Chapter Sixteen
Hayden
I reached for the refrigerator door and lost my balance. We had just finished my physical therapy and I was hungry as hell. And of course, Grace had gone to get a shower. I could hear the water running as she washed herself down, so I figured I had enough strength to hobble into the kitchen and get myself a snack. I knew she wouldn't approve, but it was about damn time I started moving around by myself. It had been five weeks since that fucking surgery, and I needed my life to get back to normal again.
Then, as if my leg didn’t fucking exist any longer, it gave out on me and I fell to the floor.
“Ah! Shit!”
“Hayden?”
“What the fuck!?” I asked, groaning.
“Hayden? What’s wrong?”
I could hear Grace slam out of a door somewhere as wet footsteps fell onto the floor. She was running around the damn apartment trying to find me, and it dawned on me out much of an inconvenience I was to her. The woman couldn’t even take a fucking shower without me screwing up her world and worrying over me. I gripped my hip and clenched my teeth, trying to find a way off the damn floor before she found me.
But every move I made sent blinding pain shooting up my side.
“Hayden! Where are you!?”
I couldn't breathe in deeply enough to call for her. And part of me didn’t want to. I’d been in physical therapy with my hip for all of three damn months, and it was time I was upright again. It was time I got back to my work. To my world. To making money and building hotels and running shit the way it needed to be run. I was putting off investor meetings and flooding my COO, Mike, with way too much shit.
And the worst part was he was doing a really good job. With every passing day he was in the driver’s seat, it made me look worse.
I had to get back to my company and show them why I fucking ran the damn place.
“Oh my gosh. Hayden. Come here.”
I was groaning and holding my head, trying to abate my embarrassment. I could hear that tone in her voice. That small tone women took with stubborn toddlers. I hated that fucking tone. I hated that she saw me as beneath her. As some insolent child she had to take care of instead of a man who could take care of her. Grace squatted down onto the floor, trying to be careful in her movements, but once she reached for me something snapped.
I smacked her hand out of the way to try and get her to leave.
“Hayden, what in the world?”
“Get the hell away from me,” I said.
“We have to get you off this floor. I have to get your pants off and-”
“I said… get the hell away from me, Grace.”
I was angry. Fed up. Embarrassed. Grace deserved better than this from me, and I knew I could give it to her. I knew I was capable of giving it to her. I just had to start fucking walking again. Why wasn’t any of this shit working? Grace praised me day in and day out like I was making massive strides, but I couldn't even make a damn sandwich on my own!
I was pathetic, and she didn’t need to be seeing any of it.
“Hayden, we have to get you off the floor. I have to take a look at you,” she said.
“Leave me here,” I said.
“That isn’t an option. I’m your nurse, and-”
“Well, you’re a shitty one.”
“What?” she asked.
I felt my anger bubbling out of control. I felt my veins bulging from my body. Every misstep. Every surgery. Every day I was absent from the office and every day someone kept me out of the loop with something came boiling over. I was being forgotten. Replaced. People were giving up on me. On this recuperation. There was talk of my not returning at all. Talk of me selling off my controlling shares and living the rest of my life in seclusion.
But that wasn’t fucking happening.
I was going back to work tomorrow.
“Who the hell takes a shower in the middle of the damn day? You’re supposed to be watching me,” I said.
“And you’re supposed to be following orders to the tee. Remember what the surgeon said? You know that after your physical therapy you have to stay in your wheelchair. Your body is spent! What were you doing upright in the kitchen?”
“I was hungry.”
“Then you come get me,” Grace said.
“You were showering. Like a maniac at four in the afternoon.”
“Then you still come get me,” she said. “Now are we done with this pity party? Because we still need to get you off the floor.”
I felt her reach for me again but my eyes snapped open. I tried to control the anger rising within my body, but I couldn’t. Grace grabbed tightly into my wrist to try and help me off the floor, but I wasn’t having it. I was moving on my own time, with my own strength, and with my own movements. I fought against her wishes, relegating myself to the damn floor instead of allowing this beautiful woman to help me once again.
But instead of allowing her to help, I snapped again. I yanked my wrist from her grasp and she came tumbling down to me.
Her naked body, wrapped in a robe and dripping with water.
And her knee slammed right into my shoulder.
The shoulder that had just healed only a few weeks ago.
“What the fu-? Get the hell out of here!” I exclaimed.
She scrambled off me as quickly as she could before she turned around and looked down at me.
Down.
People were always fucking looking down at me now.
“Get out,” I said.
“Hayden, stop fighting me. You can’t stay on the floor forever.”
“You’re fired,” I said.
