“Rick is in the car waiting on me. Papers are signed. If he’s giving y’all a ride, I’ll see you at the house,” the bitch said.
“Sure thing, Mom,” Krit said with obvious annoyance.
“You drive safe with my baby in the car,” the woman told me. I nodded that I had heard her, but I didn’t give her a glance. I was too busy watching Trisha as they helped her adjust her arm sling. I saw the nurse’s frown as she watched Fandora leave without a word to Trisha.
Trisha didn’t need her stepmother. She had me. I would be enough from now on.
Trisha
When we had walked into the trailer, Fandora wasn’t there. Her car was out front, but she’d said she was with her boyfriend, Randy. So apparently he had taken her back to whatever bar they had been at when Green’s father had tracked her down. I hadn’t known Green’s dad was in the waiting room, aware of this whole mess.
“Let’s get you to the bed,” Rock said, coming in behind me. I didn’t have it in me to push him away again. He was so sweet, and he had been there through all of this and none of it had scared him away. If he just wanted in my pants, then he sure wouldn’t have faced down Fandora and stuck by me all night.
“If you need an extra pillow, you can have mine,” Krit offered, hovering around me like he was afraid I might break at any moment.
“I’ll be fine with mine,” I assured him.
“Are you sleeping in her room?” Krit asked Rock.
“She and I are going to talk about that. Why don’t you go on and get some rest. Know I’m not leaving and she’s safe,” Rock told him.
I assumed Krit would argue, but he didn’t.
“Yeah, okay,” he replied, then leaned over and kissed my head. “Rest. I need you better,” he said to me.
“I will,” I told him.
He gave Rock one last look, then turned and headed for his room.
It hadn’t taken him long to decide he trusted Rock. But then, after watching him at the hospital I was beginning to trust him too.
“Once you get comfortable I’m going to get you some water, and you need to take one of the pills the doctor sent home with you. It will help you rest easier.”
“You don’t have to stay,” I told him. He had promised that he wasn’t leaving me, but he had a life. I wasn’t his responsibility.
“No, Trisha, I don’t. But I want to stay,” he replied. “I’m going to get you some water. Time for you to take this pill.”
I didn’t respond to that. He stared down at me, waiting on me to argue, before turning and heading to the kitchen. The determined gleam in his eyes confused me. Why was he so bent on staying here? I knew from hearing Rose Mann talk in the restrooms at school that he was supposed to be with her tonight at Marcus Hardy’s party. He had also been talking to her by his locker, and I’d seen him kiss her in the hall earlier this week.
I had walked away from him, and he’d let me. From the looks of it, he had moved on. Now here he was again. I didn’t understand him at all. There was a good guy under all that sexy. Not only had he wanted to help me get to the hospital, but then he had stayed and dealt with Fandora. Why would someone who had a future to think about waste time with me and this mess?
“No bottled water, and I wasn’t sure the tap water was clean, so I poured milk. I’ve seen you drink it at lunch, so I thought that was a safe choice.”
Rock was once again filling up my small bedroom with his presence, making everything seem less scary. Less hopeless. And he knew that I drank milk at lunch. My heart did a silly flutter.
“Milk is good,” I told him. There weren’t any other options but beer in the fridge. But he didn’t point that out. I was also not supposed to drink the milk, but with Rock here I felt safe. Fandora couldn’t get to me if Rock was standing between us.
He opened the two bottles of pills and shook my dosage out into his palm. “Always thought it was cute that you drank milk at lunch,” he said, flashing me a grin that made me forget that my eye was swollen shut, my wrist was broken, and my ribs were fractured.
I drank milk at school because it was healthy, and I didn’t get much of that at home. It was supposed to make your bones stronger, and I needed strong bones living in this house. I wasn’t telling him that, though.
“Thanks,” I said as he held the glass of milk and pills out to me. I quickly took my pills, being careful with my split lip. It had stopped bleeding and I wanted to keep it that way.
“Drink all the milk if you can,” he instructed me.
I didn’t argue with him.
Once the milk was gone, he took the glass from me and set it beside my bed. “Lay back,” he said, and like with everything else, I did exactly as he said.