wake you."I sit up straighter. "Who?""She didn't leave a name." She pulls the IV line free and presses a cotton ball to the inside of my elbow. "Older woman. Dark hair. She just stood at the door for a while, then left."I don't say anything."You okay?""Fine."She writes something on her clipboard and walks out.I stare at the door she just went through.Dark hair. Stood at the door. Didn't leave a name.I know exactly one person who would do that.---Nathan arrives at nine with a change of clothes in a bag and sits on the edge of the bed while I change behind the curtain."Ready to go home?" he asks."I've been ready since yesterday.""Okay, the doctor wants to go over discharge notes first."I pull the curtain back. He looks at me, then at the bag, then back at me."You look better," he says."I look exactly the sam

POV: Haley"So you're really not going to tell me."Avriel is doing her eyeliner with one knee up on the bathroom counter."There's nothing to tell.""You showed up at my door at midnight, slept through my alarm twice, and now you're in my bathroom borrowing my moisturizer acting like everything is completely normal.""I needed company.""From me. At midnight." She caps the liner and finally looks at me through the mirror. "And nothing happened.""Nothing happened."She turns around and leans against the sink."Haley.""Avriel."She holds the look for a long moment. Then she picks up her bag from the floor."Fine," she says. "But I want it on record that I know you're lying and I'm choosing to be patient about it.""Noted.""I'm very patient.""You're the least patient person I know, and we're going to be late.""We're always late. It builds character," she says, opening the bathroom door.---The lecture room is noisy when we get there, that particular sound of twenty people talking