Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) (166 page)

Jesus, what was in that drink?

We cross the threshold. James’s arm is looped around my waist. I remember the bedroom from just a few nights ago. But Christ, all the lights are starting to blur together. I’m getting woozy.

I stumble away from him and land on the bed. “James?” I ask. My head is spinning. I can almost see two of him. “What the hell did you put in that drink?”

“Nothing,” he says. Then he looks at me. He
sees
me, as I am, and concern flashes across his face. “Jesus, Celeste, are you all right?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. All the colors start to blur. The lights make great streaks across my vision.

I stop moving my head. The world regains some of its balance. I see James, crouched in front of me. “Celeste?” he asks. His voice comes to me as if through a fog. “Celeste, what the fuck is going on with you?”

“I… I don’t know.” I’m slurring my words. My lips move, my tongue works, but none of the right syllables are coming out.

The world takes on a spacey haze.

“I think,” I say. “I think I’m going to be sick!”

And then I turn to my side and hurl all over the bedding.

“Oh shit,” I start to cry. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Look what I’ve done! No, no, no…”

“Celeste. Celeste, it’s all right. Celeste, look at me! Jesus, what’s happening to you?”

“The…drink…” I slur.

That’s all I manage. My eyes drift back. I pass out.

***

In and out. In and out. In and out.

I’m drifting in and out. Darkness drapes my consciousness. My eyelids are so heavy. Why are they so heavy?

I try to open them. I throw all my focus into tearing them open.

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

Voices sound in the distance. Loud voices, yelling voices. I hear sirens. I’m being lifted. Carried somewhere.

I manage to pry my eyes open. Bright, flashing lights surround me. A man in a uniform at my side. My head lolls one way and then the next. Where am I? What’s happening?

Hands hold me down. Strong hands. I’m being strapped in somewhere. I’m on my back. I’m lying prone.

My eyes shutter open and close. Vaguely, through the haze, I hear sirens again. I feel propulsion. We’re moving.
I’m
moving, but where am I?

Then, for one brief, lucid moment, I can
see
and recognize the back of an ambulance with paramedics all surrounding me.

That gives me a sense of comfort. I close my eyes and willingly fade away.

18.

Next time I’m awake I’m in a hospital bed. My head hurts.

I groan and sit up. My eyes gloss over all the machines surrounding me. These aren’t exactly new surroundings.

But what
does
alarm me are the two figures sitting by my bed. Summer.
And
James
.

Fuck, shit, fuck!
I push myself up in a hurry. The movement catches their attention.

Summer springs to me first. James is… slower getting up. He has this uneasy look on his face that I’ve never seen before.

“Celeste! Oh my God, Celeste, you’re up.” Summer throws her arms around my neck and squeezes me tight. I try to hug her back, but the movement nearly dislodges the IV needle stuck to my arm.

“Ow, ow, ow.” I cringe, pulling my arm back fast. The pain goes away.

James stands behind her with his hands in his two front pockets. He meets my eyes, gives a slight nod, but doesn’t say anything.

“What happened?” I ask. I pray to God James didn’t tell Summer anything I don’t want her to know. “What time is it?”

“Just after eleven,” Summer says. “Shit, Celeste, when I got the call that you were in here I was so worried. I rushed here as fast as I could.”

That makes no sense. Summer isn’t my guardian or family. The hospital wouldn’t have her number.

“Who called you?” I ask.

“Professor Landon did.” Summer glances at him. “Right after he found you collapsed in the library.”

“The library?” I whisper. So, James wasn’t totally tactless. He didn’t let Summer know I was at his place.

“Yeah, like you were passed out on the floor. You fell right by a shelf and nearly toppled all the books onto you.” She gives a forced laugh. “Wouldn’t that be something? On top of all this, having a few broken bones, as well?” She manages a smile. “I guess we have to be thankful for that.”

“Yeah,” I say, trying to meet James’s gaze.

He won’t look at me.

I turn back to Summer. “So what the hell is going on?” I ask. “What did the doctors say?”

Summer bites her lip nervously. “They wouldn’t tell me anything.
Us
anything,” she corrects, sweeping a hand back to include James. “They just said you’re stable and let us wait for you to wake up.”

