"Absolutely Not."

Chapter 44: Yeah? Yeah.

(Kelsey's POV)

He didn't come back that night, and I slept like shit once I realized he wasn't coming back after an hour of radio silence.

Me and my big fucking mouth talking about things that shouldn't be talked about yet. I couldn't just wait until a right time, could I?

Frustrated was an understatement, and I could only imagine how Simon felt learning of even more trauma to add to his already full plate.

I needed to get out of the hospital, and thankfully the day after our argument was the day that they were scheduling my discharge. However, that meant an awkward ride back to base, filled to the brim with palpable tension and crippling setbacks.

"So, you are going to have to do this one yourself, Kelsey," a nurse, Samara, stated as she entered the room with the supplies to redress my hand. Unlike Aya, Samara chose darker colors for her hijabs and wore more of a face of no-bullshit than the others.

My heart fluttered with nervousness just watching her set our the necessary supplies. I'd procrastinated looking at my hand this whole week, and now I had to face the inevitable.

I was going to damn well throw up.

"Now, I will give you whatever you need to last a few days, but your base's medics should be able to replenish what you need—"

Samara paused when noticing how pale my face had gotten. "Hey," she began, "You okay?"

Barely able to nod, I didn't trust myself to verbalize my fears. How come when I was the root cause to someone's pain and suffering, I hardly batted an eye, but I couldn't handle my own missing finger?

It's a goddamn finger, get over yourself.

She sat down on the edge of the bed with a sympathetic look in her eye as if she knew exactly what I was going through. "Look, you have to know how to redress it on your own."

"I know," I practically groaned out, the lump in my throat making it impossible to speak normally without an increase of saliva coating my mouth. "I'm just not going to like it."

Her small smile was even more sympathetic, and it didn't help me feel any better. "No, nobody ever does." She paused before she added, "You do have a visitor in the waiting room, been there since last night. I can ask him to help?"

"Does he have blond hair? Black mask?"

"He does."

"Then, no. He's done enough to help. I don't want to ask more of him."

Just because she nodded as if to say 'fair enough' didn't mean she was done pressuring me about it. "Rumor has it, he is your husband?"

Before my big mouth opened up like a earthquake-induced chasm, the simple word 'husband' would have given me some weird sensation in my stomach, similar to something corny like butterflies. Now, it just left a bitter aftertaste.

"I've asked for no visitors."

"But he is your husband, yes? You would deny even him?"

"It's... complicated between us." Understatement.

She hummed softly in return before she comfortingly patted my knee twice. "Marriage is hard, but I think he would like to be in here with you even if things are strained. He probably would want to know how to help take care of your hand, hm?"

I watched as she got up from her seat to wheel over the table with all of the supplies I would need to redress my hand before being discharged.

The mantra 'fuck, fuck, fuck' was on a constant loop like a broken record, and I swallowed thickly again.