the questions I hadn’t been letting myself think about flooded my mind. Was I the reason that she was in here? Had I caused her to be sick? What if she’d had a heart attack? Why hadn’t I insisted that she sit down when I’d seen her color was off?
“We can see her.” Mrs. Porter announced before heading down the hall toward the patient. “Room three-twelve.”
All three of us stood and followed behind her.
When she opened the door, I walked in and saw my grandmother lying in the hospital bed, she had an oxygen tube under her nose and wrapped behind her ears and an IV in her arm.
“Gam.” I rushed to her side. “Are you okay? What did they say?”
“It was my blood pressure. I haven’t been taking my pills. And they also think I’m dehydrated.”
“What pills?” I hadn’t even known she was on blood pressure pills.
“Oh, I don’t know the names. And I don’t need them. I’m fine.”
“Clearly,” I waved my hand over her.
“She doesn’t like to take them because they make her nauseous and dizzy,” Mrs. Higgins explained.
“I told her she needed to go in and tell Dr. Edwards that she needed to adjust her dose,” Mrs. Scoggs expressed.
Mrs. Higgins lifted her hand as if she was swearing under oath. “I told her the same exact thing.”
“Would y’all stop talking about me like I’m not here?!” Gam snapped.
“You have to take your medicine, Gam.” I sat down beside her and held her hand as more tears fell from my face. These were from relief at seeing her talking, alert, and feisty.
“Oh Chipmunk, don’t cry. I’m fine.”
I sniffed and smiled as I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to talk without making my emotional state worse.
“Why don’t we go get some coffee, girls?” Mrs. Porter attempted to herd Mrs. Scoggs and Mrs. Higgins out of the room.
The trio was headed out when the door opened.
“There you are!” Drake walked in like he owned the place.
“Drake? What are you doing here?”
“There was a report of an ambulance leaving your house. I tried to call you a dozen times, but you weren’t answering. I was so worried.”
No, he wasn’t. I felt like this week I’d spent in Wishing Well had exposed me to sincerity, something I’d been lacking in my life, and now that I’d seen the real thing, anything manufactured stood out in neon lights.
I slid my phone out of my pocket. I didn’t have any missed calls from him. He hadn’t called me at all much less twelve times. But I did see that I had a message from Hannah, my publicist. I opened it and started to play a video of Drake walking into the hospital, looking very concerned. It was a publicity stunt. He was using my grandmother’s health as a pawn in the game of chess he called his career.
“Drake you need to leave.” I ordered him.
My phone rang and I saw that it was Hannah calling. I picked it up, “Can I call you right ba—”
“There’s a stipulation in the contract that says you have to stay with Drake, at least publicly, for five years. I did some digging. Apparently, they’ve had a lot of viewers threaten not to watch the show anymore if you two aren’t a couple. And Trent’s popularity had taken a nosedive this past week. Henson told Drake that if you didn’t sign, they would have to consider not renewing his contract at the end of the year.”
I stared at Drake who was holding his phone up and looked like he was filming an Insta story, that or taking a selfie.
“Drake you need to leave!”
He lowered the phone and the door opened again. I was expecting it to be hospital staff saying that there were too many visitors in the room. I didn’t expect to see Gen, but that’s who walked into the room.
“Gen? What are you doing here?” I asked.
“What are you doing here?” she asked the same question but directed it at Drake.
“Genesis, I’m so glad you’re here to support Sasha, but we should really wait outside.” He reached out to touch her arm, but she pulled it away from him.
“Don’t touch me!” She stepped away from him. “You were sleeping with her, weren’t you?”
“What’s going on?” I heard Mrs. Scoggs whisper.
“I think he was sleeping with Sasha.” Mrs. Higgins replied.
“No, not Sasha. Janika.” Gen’s eyes were wild as she swung around to me. “He was sleeping with Janika wasn’t he?” This time the question was directed at me.
“Um,