Given Time

♡50♡

As I sleep, my head tosses from side to side. Dreams about the night of the accident flood my mind.

I find myself kneeling in the middle of the road, watching two bright headlights hurtling down the road. Panicking, I scream for help, and only air passes my lips, no sounds. I search around for signs of life, but the lights are so blinding that I can't make out anything else. The car moves closer down the street, and I realize I have probably less the ten seconds before it hits.

I desperately try to move out of its path, clawing my hands into the road as I try to drag my body across the tarmac, but my legs won't budge. My heart rate picks up as I know I'm about to be hit. I say a silent prayer for this nightmare to end. Just before the car smashes into me, I feel a sharp pain in my arm, followed by a low hiss. "Would you wake up already!"

Oh God. That voice!

My eyes fly open, and I gasp aloud as I wake to Chloe standing by my hospital bed, bending over me. She's so close that I can smell the overpowering sickly smell of her perfume and can feel her warm breaths on my skin.

It must be late at night because the lights are turned out and my parents' coats have disappeared from the chairs they were sitting in, which tells me they've gone home for the night.

Alarm bells ring in my head as I know no one will be coming in my room anytime soon, and I frantically search for the buzzer on my blanket to get the nurse's attention. My body protests in pain as I do this, but I try to ignore it and reach further down the bed for it. As my fingers graze the device, Chloe realizes what I am trying to do and picks it up and holds it out of my arms reach.

"I'll scream," I warn her with a tremor, fearing why she is in my hospital room.

Chloe huffs and rolls her eyes. "For fuck's sake. I'm not here to hurt you. Besides, if I was, do you really think I'd wake you first?" She looks at me like I'm dumb.

I rest my head back against the pillow, knowing I'm not in any immediate danger, and glare at her. "How did you even get in here?"

She lifts a shoulder and spins the buzzer in her hand. "I batted my eyelashes at some young nurse standing at the front desk and told him I was your sister. He let me right through."

From her tone of voice, I can tell she's proud of that fact. If that's all it took for Chloe to get in my room, then I have a serious lack of faith in terms of security when it comes to this hospital. As soon as she leaves this room, I'll be letting the staff know that she is not allowed back in here. Ever.

I shuffle up the bed as best I can so that I don't have to crane my neck up as much to see her. My chest smarts when I do this, and I have to take a few quick breaths to recover from the flash of pain. Taking my suffering out on Chloe, I snap at her. "Why were you even trying to get in here? You've already got what you wanted. There's no way I can take Tanner back after he cheated on me with you.

"I've already had one of my boyfriends cheat on me, and that hurt a hell of a lot. But finding out about Tanner nearly killed me. Literally."

Chloe sucks on her lower lip and looks down at the buzzer. "Yeah. About that," she releases a long breath and looks at me, "I never meant for it to get that far. I wanted to hurt you like you hurt me and have you break up with Tanner, but I never wanted to be the cause of your almost death."

"Feeling a little guilty, are we?" I say harshly.

Chloe bows her head and fiddles with the buzzer. "As a matter of fact. Yes, I am. When I heard that you got hit by a car, I knew that it was because of me.

"If I hadn't had brought Shawn to the party and if I hadn't had said that thing to you about Tanner, then none of this would have happened." She sighs and throws the buzzer back on the bed.