“Okay,” I nod. A sinking feeling forms in my gut. I have a dark suspicion of why I’m here… but until it’s confirmed, I’m not going to think about it.

A nurse pokes her head through the curtain. “I heard voices,” she says. She smiles at me. “I’m glad you’re up. How are you feeling?”

“A little unsteady,” I say, “but otherwise fine.”

She nods. “Let me just check your vitals,” she says, stepping into the room. Summer backs away from the bed to give her access.

After she completes her procedure, she squeezes my hand and says, “I’ll let the doctor know you’re up. He’ll come in and discuss your condition with you.”

My condition.

Just like that, the suspicion is confirmed.

Summer frowns after her. “What did she mean by that?”

“I haven’t the slightest clue,” I lie.

Summer’s lips make a straight line. She sits down again in her chair. James remains standing. He still hasn’t said a word. I can tell something’s digging at him.

It’s not hard to guess what it is. He probably thinks
this
is his fault. I want to reassure him that it’s not –not at all. But, I can’t do it with Summer in the room.

An uncomfortable silence fills the air.

Summer clears her throat. “I’m so glad Professor Landon called me,” she says.

“How did you get her number?” I ask, forcing James to converse with me.

“I have all my students’ numbers,” he says tightly. “I remember the two of you sat together first class. After meeting you and Ms. Blair again in the library, I thought she’d be a close friend. I called her after the paramedics took you away.”

“Isn’t he so thoughtful?” Summer gushes. Fangirl mode is back on.

“Yeah,” I say. I swallow. “Just swell.”

Another silence drops.

It’s interrupted when a doctor steps in. He’s consulting a clipboard. “Ms. Adams?” he says, looking around the enclosure before setting his eyes on me. “Are either of these two immediate family?”

“No,” I say.

He looks at them both. “I’m going to need privacy with my patient.”

James nods and puts a hand on Summer’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s wait outside.”

“K.” Summer stands up. “We’ll be in the waiting room, okay, Celeste?”

“Yeah,” I say.

When they’re gone, I sit up, look the doctor in the eye, and cut right to the chase. “So. How bad is my heart?”

19.

I’m released from the ward a half hour later. The doctor didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know… or at least, nothing I didn’t deeply suspect.

I find Summer right where she said she’d be. She bounds up. “So? What did he say?”

“Not much,” I lie again. I hate piling on deceit after deceit after deceit, but I’ve got no choice. “Dehydration or something. I’ve got a mineral imbalance. Some people get muscle cramps. Others… pass out.”

The story sounds paper thin to my ears.
Passing out
from an electrolyte deficiency? It’s almost laughable.

But Summer nods and considers it. “Can it happen again?” she asks. “Is there anything you can do to prevent it?”

“I’m coming in for more tests next week.” Not a lie. “I’ll find out then.” Another lie. I already know, more or less, what the tests will show.

I doubt it’s going to be pretty.

But I don’t want Summer to know any of it. I don’t want anybody to.

I hate it when people feel sorry for me. I hate looking into their eyes and seeing the sadness reflected there:
Oh, there’s the sick girl
. I hate the pity, the inherent sense that having a medical condition like that makes you somehow
less.
Oh, they won’t say you’re less. Not to your face. God no. They’ll blabber on and on about strength and survival, and they’ll grip your arms and tell you to
Just hang in there
and that
God’s looking out for you
and that you have such
courage
and
strength
and shit like that.

Fuck. All. That. Noise.

I want to live a full life, unburdened by false sympathy. Maybe it’s not false in the eyes of people giving it, but it always comes across like that to me. It sounds empty. It makes me feel tainted.

And it’s never my condition that makes me feel tainted or different or less. It’s other people’s
knowledge
of it.

I’m not one of those delicate flowers who needs to cry her heart out at every piece of bad news she gets. I take whatever life throws at me and roll with the punches. Don’t dwell on mortality. Don’t think about how I might get fewer years here than the next person. For all I know, the next person is going to get run over by a bus tomorrow. Did she spend all her days stressing and worrying? No. Did all her friends start mourning for her while she was alive, because they knew that the day after tomorrow they wouldn’t see her again?

