Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 348

Chapter 348

It started low in my stomach and spread outward, a deep and grinding pain that made me curl onto the couch in the living room, my knees drawn up, my phone clutched against my chest like a lifeline. I thought about calling Celeste. I thought about it so hard my thumb hovered over her name, and then I let the phone fall because I had already made my choice and I was going to see it through.

Then the fever came, and with it a cold that sank into my bones. I was burning and freezing at the same time, shivering so hard my teeth chattered, and my throat was so dry I could barely swallow. I wanted warm water. I wanted the thick fur coat buried in the back of my closet. I forced myself off the couch and took a few steps toward the kitchen, and that was when my hands began to tremble, and a cold sweat broke across my skin, and my vision blurred at the edges until the room swam.

My heart pounded so hard I could hear it in my ears. My legs went weak beneath me. My thoughts scattered like startled birds. I tried to turn back, tried to reach the phone on the couch, tried to make my feet carry me the few steps that separated me from help, and then the floor rose up to meet me and I collapsed onto it.

I could not move. That was the worst of it, worse than the shivering, worse than the cramps that rolled through my stomach in waves. I lay there on the cold floor with my cheek pressed against it, and I reached for my phone over and over, and my fingers would not close around it. Then I felt the warmth between my thighs, and the bleeding came harder and faster than I had ever imagined, and within minutes I was soaking through everything beneath me.

I do not know how long I lay there. Time stretched and folded in on itself until it stopped meaning anything. All I knew was the cold and the pain and the slow, creeping certainty that I was more alone in that moment than I had ever been in my life. And for the first time, I welcomed it. I welcomed the thought of dying, of letting go of all of it, of leaving the pain behind like a coat I no longer had to wear.

When I opened my eyes, the light was wrong. It was soft and white and clean, and nothing about it belonged to my apartment. I was disoriented at first, swimming up through a fog so thick I could not find the surface, and then the room came into focus and I understood.

I was in a hospital. An IV drip was hooked into my vein, a thin plastic line feeding something cold into my arm. I turned my head and saw them, Dominic and Celeste, huddled together on a couch against the wall, asleep, with Celeste’s head resting against his shoulder. Her hand lay in his, and his other arm was wrapped around her like a shield, and they both looked exhausted in a way that told me they had not left this room in hours.

The clock on the wall showed that the day had just begun. Somewhere below the fog, the realization surfaced, that they must have found me in my apartment, that they must have brought me here and stayed, that I had not been alone at all. The feeling rose up in me so fast I could not stop it, and I began to cry.

Just then, Celeste opened her eyes. She stretched, slow and groggy, and looked toward my bed, and when she saw the tears on my face her whole body went still.

“Pat!”

She was on her feet before I could blink, rushing to my bedside and pulling me into her arms with a fierceness that made the IV line pull tight.

“I’m sorry, Pat. I’m so sorry.” Her voice broke against my shoulder. “This is all my fault.”

I pushed her back gently, my hands on her arms, and made myself meet her eyes. “No, Celeste. What are you saying? You can’t put this on yourself. I refuse to allow you to do that.”

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