Page 72 of Desired By you (Always & Forever #3)
Chapter Sixty One
Gabriella
I love you.
Stay with me.
You’re going to be my seven minutes.
Gabriella, Gabby, Gabby…
My eyes ping open.
“You’re okay. It was just a dream.” I look over to Ria sits beside the bed I’m in, holding my hand. Beside her is Jack and I glance around the white room and see Harry and Ali, the other side and Noah.
“Brad, he, he…” I choke out, fighting for my next breath.
Ali’s soothing hand sweeps across my forehead. “He’s in surgery. They’re fixing him, okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“They took him for surgery. He lost a lot of blood, but the doctors are hopeful. We are just waiting for news,” Ali says calmly, but when I look into her broken eyes, I close my own and let the tears tumble down my cheeks.
“I thought he…” I break into uncontrollable sobs. My hand covers my mouth to smother my cries. Ali climbs into the bed beside me and cradles me in her arms, rocking me as if I were a small child.
“He’s strong, Gabs,” Noah says, clearing his throat. “I know he’ll be in there fighting to get back to you.” His words bring me a small sense of comfort, but it doesn’t take away the gaping hole inside of me that only seeing Brad can fill.
“We called your parents. We thought they should know. They will be here soon. They were out of town, otherwise they would have been here sooner.” Ria says, stroking the back of my hand. I nod in understanding, wanting to see them for the first time in a long time.
“How long has he been in there.” I sniff.
“About an hour.” Jack says quietly, not sounding like the strong, confident man he usually is.
“Why don’t I remember getting here?” I ask.
“You were in a bad way when we got to you. They had to, erm, sedate you,” Harry says, his voice cracking.
“When you got to me?” I look round at my friends confused.
“Yeah, when Brad knew you were in trouble, he called us, we had already arrived at the lake house so it took us a little time to get back, when we got there you… he…” Jack tries to finish his sentence but his words falter. Ria takes his hand and leans into his chest.
“You were trying to save him. Jack had to lift you off his body so we…” Harry gestures to Noah, “could work on him until the ambulance came.”
The room falls silent and an uncertain feeling blankets the room.
No one knows if he’s going to wake up, make it out of surgery, and even if he does, will he ever be the same after today’s events?
The idea of losing the man I love in one way or another makes my heart splinter just a little more.
The door to my room flies open and Mom rushes in.
“Gabriella,” she wails, throwing her body over mine as she begins sobbing.
I wrap an arm around her, realizing that this is the first time since I was a child that she’s held me or shown any real emotion. It feels nice.
“We’ll give you some time,” Ali says.
My friends leave the room, and my dad, who I hadn’t noticed until now, closes the door behind them.
“Oh darling, what happened? I called Patrick, but his mother answered and said he had been attacked too and was in the hospital. Is it the same man? Your father called the police department and—”
“Mom, stop,” I interrupt. “I’m not with Patrick, Mom. Never was.”
My mom’s horrified face turns to me and the usual guilt I would feel at disappointing my parents isn’t there. This is it, the moment I come clean, stand my ground. No place like a hospital than to rip off the band aid.
“Sit down, we need to talk.”
The saying, she was too stunned to speak really does apply here.
My mother stares blankly at the white wall after I tell her every detail.
The black mailing, the club, my relationship with Brad, all of it.
My dad stares at his lap, and I’ve spent the last four and a half minutes counting the seconds on the clock that’s hung on the wall, as it goes round and round.
Not able to take the painful silence a minute longer, I speak up. “Please say something, anything. I’d rather you yell than be silent.”
My father clears his throat. “I don’t know what you want us to say, Gabriella.”
His words feel like a slap to the face.
“Oh, I don’t know, Dad. How about, we love you? We’re glad you didn’t die. I’m sorry we’ve made you feel this way. We should have protected you better. We should have made you feel like you could come to us for anything and that we wouldn’t judge. How’s that for starters?”
“Gabriella, please, we need…”
“What, Mom, you need what?”
“Time. That is a lot to process.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“Gabriella, watch…” my dad scolds, but I’m done. I am so over the way they made me feel. I let it all out.
“My tone, my words? Is that what you were going to say? I am done pleasing you. If you can’t accept me for who I am, and what I do and who I love, then I don’t want to be in your lives.
I have never ever felt enough, and I’ve finally found people, friends, a man who makes me feel like I’m enough, and there is nothing you could say to change how I feel. ”
I sag in relief, waiting for the guilt to hit me, or the bundle of nerves to knot in my stomach after displeasing my parents, but it doesn’t come. Instead, it feels like a burden I have spent my life carrying has just been lifted from my shoulders and I can finally breathe.
The door creaks open and Ali peeks her head inside. “I’m sorry to interrupt but, Gabby, it’s Brad…”