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CHAPTER TWENTY

White light slowly seeped into my vision and a ringing sound filled my ears. I grimaced as I fully opened my eyes, all of the bright, blurry shapes slowly forming actual objects. A heart rate monitor. A small television. A hospital room.

“She’s awake!” It was Brooke’s voice.

“Alison? Are you okay?” Emilia asked, appearing in my vision as she leaned over me with a creased brow.

I blinked, feeling disoriented as my eyes swept around the room and over my body as I lay in a hospital bed. How the hell did I even get here? My mind was a shattered mess of memories that I couldn’t quite put together yet.

A voice calling out my name in the office. An ambulance and its wailing siren. A familiar hand squeezing mine.

“What happened?” I asked my friends.

They both looked pale with worry. There was no one else in the room. Did they bring me here somehow?

“You passed out at work,” Brooke told me, placing her hand on my shoulder. “The doctor said it was from exhaustion.”

My eyes widened. People had warned me about passing out from exhaustion, but I’d always thought they were exaggerating. “I was kind of tired, but I was just going to get a cup of coffee.”

“Cameron found you unconscious in the hallway and called an ambulance. He called us while he was in the ambulance with you,” Emilia added.

Cameron was the one who helped me? I didn’t even think that he was still in the building at the time.

I was lucky that he found me. If I had fallen differently, I could’ve hit my head and been seriously injured.

From what I could feel, it seemed like only my knees and my right shoulder ached. They must’ve taken the brunt of the fall.

“Where is he?”

“We had to force him to leave,” Brooke told me with a small smile on her face. “He refused to leave your side, but he was falling asleep in the chair he was sitting in.”

“He even pretended to be your husband so that he could be allowed to sit by your bed. They were only letting family in last night,” Emilia said. “He really cares about you, Alison.”

He pretended to be my husband? He sat by my side ?

The thought of Cameron still caring made a sob rack my body. Tears spilled from my eyes as I dropped my head.

“Aw, Alison,” Brooke said as she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, pulling me into a hug.

Emilia took my hand and squeezed it, concern shining in her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

I cried into Brooke’s shoulder for a minute before releasing her, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand as I sniffled. My chest felt so tight that it was hard to breathe, but I pushed through. “I ruined everything between me and Cameron, but he’s still so kind to me.”

Brooke frowned and shook her head. “You didn’t ruin everything.”

I shook my head even harder, only able to picture how sad he looked when he broke up with me. How defeated he looked. “It’s too late. You didn’t see how he looked when we broke up. He was crushed.”

Emilia and Brooke shared a brief look. “Maybe we didn’t see his look then, but we saw how he looked this morning. He had the kind of look you have when someone you love is hurt,” Emilia said.

“He was trying to hide it, but he was panicking on the inside,” Brooke added. “I think he was trying to be strong for you, even when you were unconscious.”

My heart thudded heavily as I tried to picture him with that look on his face. Did he really still care about me that much, despite all that I had done? It was hard to imagine, but I knew that my friends weren’t lying to me. They cared about me enough to give it to me straight.

“Did he say anything?” I asked them.

“Not much. He told us that he hoped you were okay, but he mostly talked to the nurse and doctor,” Emilia replied. “He kept asking them questions, wanting to make sure you’d be alright.”

I nodded. “Thank you for staying with me,” I told them, feeling immensely grateful. “How long have you been here?”

“Only a few hours,” Brooke said. “We arrived at nine, and it’s almost noon now. Cameron stayed the night, so we sent him home so he could change his clothes and have a shower.”

I turned to look at the window. Sure enough, the sun was shining outside. I’d been unconscious since last night.

I frowned at my friends. “Don’t you two have work?”

“We took the morning off,” Emilia said. “It was an emergency.”

“You didn’t need to,” I said, but I was touched. “That means you have to head back to work soon, right?”

“Stop trying to get rid of us,” Brooke teased me, making me laugh.

I sniffled and wiped away the rest of my tears, holding myself together for now. Honestly, I was getting too tired to even cry anymore. Even if Cameron didn’t visit me again before I was discharged, I was still so grateful for what he did.

I hoped that he would let me thank him.

“Before we go, I’ll flag down the nurse and let her know that you’re awake,” Emilia said, squeezing my arm before heading out of the room to hunt down the nurse.

