APUI: Volume 1 - My Life as a Werewolf

Chapter 32: Hospitals are Worse Than Overprotective Parents

< 💣 B POV 💣 >

I had woken up on Monday at about 3am, not knowing where I was and feeling a searing pain in my chest. As soon as I had regained full consciousness, Jackson, sensing me, had jolted awake, and smiled insanely at me. He was about to get up when he suddenly sat down again. The next thing I knew he started crying. "It's all my fault. I thought I lost you. It was all my fault. I almost killed my mate!" He wailed. I was rather put out by it. Jackson Collins was crying out of guilt and sadness over me? I suppose he really did care for me.

Rather at a loss for what I should do, I whispered hoarsely, "but you saved me as well...". He blinked, trying to get the tears out of his eyes, and wiped them off his face with his hands. "But if I hadn't, if Luke hadn't, said we loved you, you wouldn't have fallen, so I wouldn't have had to catch you and run you to this hospital, and therefore you wouldn't have been lying in that bed after surgery all injured and..." He said, increasing his pace before trailing off into another round of sobs. "This is what I was trying to avoid! All I'm ever going to do is hurt you!"

Sometimes I wondered why the moon goddess gave me such an idiotic mate. He didn't understand when to stop wallowing in self pity. Then again, I regularly host pity parties for myself as well, so maybe we're not as different as I hope. "Dude you're metaphorically killing me!" I whisper-shouted. "A) we're in a hospital so shh. B) it's nighttime so extra shh. C) just give me a fucking hug already" he looked at me in awe. "You don't blame me?" He asked meekly, his voice trembling. "Hell yeah I do" I replied making him put on the most adorable confused face. "But I just woke up in hospital and my mate is crying over me so I think I need to, we both need to, forgive and forget this one time, and just hug it out. We are friends aren't we?"

Jackson smiled insanely again and practically ran over. He bend down and hugged me around my shoulders, being careful of my broken leg and obviously cracked or broken ribs. In the spur of the moment Jack kissed me on the lips. "Hey" I said slapping him lightly. "We're just friends. No benefits. Don't get ahead of yourself now". He smiled sheepishly at me, genuinely happy I was alive. I smiled back, happy that my mate was happy and that we were on good terms.

My face then moulded into a serious expression as I asked for a damage assessment of my injuries. My expression then became even more grave as I heard from Emmy of her inability to heal our injuries at a superhuman rate. This was due to us being weak from the deterioration of the mate bond, and because we had sustained so many serious or high priority injuries. We had been very lucky that Jack had mostly caught us and we had therefore suffered minimal damage to our torso and internal organs, preventing me from receiving any life threatening injuries. I would unfortunately be hospitalised for at least another week, and not functioning properly for at least a month.

I was horrified. I didn't want to stay in hospital for a week. I didn't want to heal like a fucking human! Not that I had anything against humans. It was just that I was a werewolf and I was perfectly happy in my current state of lycanthropy. Also being a human would be so much simpler, I enjoyed all of the perks that came with the werewolf gene. I could heal quicker, I felt changes in temperature less sensitively, I had greater strength and endurance and much more. The only downside was the fact that we received mates from the moon goddess. I would be perfectly happy with mates if it wasn't for the life-ruiner commonly known as rejection. Instead of providing me with love, happiness and strength, the receiving of mates has only ever rendered me effectively human and broken my heart. Although, as always, I have to admit that Jackson has an entirely valid reason to stay away from me. My wolf, no matter how weak she is, still continues to support Jackson and our mateship.

Contrary to popular belief, I actually think that hospital food is reasonably nice and they tend to let you eat as much as you want. When the nurse came in and asked if I wanted breakfast, even though it was only 4 in the morning, however, I reluctantly said yes. I knew I needed to eat because I hadn't consumed any food in over a day. Currently, I didn't feel at all hungry and the thought of eating made me feel physically sick. Which didn't seem to be a good sign.