Truth

Brooklyn

My lips felt like they were on actual fire. Or maybe they’d been burnt badly. I wasn’t sure of the difference. All I knew was that they were hurting—badly. I peeled them open, hearing the breath that escaped my mouth. My head was throbbing as I tried to open my eyes, and when I finally pulled my sticky eyelashes apart, it took me a while to figure out where I was.

Why was it so bright in here? Wait, why are there fluorescent lights above my head? Why does it smell so sterile in here? All of a sudden, I could hear a frantic beeping noise. It kept getting louder and louder and louder.

“Brooklyn, calm down,” Cara said, appearing out of nowhere.

I shot up quickly, scooting my sore back against the fluffy pillows that my head was resting on. “Why am I in the hospital?!”

Dread washed over me. Oh my gosh. It was my kidney!

I felt the blood drain from my face as Cara took my cheeks in her hands. “Relax. You were dehydrated and passed out. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

A held breath escaped my mouth as relief flooded in. My voice cracked. “So, my kidney is…”

Cara gave a small smile. “Your kidney is fine. You had the flu, and you got so dehydrated that you apparently passed out.”

It all came back to me as soon as Cara started to talk. After Reid and I fought and I stomped off to my room, I went back to bed. I crawled under the covers and lay there, angry, hurt, annoyed, irritated—everything.

I felt sick.

I thought I was being dramatic and that I was ill from a throbbing heart that Reid decided to stomp all over after he stripped me bare on his living room floor, but I was truly just sick. I couldn’t stop throwing up, and, God forbid, I go out into the kitchen where I might run into my new enemy. So instead, every so often, when I had enough energy, I’d cup my hands under the bathroom faucet and gulp water in hopes that it’d make me feel better. Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

It was a stupid thing to do—avoiding the only other human in the house I was at when I was that sick, considering part of me thought there might have been something wrong with my only working kidney, that maybe my body was failing, possibly from the swift kick I got from the show a couple weeks back. But after a while, the only thing I could think about was how to keep the contents of my stomach inside and not in the toilet.

My brow furrowed after I sucked some water through a straw that Cara had handed to me. “How did I get here?”

That was the one thing I couldn’t remember. I really only remembered being angry with Reid and then being so sick I could barely make it off the bathroom floor.

Cara sat down on the edge of my bed and tucked some hair behind her ear. She fiddled with the threads on the blanket and said, “Well, Jane got worried when you’d texted her, and then when you stopped answering, she called Reid, who then called me.”

I averted my eyes, hoping to hide the fact that hearing his name did something to me, because it wholeheartedly did.

“I guess Reid freaked out when he saw you, and instead of waiting for an ambulance, he threw you in one of his cars and rushed you here. He hasn’t left.” Cara smiled at the end of her sentence, but the only thing that did was turn that little prick in my heart into a punch.

I crossed my arms over my hospital gown. “Can you tell him thanks, but I don’t want to see him.”

Cara’s eyes almost fell out of her skull. “What? Why?! Reid King, King of Music, hot beyond belief, your saving grace, has been in that waiting room, wearing a freaking baseball hat, trying to blend in like he isn’t a freaking rock star, for almost twenty-four hours, waiting to make sure you’re okay.” Cara ran her hand through her hair excitedly. “In fact, he flew me all the way from New York on a redeye so I could be here. Mom and Dad were going to come too, but instead, they stayed back to watch Callie while Jack worked. They’ve been texting me, along with Jane, every three seconds, asking how you are. OH! And not only did Reid fly me out here, but he’s also paying for all your medical costs.”

My face felt hot. No. No. No.

“I don’t want him to pay for my medical costs.”

Cara huffed and gave me a side-eye. “What is wrong with you?” She paused. “I mean, other than being sick.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, my head throbbing even harder now.

Cara’s eyes softened, as she must have put two and two together. “Something happened between you two.”

I laughed. “Oh, something happened, all right.” I gently shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. Just… tell him I said thank you, and I’m grateful, but I don’t want him paying for the medical costs. Tell him the only thing I want him to do is finish a song so I can be paid and move on.”

Cara frowned. “Brooklyn.”

“What?” I very grumpily asked.

“He won’t take no for an answer, you know that, right?”

My heart began to thump inside my chest at the thought of seeing him again. His deep amber eyes, glittering with golden specks, his perfectly tousled brown hair, the sharp line of his jaw, those perfectly pouty lips. He told you he wanted you to leave. I began to shake my head at Cara, seconds from pleading with her, from using anything in my reach to bargain my way out of talking to Reid again, but the light sound of shuffling near the hospital door took my attention.