blind - owen teague | ✔️

12. Pet Names

Anisa was protecting me. My own mother was ignoring me. Owen was a wild card. Every imagined stability was in flux and I was going down with it.

My head was wrapped around the tone of her voice. It was so... Happy. She could see Owen. She knew what he looked like, but I didn't. I assume anyone would be happy to know Owen. I would.

All I have is this stupid mental picture of what he could look like, based on what I felt. I didn't understand. My head pounded. It was a cracking pain across my skull. I wanted it to end.

I couldn't tell what time it was. I'd dismissed Owen and Red so coldly. I couldn't feel anything. My chest was raw and empty. Everything was torn from me. I wanted to go home.

Who was Nickey? Who was Red?

I turned away from the wall, feeling tears leaking from my eyes and soaking into the bandage. My chest was heaving with each silent sob as my fingers felt the thin hospital sheet. I cocooned myself into the velvet, burying my face into the fabric. My nose was now stuffy and I coughed, traumatized.

My stomach was tied in knots, I was so upset. Saliva filled my mouth and I knew if I didn't calm down soon, I'd throw up. I was sobbing into the blanket that came from the reason I was choking myself on sobs.

My senses and my life were overwhelmed. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to push him away, but I didn't want to keep having myself stepped on. I didn't know what I wanted.

I was a welcome mat for him. Come in, do as you please, I won't complain. I didn't know what to think.

My IV covered hand found the nurse call button and pressed it, and over the intercom came, "What do you need?"

"M-my head is pounding-" My words were watery and I sniffled back.

"A nurse will administer some Tramadol to you."

"I already have that prescribed. Please, something stronger, I can hardly stand it." Liar.

"Yes ma'am." I didn't know if it was my tears, or my desperate rasps, but that's what I needed. An opioid. I needed the strong opioid to put my entire body out.

And that's what it did. A oxycontin drip later, I was on cloud 9. I could feel myself blinking but I didn't know how. My fingers twitched and curled but I couldn't feel a damn thing. Higher than hell, but Owen was still on my mind.

I hated myself for letting myself get so attached. I knew it was inevitable. I was cut off from everyone else and he was there in this blackness, so it was inevitable. A relationship had to form, hateful or not. It seems I was stuck in a loop of hurt.

-

"How do you feel?" I was slipping in and out of consciousness, here and there, and that was fine with me because I didn't want to be awake long enough to talk to Owen anyway.

"My head still hurts." Liar, liar. I couldn't feel a thing except a little throb of pain since it was now worn off, but it wasn't enough to call for oxycontin. I just didn't want to feel a fucking thing at all.

My whole body was buzzing when they dripped the painkiller in my IV. Every now and again when I woke, I could hear him doing his work but I never moved enough to let him know I was awake.

I wanted to avoid him entirely. Distance, Anisa said, distance. I needed that and some patience.

-

It must've been two days later when I was waking up, shifting onto my back when the door did that one-two click. I didn't hear Anisa's heels so I froze mid-stretch.

"I hear they got you on oxy for pain." Sultry, deep and low. Him. Dammit.

I didn't say anything and instead acted quiet. I was a cornered rabbit, my entire body buzzing slightly with relaxation, and my heart was racing. What did he want? Did he come back to torture me some more?

"You're barely ever awake when I come around." He must have taken my silence as a sign to go on. I didn't know what to say. What did it matter to him if some blind girl was awake when he came around? Just get your homework done and go. That's what you wanted, right?

"Well, you have your girls by the bushel. What do you need my company, anyhow?" I didn't know where those words came from. Maybe it was the painkillers. They just slipped out my mouth so fast, so curt. They cut down to the bone.

He was silent and then I felt his clammy fingertip run down by the length of my IV cord, down my forearm to my hand. A shudder ran through my body, lighting it up.

"My sweet, sweet darlin'... You think I'm using you. Is that what you think of me?" He lifted my hand suddenly, before I even had a chance to speak. He held my hand suspended in air.

"All I know is I'm stuck in this damned hospital bed until I get my eyesight back." I told him.

My hand was moved so my palm felt a warm chest and my heart fluttered. Each thump of his heart sent tingles down my arm. Is that what it's like to feel high?

"Go on. Tell me this is using you." His own words were just as clipped.

"You don't understand, Owen." My voice was now shaking, trembling. What was he going to do? He sounded absolutely truthful.

"Make me understand."

My hand was slid up his chest and I felt the ridges of his warm throat as it was lifted up and up, into his black silky hair. It was still long.

Many thoughts ran in my head. I had to make him understand like he was making me see him. I took a shaky breath because no matter how much pain medicine I was on, I was still trembling in his wake.

"You don't... You don't understand that I'm completely helpless in this bed. All I see is black. All I hear are you and Anisa, and whoever Red is." I sniffled, feeling incredibly emotional as my chest tightened up. "I am, without fail, completely without control. I can't help but grow attached to people who come here. I'm like in a sensory deprivation tank." I was gonna cry. I didn't want that.

I heard the movement before I felt his body lay on me again, and my fingers immediately tangled in his hair. I was gravitating to him. My world had stopped and decided to orbit around him.

"So, yes, when your mom tells me to not get close, and when I'm without control, and when you bring other girls here, I do get depressed. You're all I know. I know when you come in, and when you'll leave. That's all I can do; count the seconds between. I'm alone, Owen.

"I'm alone and you're all I know. I didn't want to get attached. I couldn't help it." My chest was heaving a bit and I gripped his strands.

"You don't understand the immense pain and you couldn't. You didn't know that your actions would have this effect. You just couldn't."

"I'm sorry, [F/n]. I didn't want to make you feel like a fool. You're nobody's fool."