Chapter 124: Grace
There was something about the nothingness that I couldn’t escape. I didn’t want to leave it. I didn’t want to escape it. I didn’t want to feel anything at all. No. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want anything that would come out of life. Rhys kept begging me to come back to him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t cut my way out of the ocean I was drowning in, and most of all, I didn’t want to.
If I let myself, I could feel his guilt and dejection, but I didn’t let myself. How he was feeling after how everything had happened, wasn’t my problem. I was being selfish for the first time in my life and I liked it.
Rhys had done almost everything he could think of to get me out of bed. Both Sawyer and Leon had both been in to try and talk to me. Both had told me what a difference I had made since entering their lives. And how much they missed just talking to me and how worried they all were. But I barely heard them. I couldn’t make myself care about what they were saying. It didn’t matter. I didn’t matter. But it didn’t stop them from trying.
Rhys never left my side. He did work sometimes from our little chair in the corner. But that was about it. The only time I was ever out of his sight was when he or I went to the bathroom, and sometimes when he showered, but that was it. And I couldn’t say I cared one way or the other. The nothingness told me that it didn’t matter. But a small part of me didn’t want to be alone.
The door opened slowly, but I didn’t move to see who it was, knowing it was either Sawyer or Leon here to talk to Rhys or have another failed attempt to get me out of bed. I just closed my eyes again, forcing the panic back, just beyond the wall I had built up to hold all feelings away from me.
“Thanks for coming.” I heard Rhys say, which surprised me a little, but not enough to look. “I just don’t know what else to do...”
“I can’t believe it took you this long to call me in here.” A familiar voice cut through my fog.
“I thought we said no kids in the room,” I grumbled, refusing to look at them.
I felt surprise flood our bond, I hadn’t spoken to well anyone in, I don’t know how long.
“That was before you refused to get out of bed and eat for 2 weeks.” Rhys replied, kissing my forehead. “This is now, and desperate times call for desperate measures.”
I didn’t dignify his response with an answer. Two weeks? He must be exaggerating. That seemed ludicrous. But then again, time was nothing to me. Everything was nothing to me.
“I have permission to do whatever’s necessary?” Maizie asked, a hint of excitement in her voice.
“Within reason...” Rhys answered nervously. “You can’t break her...”
“Alpha King, I hate to break it to ya, but she’s already broken. And you can’t fix something by breaking it more. So, with all due respect, get out, and let me talk to Grace.”
“I’m not leaving her.” Rhys growled.
“She’s not going to do anything while you sit here and stare at her, so go away, you can wait outside the door. You’re hovering. And that’s the last thing she needs.”
“She’s fragile, Maizie.” Rhys pleaded for her to understand something, but what I wasn’t sure.
“I’ve got this, but get out.”
I didn’t have to look to know that Rhys was giving her a hard look, but eventually, his feet shuffled across the room, and the door shut, telling me he actually left.
“Why would you do that?” I mumbled tiredly.
“Because you are far too comfortable with your mate here.” She answered, and I felt the other side of the bed dip down before suddenly I was moving up and down.
I rolled over in exasperation to see Maizie jumping.
“What are you doing?” I questioned in irritation.
“You know exactly what I’m doing.” Maizie answered easily, but didn’t stop.
“I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want you here. Please just leave me alone.”
“No.” The word was said so simply with so much self-assurance, I was almost sure that she would win in the end, even though I didn’t want her to.
“Why?” I bit out angrily.
“Because I don’t fail at missions.”
I scoffed. “I am not a mission.”
“My presence here says otherwise.”
I rolled my eyes, not giving her the satisfaction of a response. I was not a mission. I did not need her here. I was fine. I would just spend the rest of my life rotting away in this bed, not being a burden to anyone else.
“Grace,” Maizie sighed, plopping down next to me on Rhys’s side of the bed. “No one said any of this was going to be easy. But we need you out there, not in here, pretending the world isn’t out there waiting for you.”
“There is nothing out there that needs me.” I mumbled.
“That’s not true.” Maizie answered in astonishment. “Those kids out there have grown accustomed to your help. They miss you. Sawyer, Leon and Alana want their friend back. Rhys is out there, desperate missing you, wanting you, needing you to come back to him. If he didn’t care, he would have never allowed me in here. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t be working all those crazy hours trying to find something, anything to help you through this mess. Grace, you might not know it, but you are a light in this world to everyone who knows it, and as someone who has been through some crazy shit too, I get how heavy that darkness is. But you can’t let it take you out of the game, girlfriend.”
“I can’t shift.” I confided in a whisper.
“That’s what this is about?” Maizie asked in surprise. “They got the binds off and you can’t shift?”
“Yes. I am nothing special at all.”
“Get your ass up right now.” Maizie shoved me, so I all but rolled off the bed, barely catching myself before I hit the ground.
“Hey!”
Rhys’ concern flooded the bond, and the door immediately, but I wasn’t looking at him, my eyes were on Maizie.
“No hey’s. No complaining. Go get in that shower right now. Stop feeling bad for yourself. Stop the pity party and do something about it, god damn it. You are Grace. Your worth doesn’t lie in if you can shift or not. Your worth lies in your heart. You are a good, kind person, who has fought like hell to be here. Everything else is irrelevant. And anyone who thinks otherwise is thrilled to see you lying in this bed feeling like garbage. So, get up, and do something about it, if it isn’t enough!”