No.

It came from nowhere. It came from out of the blue. And honestly? When my time comes, I want it to be exactly like that.

Unexpected.

Well, unexpected for anybody except me.

“Where’s the professor?” I ask looking around the empty waiting room.

“Oh. He left. He said now that I was here, there was no reason for him to stick around.”

My stomach sinks a little. “He said that?”

“Yeah. I still can’t believe he had the foresight to ring me. Can you? Oh well.” She throws an arm around my shoulders. “Thank God he found you when he did. And let’s hope the tests next week give us some good news. Wanna head home?”

“Yeah,” I say. I nod. “Yeah. That sounds like a plan.”

20.

Just as I’m falling asleep, my phone buzzes with a text.

I pick it up. It’s from James. It’s
labeled
as from James, even though I never, ever remember putting in his number.

James:
What happened?

Me:
You put your number in my phone, you ass.

James:
Not funny. What did the doctor say?

I roll my eyes. Dammit, this is exactly the type of concern that I want to avoid. From
anybody
.

Nothing, I text back. Sleeping now.

Not half a second after I hit send, my phone starts to ring.

The caller display shows James.

I hit decline and shove it under my pillow. “Not talking to you,” I mumble.

But the phone rings again. I put it on vibrate. It rings a third time. I put it on silent. A fourth. A fifth. He’s blowing up my phone, and I have no reason to expect that he’ll stop unless I answer.

So I bite the bullet and pick it up.

“What?” I snap.

“I want to know what happened to you tonight, Celeste,” he says in a very calm, very controlled voice.

“Nothing happened. It was a fainting episode. Big whoop.”

“You and I both know that isn’t the truth.”

“Yeah? Well, so what? It’s what you told Summer, and it’s the story I’m sticking to.”

“I did that for
your
benefit,” he growls. “I didn’t think your friend would want to know you were at my place after the way she behaved when we met in the library.”

“Well, thanks for being so astute.” I lace my words with sarcasm. “James. I need to sleep. Stop calling me.”

“No
.” Anger flashes in his voice. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him like this. “You tell me exactly what happened, Celeste. There’s a reason the doctor asked if we were family. I want to know what’s wrong with you.”

“Why? So you can fix me?” I remember Brad.
I’ll never leave your side,
he promised. He said he was in love, and I believed him.

The fool I was.

Shit hit the fan. I had my first procedure, and he tucked tail and ran, leaving me broken, alone, scared, and worst of all,
betrayed
.

“I don’t want you to fix me.” I rage on. “I don’t want anyone to fix me. I don’t need you or your sympathetic shit. I’m just fine on my own, understand?
I’m just fine
, James, and I don’t need to tell you
anything
!”

I thrust the phone in front of my face and stab “end.” I slide it to the far corner of the room, stuff my head into my pillow, and force myself not to cry.

21.

The next morning, I act like there’s absolutely nothing wrong. I’m all smiles and sunshine as I greet Summer for breakfast. I have my usual egg white omelet, which earns me a disgusted look from Summer.

“Still eating shit, I see,” she tells me. “Must mean you’re feeling better.”

“Right as rain,” I say, stuffing a spoonful in my mouth. “Did you get anywhere with that paper?”

She looks around the room. “Not really,” she admits.

“Summer…”

“I know, I know! I’ll do it today, okay?”

“You can’t just focus on Professor Landon’s class. All of them are important.”

She snorts a laugh. “Yeah right. It’s not like either of us has many career paths available after this.”

I smirk. “You said that before.”

“And it’s still true!”

“Yeah, yeah,” I tell her. “C’mon, let’s get out of here. Time to start our second month as graduate students.”

***

By the time four p. m. rolls around, I’m just about ready to crash and forget the last eight-odd hours.

Today has been utterly craptastic. I got into an argument with Summer at lunch after I received a call from the hospital. They want me to come for CT scans and bloodwork and to discuss my prior medical history. They want to do it
now
, not next week. Summer only heard my side of the conversation, thank God, but still insisted on coming with me.