XXX. Thanksgiving-2

"I'm okay," I promised him. "I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay," I kept repeating. Shea cried for a few minutes, and I kept whispering that everything was okay. I didn't think less of him at all. I knew there was a stigma around men and crying but I thought that was bullshit. I cried all the time. He could, too. When he had calmed himself down, he murmured to me, "I've always resented my mom a little, not a lot, but a little, for being so depressed after my dad died. But fearing you were dead, thinking you were dead, fuck, Sara, I don't know how she's still breathing." Shea met my eyes then. His brown eyes that were bloodshot, were now red and swollen, too. "I love you." "I love you more." "Not possible," he replied with conviction. I shuffled over in my bed, ignoring the protestations of my surgical site and the wires that were tugging all over my body. "Sara, stop, you'll hurt yourself!" protested Shea. I gave him a look that shut him up as I motioned for him to lie down beside me in the bed. He obeyed, very carefully lying down on his side next to me in the bed. We were suddenly very close, but I didn't feel that usual sense of embarrassment that I did when I was this close to Shea. Strangely, I felt an even deeper connection to him. We belonged to each other. It was how it was meant to be. I closed the distance between us and pressed my lips to Shea's. He was reserved for a moment before he softly deepened our kiss. "You smell weird," he said, murmuring against my lips. "Gee, thanks." I fought the urge to laugh as he inhaled dramatically. "I think it's the morphine," he decided. Shea kissed my hair and inhaled, contently saying, "But your hair still smells like you." Shea was asleep in minutes, breathing calmly and deeply against my hair, inhaling in the only part of my scent that was familiar. I was on an awkward angle, and were it not for the morphine, I knew I would be in a lot of pain, but I was happy to see Shea finally sleeping, and hopefully realising that I was okay, and that he didn't need to blame himself. A short while later, the nurse carefully let herself into the room and angrily went to protest what she saw us. I stopped her. "No, please, leave him," I begged. "He hasn't slept in days." I doubted he'd slept since Thursday night. "You need to look after yourself, especially after losing your spleen. Any damage to your surgical site and you could develop an infection very easily," she informed me, and I quickly realised that this was something I would now be adapting to. Shea let out a snore. I thought it was adorable. The nurse was not amused. "Come on, handsome," she urged, shaking Shea. Shea quickly roused almost defensively, gripping me instinctively. I flinched when his hand held the crook of my arm where my IV was. He immediately released me and offered me a drowsy, apologetic look. "Mom trumps boyfriend unfortunately," she told him. "Out you go. Get some rest. You ought to be prettier than you look now." Shea chuckled as he climbed out of my bed, subsequently helping me to lay back down comfortably. I did feel a release of pressure as I laid back down on my back properly. Shea leaned down over my bed and kissed my forehead, whispering that he loved me. "My dad," I whispered, looking up at him with knowing. It was still hitting me in waves that he was alive, and here, and Shea had to have seen him in the clearing. Unless I had hallucinated the giant wolf as well. "I got it," he whispered back, before following the nurse's orders and departing. *** Mom and I had never really cooked anything fancy on Thanksgiving. More often than not it was Chinese take-out as she was too tired from work to spend ten hours cooking a turkey and I hadn't much minded. So, eating hospital turkey and Jell-O for dessert on Thanksgiving was like a special treat really. Half the student body of the school had come to see me once I had been moved out of the ICU. Even some of my teachers had come to visit, and they thankfully hadn't brought homework. Cece had been twice. Josh had been, and he hadn't told me anything about his encounter with Zoey. Whether I'd imagined that as well, or he didn't want to burden me, I wouldn't know. The story was as close to the truth as possible. I was snatched from the hotel parking lot and drugged by a man with a grudge against my father. He had stabbed me and I was saved by Shea back in Providence. A warrant was out for the arrest of the man that I had described. I honestly still didn't know the full story. I didn't know what had happened to Lex. I didn't know if there could be any kind of justice for someone like him. Grief sometimes puts you over the edge. I hadn't had the chance, or the guts, to ask Shea. Shea hated having the credit for saving me. He still believed that he had been the one to lose me in the first place no matter how I tried to convince him otherwise. But he was coming around to believing that I wasn't angry at all. He and I both knew that it had been my dad who had found me. Mom still had no idea. I didn't know how to tell her. I didn't know if I was supposed to tell her. I hadn't seen my dad since he had been in my room the other day. And now we were sitting here in the hospital ward flicking through Black Friday sales on our cell phones as if her not dead husband wasn't in the same building. Mom refused to leave my side. She had taken to moving in and had used her pull as a doctor with hospital privileges to get a cot put in the same room with me. Shea had been to our house to grab changes of clothes and toiletries, and Mom had vocally forgiven him. I was healing well. I was slowly being weaned off of the strong stuff and being introduced to good old Tylenol for the pain every so often. There had been no infection. Considering my risk was higher with no spleen, this was a good thing. All I would have for my troubles is a nasty scar and the knowledge that someone unhinged had put it there.