Grace paused and I felt panic rising in my veins. This was the only way. The only way to get her to go on about her life. If I was going to have any chance at a relationship with her once I was fully healed and back to being the man I knew she needed, I had to get rid of her. The more she saw me like this-- the more she helped-- the more of a burden I became. She was stunting her life with this. Attaching herself to a crippled man who relied too heavily on her.
That wasn’t the kind of man I was.
And it wasn’t the kind of man Grace deserved.
“What?” she asked.
“You heard me. You’re fired.”
“You can’t fire me. You need help.”
“What I need is a competent nurse to get me up and around my own fucking house. And you clearly aren’t capable of that.”
“Aren’t capable of it?” she asked.
I rolled over and perched on my knees and grimaced. Just putting pressure on my knee made my hip hurt. But I didn’t want to show that to her. It only gave her grounds to interfere again like she’d tried to the first time. Threatening to send me back to the hospital and shit.
I was done relying on people.
It was time they started relying on me again.
“You can’t do that. Please let me-”
“For the love of all thing Holy, stop touching me!” I roared.
I smacked her hand away so hard the crack shocked me. I heard Grace sniffle and guilt immediately pooled in my chest. I looked up and saw her cradling her hand against her chest and I bit down on the inside of my cheek. Shook my head. Cursed myself.
I’d hurt her.
Fuck. I wasn’t worthy of her at all.
Grace took a couple of steps back from me and I reached up for the edge of the counter. I physically hoisted myself into the air and stood on my own two feet, despite the incredible amount of pain I was in. I drew in deep breaths as sweat poured down my back. My knee was trembling and my arms were sore and everything around me felt like it was fucking crumbling.
This surgery was supposed to fix me.
Not make me worse.
“I’m ready for part-time help,” I said breathlessly. “And I don’t think you’re capable of it.”
Grace sniffled again and it broke my heart.
“You’ve done enough. Go pack your things.”
“Who’s going to take care of you?” she asked.
Her voice sounded to dejected and I resisted the urge to open my arms to her. I looked over at her, swallowing my tears as my eyes gazed upon hers. Those beautiful eyes, filled with so much pain and dejection. I could see how red her hand was and it made me angrier. I didn’t even have a productive outlet for my fucking emotions.
I was a wreck, and she really didn’t need to see that.
“I’ll find someone. There’s plenty of people willing to work part-time,” I said. “Now go pack your things.”
“Hayden, please-”
“I said, now!”
My voice echoed off the corners of the kitchen as Grace scuttled past me. Her breaths were shallow and tears were running down her cheeks. I leaned over until my forehead was sitting against the kitchen counter, my hands threaded behind the back of my neck. I heard her bedroom door slam shut and it shook something inside of me.
Brought something to light that I’d been suppressing for so long.
I cared about Grace. More than I should’ve. I wanted what was best for her, and I wasn’t it. I couldn't accept her help any longer because every time she put her hands on me I couldn't control the throbbing of my groin. I couldn't have her helping me dress any longer because every time I felt her fingertips on my skin it set me on fire. I couldn't eat dinners with her any longer and gaze into her night-strewn eyes because I enjoyed a little too much how the stars twinkled in her beautiful stare.
She needed to get out. To go find a guy who was worth her time.
And if I could repair things between us once I was healed, then I would.
I somehow managed to prop myself up between the counter and the fridge so I could maneuver myself back into the living room. I’d made it all the way into the damn kitchen from the windows before my leg collapsed from underneath me. No warning. No numbness. No tingling. It just refused to work as I was opening up the refrigerator. I stumbled back into my wheelchair and leaned back, sighing as my eyes closed. I was in so much pain. My vision was tunneling and I felt my head beginning to throb. I used my arms to wheel myself back to my room, then I made my way into the bathroom to find my stuff.
But I stopped when I heard it.
The sounds were faint, but they were there. The light sobs of a distraught woman. I closed my eyes and focused on the sound. I allowed myself to memorize it. Grace was sitting on her bed in her room, crying as she packed up her things. Her sniffles came wafting through the walls and her stifled sobs were muffled and full of pain. She drew in shaking breaths and tried not to cough, and with each new sound I clenched my fists harder.
I forced myself to commit the moment to memory. The moment where I had made the woman I cared for cry. No man did that. No man worthy of any woman’s time made her cry. I opened my orange pill bottle and threw one back, choking it down without any water to chase it with. I didn’t deserve the water. Just the bitter taste of the pill as it slowly inched its way into my stomach.
Then I wheeled over to the far wall and placed my hand on it, splaying my fingers along the only thing that separated Grace and I.
I willed her to stop crying as I imagined comforting her. Murmuring how sorry I was and kissing the ache away in her hand. I closed my eyes and slumped back into my chair, then drew in a deep breath.
There was a good chance I’d be in that damn thing forever.
And the only woman who was okay with that was crying because of me.
Fuck.
I really knew how to screw shit up.