Hidden Hearts by Olivia Dade

Author:Olivia Dade [Dade, Olivia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensignton Publishing Corp.
Published: 2017-06-19T18:30:00+00:00

* * *

No concussion. And an X-ray revealed that his nose wasn’t broken, just swollen and ugly. He supposed that was good. A few days, some strategically applied ice packs, and over-the-counter painkillers ought to take care of the problem entirely.

He wasn’t bleeding anymore. His nose only hurt a little bit. But he didn’t feel any sense of relief.

Instead, his skin had become too tight, his muscles so tense he was trembling. He felt like a man holding the pin in place on a bomb, knowing one false move would result in bits of him scattered everywhere. But despite his best efforts, his grasp was loosening moment by moment.

Nothing helped him get a good grip. Not TV. Not the internet. Not even the months-old beer he found at the back of his fridge. And he didn’t understand why. Why now, after all these months?

Nothing was wrong. Nothing was wrong. But telling himself that didn’t help either.

He stood under a hot shower and let the water sting his cuts and abrasions. He let his mind wander for just a moment. And in a flash, the memory he’d suppressed for so long burst free, exploding into his consciousness.

He shuddered, his hand braced against the slick wall of the shower.

The blue sky above him, the rubble and sharp tools below as he hurtled toward the ground from the bare-bones scaffolding. Screams all around. Then agony and blackness.

Another rough laugh ripped from his throat, and his knees threatened to buckle.

Now he knew what was happening. He could even put it in Hollywood terms.

Today’s fall was simply the PG version of what he’d experienced months ago. A sequel of sorts, the events of the original story driving the plot of the next one. His initial punishment, a lost arm in the first film, begetting more punishment, a bloody nose in the second.

All because of that fatal hero’s flaw, hubris. He was such a fucking cliché. His pain today, his agony then—he’d earned them both months ago, years ago, with his cockiness, carelessness, and stupidity. He deserved them both.

He repeated that to himself, shivering under the now-cold spray. He deserved what he’d gotten, more than he’d deserved his charmed life before the accident. And the reality, the permanence of his punishment had literally smacked him in the face today. The least he could do was acknowledge it.

No more pretending everything was fine. No more ignoring the obvious. No more aping normality.

He needed to rub his face in his own mess.

Leaving the water running, he stepped out of the shower and in front of the small mirror over the vanity. And for the first time since his accident, he deliberately raised the end of his left arm toward that mirror and examined its reflection.

The stitches had long since disappeared, but the skin there still looked new, pinkish under the fluorescent lights. And the doctors at the rural clinic hadn’t given him a flat or rounded terminus. Instead, the end of his arm now had topography. Peaks and valleys.

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