I wasn't asleep.
Sitting silently next to Cooper was impossible. Unsaid accusations, unvoiced demands hung so thickly on the air I could choke on them. But I was afraid that if I said something - anything - to him, I might say something I couldn't take back.
I wasn't sure what I was afraid of. I'd certainly had no problem with pissing him off before. I'd never once, in the whole time I'd known him, been unable to let Cooper know exactly what I thought of him. I'd never once felt the need to protect him from anything, least of all my temper.
Why did it suddenly seem necessary to hold my tongue? I didn't know, but I also knew that if he kept looking at me like that, studying my profile like it was the first time he'd ever seen me before, I was going to open my mouth.
So I closed my eyes instead.
It was definitely easier not having to see him. Even staring straight ahead, I could still see him in the periphery of my vision. I kept turning my head slightly just to capture more of him.
Yeah, closing my eyes made it much easier to be next to him in the truck that was like an extension of his body. But closing my eyes didn't entirely blot him out from my consciousness.
No. I could feel him. I could feel his presence, the way the air shifted around him like it wanted to step out of his way. I could feel his heat - somehow, even though it made no sense - and the warmth of his skin intensified his familiar scent. I'd never thought of Cooper having a smell before, but with my eyes closed, it was suddenly everywhere, enveloping me in an aroma that was every bit as complicated as he was. I knew he was there, just by breathing in and out. And I knew how he was feeling too.
He was angry.
Anger was rising off of him in waves, so intense I swore he was vibrating.
And I didn't get it. Why was he mad?
All the millions of other times Cooper had been angry about something - angry at me, even - I never once let it bother me. But now there was this strange new hurt in my chest, a small, open place where the anger could get in under my skin.
Why was he angry? Was he angry with me? I hadn't asked for this. I'd never asked him for anything he insisted on doing. So why was he pissed with me? Why was he taking me somewhere if he didn't want to go with me?
Come to think of it, why had I agreed to go with him?
In my head, I rewound through the confusing past two hours. Voices echoed in my head with no sense of cause or effect. I couldn't put them in order, couldn't figure out how one thing led to another, how this cause had that effect. There were only the memories of shouting, yelling, and with that memory came a profound feeling of guilt, mixed with the even more profound sense of outrage. How could they gang up on me like that? I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to remember the white spots that blazed over my mother's nostrils or Liam's grim face on the screen.
And Cooper. He'd been the worst of it. His silent, glowering presence hurt me more than my mother's tearful pleading. Because he shouldn't have been there, he didn't belong there. He was supposed to be outside of this part of my life, but instead, he'd inserted himself in the middle of it. I hated that he now seemed to be a part of my life. That he'd accidentally become so important to me that I now felt guilty for hurting him.
A rush of hot indignation jolted through me. It wasn't fair. I'd done this for them. It did none of them any good to have me lying there rotting in a hospital bed. I'd left to protect them - all of them. My mother from having to juggle childcare another night. Liam from having to pay attention to my recovery instead of his new life in New York.
And Cooper?
Well, it was none of Cooper's business what I did. But I did it for him, too. For him the most. He'd been coming to the hospital every day, back and forth in an hour and a half round trip, when he should have been packing up his things and getting ready to move out. He was so excited to get his own place. He should be focused on that, not me. He had better things to do than be at my bedside out of some weird sense of obligation.
Plus, I knew how he felt about me. And a small part of me felt bad about him coming every day, knowing what I knew. That love and devotion act was just for show.
It was all just for show.
And yeah, when I woke up this morning with a smile on my face and an eager glance toward the door, the stories I wanted to tell him already forming on my lips, I knew that was the last straw. I had to get out of there. I had to protect myself from the sinking sensation I felt in my chest every time I woke up in that room and saw he wasn't there yet. I was tired of looking for him, tired of hoping for him, tired of needing him.
And fuck, I was protecting him too! With me out of the hospital, he could stop with this silly engagement charade. He'd get to stay a hero in the town's eyes. And hell, maybe we'd engineer a quiet "break-up" in a day or two. My fault of course. I was good at taking the fall like that. He'd be free of his obligation to me that way.
I'd done the right thing for him. The best thing for him. I'd been so sure of it.
And then it had all gone... wrong.
I turned my face, burying it into the jacket that Cooper had placed under my head. I wasn't going to cry. I'd been doing way too much of that lately.
But the jacket smelled of him. And he'd put it there as a pillow for me because he'd seen I wanted to sleep.
I inhaled his scent. How... how had I gotten everything so wrong? I only wanted to make sure no one had to worry about me anymore. I only wanted to protect them all, make things easier for them. But they hadn't seen that. I'd tried to make things better and somehow I'd made it worse.
I squeezed my eyes shut. The setting sun finally slipped away from my eyes and behind the trees. The truck slid smoothly along the highway, the only noise the swish of the road under the tires. And the sound of Cooper's quiet breathing.
I listened. And as I listened, a calm washed over me. The steady, quiet rhythm, so quiet I had to strain to hear it, let me focus on something other than the turmoil inside of my head. I listened to Cooper breathe as I feigned sleep and slowly, slowly, I fell asleep for real.
Chapter