Page 16 of Dear Future Husband (The Dearly Written #1)

Maybelle

Darkness. Tumbling, never-ending darkness.

A rhythmic pounding—each beat painful.

Everywhere ached, felt wrong.

The dark smelled clean, chemically sterile.

The air was chilled. There were sounds. Echoes, tittering, chattering, voices.

A dull glow punctured the blackness. There was a light past the void. Was there a way out? Was there a way to escape the engulfing emptiness?

No feelings besides the ache, the pounding, my person or being non-existent in the space.

But that glow, that light, was starting to shove its way through, brighter and more piercing.

It started to burn; it was too much. There was no way to call out.

I was stuck, stuck, stuck in bright, helpless pain.

“Oh. My. God.”

Thuds, thumps heavy and quick approached. A shadow above me dimmed the all-consuming light.

“Oh my God, turn those lights off and get me Chelsea Turner!”

The bright world stung—until it didn’t.

Shapes, images, pictures focused and took root.

“Wakey, wakey, baby,” the shadow spoke in a lilting voice. Suddenly there was a warmth outside the fog, a solid embrace around a limb… My limb.

“My name is Betsy, baby. I’m gonna take care of you.”

I willed my world to become clearer, fighting against the pain and forcing the world to intensify and centralize around me.

A beautiful round woman with plump cheeks, dark skin, and big eyes looked down at me. The woman, Betsy, pursed her mauve-colored lips as she held to that limb—my wrist—placing two fingers on the inside. “Good morning, Maybelle, or should I say good middle of the night.”

A sharp noise had me jumping with a jerk, reminding me that every minuscule part of my being ached. Another woman strode up to me with tears streaming down her face.

She dropped into a chair next to my other side, opposite of Betsy. Both women were pretty, but neither looked like the other. The only similarities they had were in the clothes they wore. Both women wore the same color of seemingly comfortable light blue shirts and pants with a pair of sneakers.

“Maybelle, my name is Chelsea Turner. I’m Trey’s mom.” The woman, Chelsea, waited like I was supposed to know what any of that meant.

I squirmed with confusion. I was so lost, unsure of who these women were, who Trey was or better yet—what was a Maybelle?

Chelsea’s misty eyes turned to Betsy with concern. “Has she spoken yet, Bets?”

Betsy shook her head and pursed her lips again. “I don’t think the poor baby has gotten a chance to collect herself.”

Chelsea reached for me, but I pulled away.

What was going on? Who were they? Where was I?

Oh god, my head hurt. I grimaced and put a hand to my head. I was aware of everything: my body, my limbs. I could feel it all and it all throbbed with a dull hurt.

Chelsea adjusted on the chair next to me, briefly dragging my attention away from the pain.

“Sweetheart, can you tell me your name?”

I thought for a moment, my mind putty with no solid foundation for me to stand on. I tried to reply, but my dry mouth felt full of cotton.

Name. Name. Name. Did I have one ?

Like an empty book of stale, vacant pages, my mind contained zilch on names. My tongue flicked out, licking my lips, but it all was all the consistency of sandpaper. I almost gave up, but the curiosity and the frustration to hear myself make sound won over.

“No.” The sound was lower than I expected, but raspy and airy.

Chelsea’s face fell. Betsy clicked her tongue like that answer was what she’d been waiting to hear before she left the room.

I was in a room. A dimly lit room that had little to it but blank walls, whirring machines, and a square, glass opening that showed off darkness and a sea of bright stars.

Chelsea’s heaving sigh brought my focus back to the woman. “Your name is Maybelle,” she informed as she gestured to me. “Do you remember your mom and brother? Liam and Stephanie?”

I slowly shook my head in response. I opened my mouth to try to ask questions, but the door to the room flung open and a man with dark hair, pale skin and peppered facial hair strode in with Betsy in tow.

“Hello, Maybelle,” the tall man greeted as he approached my bedside. He was dressed head-to-toe but in navy-blue clothes similar to what Betsy and Chelsea wore, except he had donned a white coat that cloaked his shoulders and ran down to his mid-thigh.

“It is so good to see you awake. You had a very long nap. My name is Doctor Brown,” he said as he put a hand to his chest.

I didn’t reply or move, only evaluated. Doctor Brown—was such an interestingly accurate name for a man with rich brunette hair, dark scruff, and hooded chocolate eyes.

“I know you must be confused, maybe even frustrated. But we are going to help you understand everything and get you feeling better,” he said softly, as if he were calming an animal that needed taming.

He apparently did know a thing or two because I was seriously confused and extremely frustrated with the confusion.

My mind was reeling, racing, fleeing, returning, screaming for answers. I could recall nothing specific to my being, my identity, and it was terrifying—no, it was infuriating.

Doctor Brown’s gloved hands lifted my arm and held two fingers to my wrist, same as Betsy did when I had first woken up. His grasp encapsulated more of my wrist than Betsy’s touch had, but his was a lot more whispered on my skin.

“Nurse Turner,” Doctor Brown addressed without turning to Chelsea, who sat up straight in response. “I need you to call your son off his hunt. I do believe he is going to have a tangle with security out there if he is not controlled.”

Her eyes widened and, without another word, she was up and out the door.

Doctor Brown let out a huff of amusement before tilting my face up to look at him. He inspected my eyes by shining an unpleasant light into them that brought the ache in my head back with a vengeance.

“I hear you aren’t remembering a whole lot, Miss Belle,” he stated.

I squinted, studying the crinkled lines of the doctor’s face, the firm set of his jaw and the thick, dark goatee laced with aged white .

Taking my silence as answer, he nodded and continued, “But you are responding and seem to be functioning very well. It would be hard to believe you just slept through an entire year.”

A year ? That’s a long time.

Doctor Brown took a seat in the vacant chair that Chelsea had occupied. Betsy remained in the corner of the room, quietly watching, offering small reassuring smiles each time my gaze roamed to her.

“Do you remember your family?” he asked.

I shook my head, getting a slight twinge of knowing that fact should hurt…but nothing of merit came.

“Do you remember where you live?”

I shook my head.

“Do you know what two plus two is?” He quirked a bushy brow. I wanted to scoff, but I swallowed hard.

“Four,” I rasped.

He simply nodded. “Do you remember the night you fell asleep?” He leaned forward now, observing me.

I paused. The only thing I could recall past the blankness of my mind was bright red and blue flashing, holding hands, blood—I stopped and shook my head aggressively.

Doctor Brown’s head bobbed slowly. “That’s not entirely unfortunate,” he said, giving me a sad smile. He then rose from his chair. “I need to speak to a very upset and overprotective young man. I will be back shortly. In the meantime, Betsy will take care of you.”

He swiftly left the room while Betsy replaced him in the seat next to me.

“You may have been through hell and back, baby, but you are lucky.”

I slanted the lovely woman a curious look, silently asking what about any of this was lucky. Betsy gave me a full smirk, answering my silent inquiries.

“Because you got that boy out there who would do just about anything for you, meaning you’re not alone.”