Bullet to the Heart (44 page)

After he put the Band-Aid over the injection site, he froze, and his hands dropped to his lap. She could see him staring at the side of her face, but she didn’t have the nerve to look at him. He stayed staring at her, and Bailey started trembling again. The tears she’d been fighting started pricking her eyes again, and she fought with every ounce of herself to keep them hidden from him, but it was no use. When he exhaled a deep breath, he opened his mouth, and her tears fell as she listened to him speak. “I never wanted to hate you. Not ever. You did this.”

Bailey didn’t bother apologizing; she didn’t bother trying to say anything at all. It was impossible with her tears streaming, and the breath she held captive in her chest was the only thing keeping her silent tears from turning to sobs of anguish. She would let him stick her with a thousand needles dipped in alcohol before she allowed herself to feel the pain of his words again.

Nurse Marie pushed the door open at just that moment, took one look at Bailey before her eyes flashed to Darren’s slumped figure sitting in the chair in front of her, and Bailey bolted. She snatched up her bag, grabbed her old hoodie that she’d abandoned on the exam table, and she pushed past Marie on her way out the door. Bailey ignored Marie’s concerned voice trailing after her, and she kept her head down until she’d reached the lobby of the hospital. She used the pay phone to call her mother, and she nearly hung up on her after she told her she was ready to be picked up. Bailey found a tree to stand under in the parking lot, and she waited. It wasn’t near the pick-up zone, but Bailey didn’t want to be any closer to the hospital than absolutely necessary.

This was the hell Bailey had been dreading, the hell she deserved. She was in it, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever get back out of it. Could she live like this for the rest of her life? Taunted and haunted, always running into her ghosts? She wanted to run away, but she couldn’t. Her mother needed her here, and there was just nowhere for her to go. She was trapped in this place, doomed to suffer for her sins.

long after the book is closed . . .

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