Brooke turned to me with a gentle expression on her face. “It’ll all be okay. No matter what happens.”

I breathed in deeply and nodded. “Thank you.”

“As for Cameron…I think you should tell him how you truly feel the next time that you see him.”

Cold fear filled my chest. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“It’s something you need to do. You’ve obviously fallen in love with him, Alison. You should tell him so that he at least knows,” Brooke replied. “Maybe you can salvage the relationship.”

Was that true? Was I in love with Cameron?

I thought of his laugh. I thought of the way we sat in the bath together in the hotel, his gentle hands massaging my shoulders. I thought of him sitting by my side all night.

My heart ached, because I knew it was true — I did love him.

But could I really repair what had broken between us? I was afraid of hoping for too much. What if he didn’t care that I loved him? What if that still wasn’t enough?

I couldn’t bear having my heart broken all over again .

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

Brooke gave me one more hug before Emilia walked into the room with a middle-aged, dark-haired nurse on her heels. The nurse picked up my chart and smiled at me. “Welcome back, honey.” She noted my vitals before checking me over. “Any head pain?”

I shook my head. “Just my knees and my left shoulder.”

“We can rule out head trauma then,” the nurse said. “Luckily, it seemed like you fell in a way where your knees hit the ground first before your side. Way better than falling straight forward or back.”

“They said I passed out from exhaustion.”

The nurse nodded. “Dr. Adams is finishing up with another patient right now, but he’ll be here soon to tell you everything you need to know and answer any questions.”

“Okay,” I said before looking over at my friends. “Thank you for visiting me.”

Emilia and Brooke hugged me goodbye. As they left, they told me to get better soon. Once the nurse stepped out, I sank back into the pillows, my eyelids feeling heavy.

Approaching footsteps roused me out of the half-asleep state that I was in. I opened my eyes just as a doctor who looked to be in his late thirties strode into the room.

Dr. Adams paused. “Sorry. Were you trying to sleep?”

I offered him a polite smile and shook my head. “Just resting. ”

He smiled back and grabbed my chart, looking over what was noted by the nurse. “Vitals look good. No serious pain or head trauma. We did a blood panel. Nothing serious, but it looks like your immune system is compromised. Are you dealing with a lot of stress?”

“You could say that,” I replied. “I work a lot. And…” I hesitated. “I recently went through a breakup.”

Dr. Adams nodded as he set my chart down and approached my bedside. “I spoke with the man who called for help for you. He told me that you tend to overwork yourself and that you hadn’t been eating or sleeping much lately.”

In the past, I would’ve been annoyed that Cameron ratted me out to the doctor, but now all I could hear was that he cared enough to let the doctor know what was going on. I hadn’t even spoken to Cameron about my sleep and appetite, but he knew me well enough to be able to tell just from being around me.

He probably saw all the half-eaten food in my trash can too, or caught me taking quick power naps throughout the workday to keep myself going. He knew the signs, and I stupidly ignored them because I was so heartbroken.

I didn’t care enough, and I suffered the consequences.

“That’s true,” I admitted. “I bury myself in my work, whether I’m at the office or at home.”

Dr. Adams frowned. “Well, it’s clear what happened. You got sick from overworking and exhaustion, which led to your immune system being severely compromised from stress.”

I nodded as I listened to him. I did this to myself. How could I treat myself so horribly and expect everything around me to prosper?

“You need to rest and find balance in your life,” Dr. Adams told me sternly. “The way you’ve been living isn’t sustainable. You’ll be looking at a whole slate of other health issues if you don’t change.”

“What kind of health issues?”

“Heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and gastrointestinal diseases can be linked to stress,” Dr. Adams replied.

My stomach dropped. I’d heard stress could kill, but I thought it was just an exaggeration.

“I did get the flu after pulling all-nighters in college,” I admitted. “But other than that, I’ve been fine.”

“You should’ve learned your lesson back then,” he said. “You might be okay now, but think about what would happen if you keep this up for another ten or twenty years.”

“Work’s just such a big part of my life,” I said in a small voice.

He nodded. “I understand. As a doctor, even I struggle maintaining a proper work-life balance, but it has to be done. You need to balance your work with adequate sleep, exercise, and time with friends and family to recharge. Limit your work only to the office if possible. ”

I couldn’t argue with that. “I’ll do better,” I promised.

