Just Helping
OPAL
A knock on my door startles me, mostly because I wasn't expecting it since it's an hour before lunch.
It's Gladys once more. She puts her hands together and says, "Excuse me, Luna, but you have a visitor downstairs. A woman named Gwen Sanchez."
I sit up so quickly that my head spins. "Thank you, Gladys. I'll be right downstairs!"
I meet my best friend in the parlor. We embrace for a long time, saying nothing. Gwen couldn't make it to the wedding due to travel, and I was devastated. The wedding happened so suddenly, after all. She was deep in the woods when it happened.
"Opal," she begins when she pulls away. "I'm sorry I missed your wedding. You don't know how bad I feel!"
I wave her off. "It's fine. Really. You didn't miss a thing."
I ask Gladys to direct us to a room where we can talk in private, and she offers to bring some refreshments in the meantime. I take note of her features and how tan her skin is compared to what it was before. Around this time, Gwen loves to lounge around the lake. She's always been a nature girl, unlike me.
I can't take the wilderness even if the best times I ever spent were in that cabin in the woods with her and her family.
"I can't believe it," she claims, her dark eyes searching my face. "When they told me who you married..."
I raise a hand and gesture for her to lower her voice. "I don't know if there's someone listening. There's a lot about this place that I still don't understand."
Gwen eyes me with concern before nodding.
I put my hands together on my lap, and we don't exchange a word as one of the maids brings us coffee and some snacks. I thank her and she leaves.
"How did this happen?"
"My father," I sigh. "He arranged the whole thing and only told me last minute. Things between us are...goddess, Gwen. So much has happened in such a short amount of time!"
I tell her about the one-night stand and watch as shock laces her features. Even as I recount the story, I can't believe it happened. It's just all so...shocking.
"Opal," she gasps. We're just whispering to each other now. "This is...have the two of you talked about this?"
"It didn't go as well as you'd expect?"
"Why not?" she questions, splaying her hands. "This would be the perfect opportunity for the two of you to have a good relationship!"
"Gwen," I hiss before standing up. I feel agitated all of a sudden. "Dammit, he lied to me. He tricked me. Knew exactly who I was before he entered that room. Why did he do it?"
"Would you have preferred it if it were someone else?" she asks, bewildered.
I sigh. "In many ways, yes."
"Opal."
I rub my eyes. My mind is genuinely twisted into knots, and I can't find a way around them. Gwen places her hands on either side of my shoulders and rubs them slightly.
"Look, I'd be confused if I were you, too," she claims, "but I think that you need to talk to him. Get rid of all this awkwardness. I'm honestly astounded. All the things we hear; I thought he'd be a monster."
I draw my bottom lip between my teeth for a moment. "We don't know that he isn't."
She gives me a look. "You just told me that he rocked your world and that he was tender with you. That doesn't sound like a cruel man to me."
I must admit that Bruce isn't what I thought he'd be, either, but we've just met, and this whole thing could be a strategy of his. I mention this to her and she nods, "Sure. But what does your intuition say?"
"What's even that?" I joke. "I need to recenter completely because I don't know what to think anymore. I mean this genuinely."
"It'll be alright," she assures me. "You can talk to me about anything."
"You'll have to come to me. I don't know if I can leave this place."
"Then I'll come."
We embrace one last time before I walk her to the door. Usually, Gwen helps me see the point of things. She's good at that. But this situation is far beyond her reach.
Though, perhaps I should talk to Bruce about the whole thing and bury my feelings. I'm the one who's surrounded by strangers. If I have all this tension with him, then how are things supposed to go with his family?
Maybe I should swallow my pride and see this through. Try, at least.
Once she's gone, I start toward my room. I have nothing much to do, so that's where I'll be spending most of my time.
I come across Bruce's sister, Megan, and a greeting barely escapes my lips before she gives me a withering look and slips right past me.
I'm so stunned by her hostility that I pause and look at her over my shoulder. She continues until she turns somewhere, disappearing.
What was that about?
I sensed that she didn't quite like me during the wedding reception, but this time, I'm certain that something is wrong. What's it to her? She doesn't even know me.
Unless Bruce told her about our...our thing.
Shaking my head and deciding that's unlikely, I start toward the stairs, totally distracted that I start walking toward the left wing and not the right. I only realize that I'm in the wrong place when I walk toward the first door that's meant to be my room and find that it's not.
The room is covered in medical equipment, and there's this faint smell of antiseptic in the air. A middle-aged man is lying face up on the bed, and when he sees me, he turns his head slowly to look at me.
I start to back away, but he rasps, "P-Please...w-water."
Water. All he wants is water.
I look up and down the hallway, hoping to spot someone. Surely there has to be a nurse or someone else taking care of him. Who is this man, by the way? I realize it's his father, the Alpha King, when I step closer to him. I recognize his face from the dozens of times I saw it in newspapers and magazines.
I didn't know he was sick.
"Water," he asks again, sounding so desperate that I can't help but give him what he needs.
Conveniently, there's a glass right on the nightstand. I reach for it, and he raises his head a little. I bring the glass to his lips, saying, "Here you go, Alpha."
He starts to sip, and I once more wonder why he's here and what happened, when the sound of choking fills my ears. He's choking. I nearly drop the glass and back away. Then, I place it back on the nightstand and start toward him, hoping to help him in some way. I hit his chest.
"Alpha King?" A voice behind me says before approaching us. I'm pushed to the side as two nurses start toward him, desperate.
I can't take my eyes away from the scene. I'm horrified. I wasn't trying to help. I didn't mean for any of this to happen.
But nobody is listening.