I figured if Lex really wanted to end his life, he’d figure out some way to do it, but he sure as shit wasn’t going to do it while on my watch.
Chapter Five
Lex
He'd taken the bag with him.
I knew that only because the bag made a crinkling sound every time it moved. With the silence that had surrounded Gideon and me, I'd been able to hear a lot more than usual. That crinkle had been there when he’d been sorting through my bag and then I'd heard it again as he’d placed it near me, presumably on a nightstand or table by the bed. There had been a beat of silence and then the crinkling had begun all over again.
I felt sick to my stomach as I reached out to search for the bag. I really wanted to be wrong about the whole thing. But when my fingers didn't come into contact with the distinctive material, I felt my stomach drop out.
"What did you expect?" I murmured to myself.
I put my hand out again to look for the sandwich that I’d put down earlier. I had absolutely no appetite, but I knew that I needed to get my blood sugar up. I'd been honest with Gideon when I’d told him that I'd known I'd made a terrible mistake when I'd injected myself with an entire cartridge of insulin. The second the distinctive click had registered in my brain I'd wanted to undo it. I'd downed two granola bars that I'd had in my bag as quickly as I could, but it hadn't been enough. The insulin had worked quickly and by the time I'd realized the food hadn't counteracted the medicine, it had been too late. I’d started to feel the telltale signs of a hypoglycemic event, but I'd been helpless to do anything about it.
I tried not to think about what would've happened if Gideon hadn't shown up when he had. The fact was that I owed the man my life.
The sandwich tasted like sawdust as I forced it down. I drank at least half of the water bottle and then just sat on the side of the bed with the weight of the food feeling like lead in my belly. There was a warm, furry body pressed against my leg, so I reached out my hand. Brewer automatically licked it and I found myself smiling. I'd never been around dogs much, so just feeling the animal’s soft fur was a strange kind of treat for me.
When I’d learned years earlier that my condition was irreversible and I’d slowly started to lose my sight, I'd refused any efforts by my doctors to get me into therapy so I could start to both mentally and physically prepare myself for what was to come. Even when the spots had started to appear, followed by increasingly blurrier and blurrier moments, I still hadn't accepted the inevitable. Many of the doctors had reminded me that I had other senses I could rely on, along with advances in technology, to live a relatively normal life, but I’d ignored them. The fact was that they hadn't understood that losing my sight wasn't just changing my life, it was ending it.
I sighed and gave Brewer a couple more pats and then settled back down on the bed. My mind drifted to a place it probably shouldn't have been going.
Gideon.
I hated that I had no clue what he looked like. From the clothes he'd given me, I could tell he was larger than me. His gruff voice and blunt way of saying things made me think he was the type of guy who didn't put up with a lot of bullshit. He clearly had some knowledge about diabetes, but I wasn't sure if he too was struggling with the same disease or if it was someone he loved. I hadn't heard anybody else in the house since we'd arrived, but since I had no idea what time it was, it was entirely reasonable that someone would be coming home anytime soon. A wife maybe. Or girlfriend. I only smelled his unique scent on the bed I was in, but that was probably only because I loved the woodsy, clean aroma.
I reached out to the second pillow on the bed and drew it closer to me. I inhaled deeply but there were no hints of any other smell besides his. No flowery or fruity scents of any kind.
Instead of returning the pillow to its place on the bed, I found myself wrapping my arms around it. For some reason it helped settle the nerves in my belly. At the moment, I was entirely dependent upon Gideon and that should have frightened me. Not to mention that he'd seen me at my most vulnerable. But somehow, lying there in his big bed with his scent wrapped around me like a blanket, I felt safe. Cared for, even.
Although my mind wanted me to stay awake purely for self-preservation purposes, my body ultimately gave in to the need to sleep. When I opened my eyes, I had that painful split second that I had every morning when I realized yet again that the blurred vision and dark spots that danced before my eyes weren’t just left over from sleeping. It was like learning I was going blind all over again. I wondered if there would ever be a day when I woke up and saw only blackness and didn't have that moment of fear that something was wrong. It would just be… normal.
Typically, I would've used my phone to figure out what time it was, but since that wasn't an option and I didn't hear anything around me except for the creaking of the house, I swung my legs over the bed and sat there as I tried to get my bearings. I no longer felt Brewer in the bed with me. I knew I should probably call out for Gideon, but it just felt wrong to do so.
I'd come to these woods to figure out how to accept my new reality… to see if I even could. That hadn't changed. There wouldn't always be someone around to call for. I forced myself to get up and waited to see how I felt. I'd had plenty of hypoglycemic episodes before, some even more serious than the one I'd had today, so I knew the physical ramifications would take some time to get past. Especially the exhaustion.
My legs felt surprisingly strong as I stood up. I closed my eyes because the blurriness would just make me feel more off balance. When I'd run out of the room earlier in the day, I hadn't noticed anything about my surroundings. I’d truly been running blind and hadn't cared what had stood in my path. The only thing I really remembered during my episode of flight was stumbling down some stairs and landing on snow that might as well have been cement.
And then Gideon had been there…
I shoved away thoughts of how it’d felt to have his strong arms around me and focused on getting out of the room. It was a painfully long process and it wasn’t pretty. My feet, knees, and hands bumped against countless items as I felt my way along the wall and through the door. I had no way of knowing which way to go when I left the room, so I spent several long minutes trying one direction, only to find that it was a dead end. I went the other way, taking my time to feel along the wall. Luckily, I didn't run into any more furniture. But then I reached another doorway and I was once again faced with not knowing which way to go. I reluctantly opened my mouth to call for Gideon when I heard Brewer whining and then his big body was pressing against my legs.
"Hey, buddy," I said as I carefully knelt down and greeted the dog. I wished I could see what color his coat was. From the feel of it, I guessed that he was a very beautiful animal. I righted myself and began feeling my way around again. Surprisingly, Brewer stayed pressed up against me and I found myself using the dog to stay grounded. When I took a step forward, Brewer was right there beside me. The same with the next step, and the next. I was completely disoriented because I was out in the open with nothing to hang on to, but Brewer's presence gave me confidence. I slowly put one foot in front of the other, letting out the breath I'd been holding. I found myself dropping my hand so I could keep it on Brewer's back.