No wonder Cameron was so concerned. He could see me deteriorating right in front of his eyes, and I was so damn stubborn that I didn’t listen to him.

Dr. Adams offered me a kind smile and patted my shoulder. “There are more important things than work.”

How many people had said that to me, and how many times had I brushed those words off? I felt uncertainty and guilt. Guilt about how I treated myself and how I treated others. I put work first because it was the most natural thing for me to do.

Sure, I wanted success. But was I ready to pay the cost?

“Thank you,” I said. “I needed to hear that.”

“A lot of people do. The good thing is that you’re young, and you have time to fix your habits and your health.”

“I will,” I assured him.

“Get some rest. I want to keep you here overnight for observation. Tomorrow, we’ll check your vitals and hopefully send you on your way,” Dr. Adams told me before bidding me goodnight.

I watched him leave, exhaling slowly and shakily. I wasn’t anywhere near dying, but it felt like I took a glimpse of my death. Weak and tired. Sick and pale.

That wasn’t what I wanted for myself. I wanted so much more for my life, and for once, work was the last thing on my mind .

The next morning, I was dying to leave the hospital. As nice as all the nurses and doctors were, there were things I wanted to do and people I wanted to talk to. Being in the hospital just reminded me of all the mistakes I made. Not failures. Mistakes.

“Vitals look good,” Dr. Adams told me as the dark-haired nurse handed him my chart. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel much better,” I said. I’d had big meals, got a lot of sleep, and my mind felt much clearer. The sunlight was warm and seemed brighter today, and I hoped that things were going to look up from here on out.

“Good. You can be discharged,” Dr. Adams told me with a pleased grin. “We’ll get you the paperwork, and then you can leave.”

“Great, thank you.”

Once the nurse brought me the discharge paperwork, I signed everything and changed back into my clothes, feeling relieved to be out of the hospital gown. I strode out of the hospital room stronger than before, but I didn’t push it. I didn’t magically heal over two days, even if I felt better. Dr. Adams had given me a list of vitamins and supplements that I could take to help repair some of the damage that I had done to my body. I was going to have a pretty stacked shopping list this week.

When I stepped into the reception area, I froze in place at the sight of Cameron signing in at the front desk. “ Cameron?”

Cameron turned to me, setting down the pen in his hand. He walked over to me, his eyes sweeping over me. “They already discharged you? Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m feeling better. A little weak, but the doctor said that would pass with time. I just need to rest,” I told him.

Cameron looked wary. “And are you going to do that? Rest?”

I smiled a little and nodded. “I’m going to take a week off work and delegate my duties to my leads while I’m gone.”

Surprise filled his face before being replaced with relief. “That’s a great idea.”

If I wasn’t so nervous about figuring out what his feelings for me were, I would’ve laughed a little at how shocked he sounded. The fact that he reacted that way meant that I was on the right path. I just had to keep going down it.

“Thank you for calling for help the other day,” I told him. “And thank you for calling my friends and staying with me until they kicked you out.”

A small smile formed on Cameron’s face as he nodded. “Yeah, they were pretty firm. I was just about to come check on you again.”

I lifted my phone. “I was just about to call an Uber and head home.”

A moment of silence hung between us as we gazed at each other, tension and anticipation charging the air. There was so much that I wanted to say to him, but where did I even start? What if we weren’t on the same page?

“I can take you home,” Cameron offered. “So you don’t have to wait on an Uber.”

My face softened as a fluttering sensation filled my chest. “That would be nice. Thank you.”

Cameron nodded and led me out of the hospital, glancing back at me every so often to check on me. “Do you need to pick anything up on the way? Something to eat?”

I shook my head and touched his arm as we stopped by his car. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

When he looked down at my hand, I pulled it away with a racing heart, hoping I hadn’t overstepped.

Cameron didn’t say anything, though. He merely opened the passenger’s side door so that I could get in.

Once I got settled, I released a nervous exhale as he walked around to his side of the car. I truly didn’t know what to expect, but Brooke’s words echoed in my head. I owed it to him to be honest, even if he didn’t feel the same way.

Today, I could either get closer to him than ever before or I could lose the chance of being with him forever.