Chapter Twenty-Three

The ride to the hospital was painful. Every bump in the road was torture. Why the hell don’t they repair their freaking roads?

The turns were barely better.

Xander was in the ambulance next to me, holding my hand all the while.

It took me a while to be able to breath enough to speak, but I squeezed his hand in what I hope was a reassuring way.

I was rolled around the building for a while. The vantage point disorienting. They had strapped my head and back, immobilizing it just it case.

When they started doing this, it freaked me out, but I then spent a little while focusing on my toes. They were moving, and judging by the amount of pain in my lower body, everything was working fine, or at least fine enough.

Everything was too long. It took them too long to give me painkillers, too long to see a doctor, too long for them to shot the damn light blaring in my eyes, and too long to get me off this freaking uncomfortable stretcher to an actual bed. But eventually, sleep won.

When I woke, my head was not strapped anymore. My body felt so heavy that thought for a second that it had sunk inside the bed. It took me some focus to open my eyes or even twitch a finger. Everything was stiff.

Beside me, Xander was doing stuff on his phone. He didn’t notice I was awake until a nurse walked in.

“Hey,” he said, putting his phone away in his pocket. “You fell down the stairs, how are you?” he asked me.

The nurse looked at him suspiciously. I guess there have been a lot of beaten-up women out there with a falling-down-the-stairs excuse for the injuries. The nurses were probably triggered by the mere mentioned of staircases.

So I said nothing for now and nodded. I barely moved my head, but the movement was not pleasant, at all.

My nose was itchy and I tried to scratch it but I realised my arm couldn’t bend. I looked down. There was this big thing around my arm that inflated on its own every so often, checking for my blood pressure. There was this thing squeezing my finger lightly checker for my pulse, and there was the needle of a saline in the bend of the same arm which explained why it was so useless. The other arm was more painful, but it would have to do.

“What’s the verdict?” I croaked.

Xander got me a glass of water and I received the run down.

No broken bones, no internal bleeding, not even a concussion. But bruises, bruises everywhere. They had done a few scans to make sure, but the conclusion was that I had been very lucky. Those had been long stairs and it could have been a lot worse.

The doctor visited. I had been in ICU for a few hours until they realised it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. They did give me massive amount of painkillers which knocked me pretty hard, and the fact that I had not slept very well for a while probably made it worse, which explained how I slept through most tests.

In the following hours, they came and said I would be discharged in a few hours or whenever I felt ready for it as they had already unplugged me completely already. They offered to keep me over night if I wanted to, but I had the feeling Eloim wasn’t doing well at home without Xander or I.

I saw in his eyes that he was thinking the same, but let me decide regardless. I chose to leave. They warned me than the next few days could be a lot worse and to go straight to get my prescription before leaving.

We did. Xander help me move as everything was stiff and painful, but there were a few bits who worked better than others. I focused on those, using whatever was less painful to move around.

Regis came to pick us up as Xander didn’t have his car with him. He brought change of clothes for me and I was glad the clothes chosen were loose. I suspected Miranda’s hand in this.

Xander help me to the bathroom and helped me dress.

“I didn’t fall,” I told him, now that we were finally alone.

He looked at me, his brown furrowed.

“I was pushed.

I watched realisation dawn on him, and the knowledge of all that this implied hit home.

“How is Eloim?

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Mum said she took care of everything and refused for me to leave you.

I gave him a small smile.

He kissed my forehead. “I’m sorry.

“Why?

“I got you into this.

“No, all you did is offer, I’m the one who accepted.

“Who didn’t know it would turn up this way.

“Neither did you.

He was silent after that and we finished up, then moved down. I was glad the hospital decided to dispense me a wheelchair for the trek. I could walk, but the thought of going down the maze of corridors all the way to the parking lot felt like a terrible way to go about it.

We went home.

Miranda greeted us and the men help me up the stairs to the entrance door. I decreed that I hate stairs now. They would hurt me even now, every time I had to heave myself up, my muscles screamed in protest.

“What about Eloim?” asked Xander the moment we got in.

“He’s—.” Miranda looked sad. “Unresponsive.

They help me sit on the couch. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to stay sitting for long, but I wasn’t sure lying down would be that much better either. At least my core muscles wouldn’t be used as much.

Xander went to check on Eloim.

“How unresponsive?” I asked Regis.

“Nearly catatonic.

I felt my insides twist.

Xander came down a little later with an unmoving child in his arms.

“Mila is here,” he said softly to him. “Do you want to see her?

That got an instant response, only not the one any of us were expecting.

“NO! NO! NO! NO SCARY FACES. NO!

We all froze.

Eloim buried his face in his father’s chest gripping his shirt tightly.

“Eloim,” I said softly.

He stopped moving.

“My face is not scary. My face is okay.

I felt very glad right now that I’d managed to keep the damage away from my face.

I opened my arms. Xander came closer and lower Eloim on me.

My muscles screamed in protest, but I ignored that as best I could.

“Eloim,” I said. He was still gripping at his father, his eyes tight shut. “Look at me. I’m okay, look at me.

He was not complying, so I turned his head forcefully to me. He instinctively opened his eyes at this, and realised I looked normal, he released his father, turned around and grabbed onto me like a baby koala, hard.

I winced, and Xander help move his little hands away from the worst of my injuries.

He didn’t say anything after that other than “no” whenever someone tried to take him away from me.

We managed to move this to the bedroom when I could lie down. Eloim didn’t step any further than the bed, but at least after a while he was able to release his grip on me which my body appreciated.

The doctors were right though, it’s worst the following days.

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