There was a window in the room. If I could just climb out… I took another step and had to double over from the pain.
Damn it. I couldn’t stay here. I was a sitting duck for whenever my father decided he needed another organ. I took another step forward. It felt like someone was ripping my stomach in two.
“What are you doing out of bed?” A nurse rushed into the room.
“I need to leave.”
“You need to lie down.”
I tried to move away from her but she stepped in front of me.
She pushed a button by my bed and two big male nurses came into the room. One was holding a syringe.
No, not again. “Get away from me.” I wanted to scream and throw things, but my knees were weak. I was seconds away from collapsing, but they stabbed me with the syringe anyway.
Everything was blurry as they got me back in bed.
“Try to rest,” the first nurse said.
I looked back down at the empty spot on my finger where the ring Matt had given me had been. I’d thought I had it all figured out. I’d thought I’d be a Caldwell and live happily ever after.
But I’d always be a Pruitt.
Chapter 3
Saturday
I was in a new room now. One without a window. My dad must have been worried I’d try to escape again. So he was keeping me prisoner in a windowless cage.
But I didn’t have any visitors. None of the nurses told me anyone was trying to reach me. Which meant my dad didn’t really have anything to worry about. Where would I go? Kennedy hated me. Isabella was trying to kill me. My friend Felix was in jail because of me. I looked down at where my ring once sat. Matt didn’t love me anymore.
I had nowhere to go.
And I was tired.
I closed my eyes tight, wishing I could wake up from this hell.
Everything hurt. Every single inch of my body. But nothing hurt as much as my heart. It felt like it was shattered in a million tiny pieces.
I closed my eyes tighter.
I was familiar with this feeling. I’d felt the same way when my mom passed away. And I’d felt it again when I lost Uncle Jim.
It felt like…loss. Unsurmountable loss. I felt my tears trail down the sides of my face, falling into my hair.
I couldn’t do this again. I just wanted to let go. Matt and Kennedy’s words swirled around in my head.
“You’re just like Isabella.”
“My life isn’t a fucking fairytale like yours, Brooklyn.”
“I guess we’re both liars.”
I’m a monster. A whimper escaped my throat.
Why couldn’t it all be a dream? Why couldn’t I wake up?
Chapter 4
Monday
“You need to eat,” the nurse said as she set down another tray of food beside the one I hadn’t touched from this afternoon.
I didn’t bother responding. I’d already told her several times that I wasn’t hungry. A hunger strike probably was a good move at this point. But that wasn’t why I left all my food untouched. I just…wasn’t hungry. Not when my stomach was so twisted up inside.
She wrote something down in a notebook.
Screw you too. “Can I please have my phone now?”
“We’ve already been over this. You don’t have a phone.”
I hated this bitch. “Then can I please use your phone? Or the house phone? Or the phone wherever we are?”
“That’s just not a possibility. Now make sure you eat every bite.”
If I’d still had the IV cord I would have tried to strangle her with it. “Please,” I said.
“See you in the morning.” She hurried away, ignoring my very reasonable request.
All I ever saw were her and the two big nurses who liked to inject me with something whenever I misbehaved. Which I’d stopped doing, for the record. All I did was sit here all day. I eyed the food on the tray and then turned away from it.
Each day that went by made me more and more hopeless.
I sighed and stared at the white wall.
Kennedy had been right. For just a few seconds I’d had everything. My life had seemed like a fairytale. But it had all been a façade. Kennedy was the one that had everything. Everything that I’d lost. She had a loving mother. Someone who was always on her side. An unconditional kind of love I’d never have again. I just wanted to go back home to Delaware. I wanted another chance to do everything differently.
My life was no fairytale. Which meant Matthew Caldwell wasn’t my knight in shining armor. He wasn’t going to show up and save me. He’d always been good at not showing up when I needed him most.
Chapter 5
Wednesday
Please, Matt. I’m sorry. Don’t leave me here. All I could feel was the wetness on my cheeks.
I closed my eyes, praying to a God I didn’t believe in that this was all a terrible dream. I begged him to let me wake up from it.
But there was no waking up.
The scar on my stomach and the ring missing from my finger were both permanent reminders.
I’m sorry I lied, Matt. I’m so sorry. Please save me.
Chapter 6
Thursday
I was mad at Matt for leaving me at the Pruitts’ apartment when he knew they were dangerous. I was mad at him for not answering my calls before the surgery. And I was mad at him for not having my back.
What was he even upset about, anyway?
Isabella was the worst. No, she probably didn’t deserve to be covered in pudding. But it was funny.
Or was he upset about my hanging out with James and Rob? I was trying to fix his friendship. Was he jealous? Was that it? Because that was ridiculous. I loved him and only him. He knew that. And just thinking about him being mad at me made me furious at him.
I’d apologized to him immediately. And his response? That I belonged with the crazy Pruitts. That I was officially one of them. And that stung. I’d always thought he’d seen me for me. That my new last name didn’t define me. He’d been lying to me the whole time. All he saw when he looked at me was my last name.
But just because I was mad didn’t mean I stopped loving him. My anger didn’t take away all the good memories we’d shared. And that we’d share again as soon as I got out of my cage.
I was going to fix us. All I needed to do was get out of here. I sat up when the nurse came in with my food.
She sighed as she saw my previous untouched plate.
“I need to talk to my dad.”
“Your father is a very busy man. You know this.”
He hadn’t been busy a few days ago when he stole my kidney. And shouldn’t he have been recovering too? Probably in some fancy recovery center where they didn’t lock their patients in their rooms. If he had time to do all that, he certainly had time to talk to me on the freaking phone. “Please. Could you just call him and tell him I need to speak with him? Tell him it’s urgent.”
“And what exactly is urgent?”
The fact that you’re keeping me locked up in here. Although, I was pretty sure she was following my father’s orders. “It’s a private matter.”
“I see. Well, I’m under strict instruction to not bother him with anything unimportant.”