{18+ COMPLETED • COLLEGE ROMANCE}
When a college freshman with a learning disability and a reputation collides with a straight-A, straight-laced girl in the dorm kitchen one night, he sees the darkest parts of himself reflected in her. But the two o...
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M A D I E
The beeping of the machine next to me seemed to coincide with the stabbing pain in my head. It pounded in time with my heartbeat.
I'd been laying here in the darkness for so long. I wasn't sure if I couldn't open my eyes or if I was just hiding within myself.
Everything was heavy. A faint memory skirted around the corners of my brain. It echoed there, repeating back to me over and over again. It was a hopeful memory of freedom, of waking for the first time. But that wasn't how I felt now. I seemed to be tied to a bed, somehow linked to the beeping of this machine.
And when I finally woke, I felt the same as I had the last one thousand days.
My eyelids forced their way open. Light trickled its way into my darkness. It was cloudy, foggy, but it was light.
"Madie?"
The voice was distant. I didn't understand why the beeping was so loud, and the voice was so soft.
"Madie, can you hear me?"
I swallowed, and it hurt. But it didn't hurt as much as my head. "Yes." I blinked up to see Nessa's blurry face, her long, dark hair hanging above my face.
"Oh, thank god," she breathed.
A wave of nausea hit me, and I closed my eyes again.
Her face wasn't the one I'd been expecting. I thought there would be someone else when I opened my eyes. I thought perhaps it would be someone with a soft brown gaze.
"Bren," I rasped.
Nessa didn't say anything, but her cool hand lightly covered my pounding forehead. And then I fell back into darkness.
****
When I woke up the next time, it was with a gasping breath. Everything felt sharper, brighter, and infinitely more painful.
"Nessa!"
She jumped up from the chair next to my bed, rushing over to my side.
"I'm here, Madie. I'm here," she said hurriedly, grabbing my hand in hers. I squeezed it, trying to push the pain out of my body through a frenzied grip. With her other hand, she pulled on the cord near my bed. It was likely only seconds before someone slipped into the room, but it felt like forever.
I tried to escape back into the darkness while someone in a white coat poked and prodded at me, but it was no use. I was awake now.
"I gave her another dosage," the doctor said, facing Nessa as she did. Then the woman turned to me, and the tone in her voice softened. "The pain should lessen soon, Madie."
I winced in reply.
When she spun around to leave, I glanced at Nessa. She was still beside me, holding my hand with a worried look. But she didn't say anything.
