Not Scared Anymore

Chapter 36 - Kevin

Stephanie was propped up in the bed, a nasty looking bruise above her left eye, a face full of scratches, and her entire left arm in a cast. She looked uncomfortable, but she smiled when she saw Kevin.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself." He walked into the room.

"How are you?" She asked.

His eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. "What kind of question is that?" His voice cracked like a teenager.

"A perfectly normal one actually. This is usually how people make conversation. You can sit if you want."

He sat in the chair beside her bed and looked into her eyes.

"That's my question to ask. Seriously Stephanie, how are you?"

"So, you can ask me that but I can't ask you?" She tried to quirk an eyebrow back at him, but it came out like a wince instead. "Well, they've given me enough pain killers to feel almost nothing. But not so many that I've started hallucinating, so I think that's a good sign."

He chuckled at her. "Well please let me know if I sprout an extra head or something like that."

She laughed and winced again. Kevin instinctively lunged towards her, "what's wrong?"

"Stupid ribs. Turns out I can still feel them when I laugh."

Kevin's face blanched, "Oh God. I am so sorry."

"No, it's okay. But I do want to ask you a couple things, and I need you to be completely honest with me."

"Okay..." Kevin had never felt less okay about anything.

"How much time did Mark spend on the phone out there?"

Kevin was not expecting that, and Stephanie picked up on his hesitation. "That much huh? I guess Denise wasn't exaggerating."

He sighed. "It was a lot."

"Okay. I definitely made the right choice then."

"What's that?"

"I told him to leave me alone and go back to work. No point dividing his attention when I didn't want it. My Mom was really not impressed."

"I would agree with that. She seemed... frantic?" He was intimately aware that he was on rocky ground describing her mother that way, and feared her reaction. Stephanie just smiled, but her face turned serious again quickly.

"So, about Sunday. Where did you go?"

Kevin looked away and rubbed the back of his neck. He'd planned what he would say when he finally got the chance, but all the words escaped him now. He certainly hadn't planned to be delivering them in a hospital.

"I panicked. I knew that you thought you would marry him before, and then he was asking you, and we'd only been on one real date, so I didn't know what you would do and I panicked. I've never been with anyone I've even considered marrying, so I don't know how that feels, or how you can get over it.

"I was afraid of getting tossed aside for him, so I bailed before I even gave you the chance to decide. I knew that was a mistake, but by the time I called you, I didn't get an answer. I figured you'd taken me for the coward I was and weren't interested in me anymore."

Her expression stayed stony. "You literally came back for your car, but didn't even try to talk to me. And you didn't answer any of my calls."

"I went for a walk and by the time I got back you weren't there or didn't answer when I knocked. I assumed you were with him. I had turned my phone to airplane mode when we watched the movie together. I freaked out that night when I realized how long it had been and saw all the missed calls."