The War for Love- a Collection of Short Stories

Calm - Jess

A/N: I wanted to add in a more chilled out chapter where it's not all danger and dark secrets. This is more of an informative chapter than anything else.

    In case you were wondering (probably not but still) all of the poetry in this book (unless otherwise credited) is original! So yeah, that's a thing you now know about me. 

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        May 3rd

    Three weeks. It had been three insanely long weeks since I'd seen Grace- in person at least. We'd video-chatted every night, but it wasn't the same thing. Without her laughter to fill the empty spaces of my room, I'd taken to creating room decorations out of copy paper. Last night, I'd finished the bouquet to give to Grace when she was allowed in my room again. 

    After they'd forcibly removed Grace three weeks ago, and she had failed at getting back in, she and the boys spent four days making me a giant care box. Inside there was a laptop, clothes, blankets and pillows, movies, sweets, string lights, pictures, books... Pretty much everything I could need to entertain myself. The doctors insisted on taking anything I'd touched away from me and disinfecting it- which included all of Grace's board games. 

    They wouldn't give them back, but not for a lack of trying on both of our parts. 

    It felt strange, to be so attached to material objects. My room back in Canada had the basics- bed, mirror, bookshelf, drawers, alarm clock. But it was so spartan in comparison to Grace's room, which, as I'd seen on our seventh video chat, was huge and decorated to the nines, and it made me realize just how screwed up the Snow Howlers were. Their philosophy of 'if it doesn't have a use, then there's no point in owning it' seemed so... wrong.

    Sighing as I stretched, I swung my legs over and off my bed, which was now adorned with several throw pillows and fuzzy blankets, I kicked back and forth, marveling at how strong I'd gotten. When I'd come into the hospital, sitting up would make my head swim. Now, I could probably walk the floor without having to stop.

    Sliding my feet into my slippers, I stood and grabbed a hair tie, pulling my hair back into a ponytail. It was one of the many perks of being a werewolf- our hair grew up to four times faster than a Mortal's. I'd gained nearly two inches in the just the last three weeks, and I couldn't wait to get the length I'd had before back. Pushing my IV pole with one hand and tying my hair back with the other, I went to the window seat and pulled open the curtains, grabbing Grace's journal along the way. 

    She'd sent it in the care package. It wasn't the one from our first night, but I loved it more. Even if not all the poems were hers, she'd thrown together a bunch of her favorites, some of her work, and some funny stories from Tyler, Thomas, and even Sam had thrown a couple in there. It surprised me, I honestly didn't think I'd connected with the guys as much as Grace, but they didn't have those reservations.

    Opening the book to read, I looked around the room. It was always too quiet in the mornings. Pulling my laptop out of the small basket they'd also sent, which was now where I kept two of the blankets, I cued up a playlist I'd made on YouTube. I smiled when the first song was "Capital Letters" by Hailee Steinfeld. Leaning back and smiling, I pulled the journal closer and read the next poems in the book- two of Grace's picks. 

    Asking About You - Eloise Klein Healy 

    Instead of having s*x all the time I like to hold you and not get into some involved discussion of what life means. I want you to tell me something I didn't know about you. Something about the day before that photograph in which you're standing on your head. I want to know about softball and the team picture. Why are you so little next to the others? Were you small as a girl? What I want most is to have been a girl with you and played on the opposite team so I could have liked you and competed against you at the same time.

    Flipping the page, I saw a note written above this one. 

For Jack and Caitlin- love you guys. 

    I wondered who Jack and Caitlin were, how they knew Grace. Were they classmates? Pack members? Were they older than her? Younger? 

I want to meet them.

I want to know everyone she does. 

Wow, that sounded creepy, even in my head.

    Shaking away the possessive thoughts, I continued reading.

Lock and Key - 

He was locked within herself,

Hiding who he was, long having been

Hardened by the world

His fear was stronger than her courage

He convinced himself that the world

Couldn't

Wouldn't

Understand the story hidden behind

His stormy eyes and scars.

She was her key.

She held courage, she was stronger than her fear

With her dark hair swaying to the very cadence of his hidden words,

He was desperate to know her, and she, him

But she knew when to flip the page

And when to close the book. 

An open tale, he found any question fair game

She dares him to ask, compelling him to face her hard truths

For her, he does

Against her sharp amber eyes to her full lips, straight from a mind tinted dark,

Her answers were as sharp as his

He wants to open his metal-bound volumes for her

But he can't find the locks

Stress snaps one, revealing the horde

He's trying to match her keys up, open every chapter for her to read

Yet, he's still coming up short

It was under the lights of a hotel hallway

Where he snapped, breaking himself down

All for her.

With a silent kiss, he was as open as she.

    I picked up the folded page that had been my bookmark, realizing it was a wedding flyer, for Jack and Caitlin. They'd be celebrating one year married soon, and I absently wondered if Grace and I would go to the party I was sure they were throwing. Or maybe Grace would throw them one- she mentioned how much she enjoyed planning events and things like that. 

    Last night we had talked about our futures, and I confessed that I'd never been to a properly accredited school, just the Snow Howlers system. Within minutes she sent me a studying schedule, and every night she would help me study for Pinewood Charter's placement tests. 

    I was a skeptic as to how high I would get, but she seemed certain- if she was going to have to repeat the spring semester of her senior year, I would be there in the fall as a senior. I just smiled and listened to her plan our graduation party, and talk about how Tyler would tease us about being late to college, but still help us anyway. 

    I laughed when made the joke that I was probably smarter than her already. 

Do you think I fooled her, Winter?

I dunno Jess...

    Winter sighed heavily, about to go back to sleep.

Winter are you okay

I dunno... It's all these drugs they're giving you, I'm just so... tired...

    She yawned again before curling up and leaving me alone in my head. It was almost like she was gone, and I made a mental note to ask the doctor about the side effects. Because, while I felt great, something was wrong with Winter. 

    Kathleen came bustling in, pushing a cart that I was knew held all my medications for this round. She was dressed in her usual protection gown, glasses, and mask. When I'd touched the cut from my port, I'd gotten a bacteria called Acinetobacter Baumannii into my bloodstream. I was extremely lucky that they caught it early by using a leftover blood sample to test for the bacterium that could have been making me sick. 

    "Good morning, Jess! Are you excited, last day of antibiotics?" Kat asked as she stopped to wash her hands and pull on fresh gloves. I swung my legs down, leaving the book behind and moving to the bed so she could get to my port easily. "Definitely. Grace can come back tomorrow, right?" I replied, leaning back to get a paper mask for myself and pulling it on. "Doctor Andrews wants you to hold off on having Grace over till the weekend. Just precautionary and all that jazz, don't... want her to get this, do we?" 

    She paused as she disconnected the tubing extension from my line, flushing it with saline that made me giggle as I tasted the salt. Leaving the syringe to lie against my chest, Kat opened up the new tubing and began to prime it, getting all the air out. "Why do you do that?" I asked her, and she shook her head. "Well, we've done this much to keep you alive. I don't want to just off you now!" 

    I laughed again, forgetting for the moment that I was still sick. That I was still in the hospital. 

    "Did you get me a new bag of feeds too? This one nearly ran out early because that new night nurse- what's her name again, Becca? Anyway, she didn't know how to follow directions and set it way too fast. I fixed it once I noticed, but... Still ran out." I looked over Kat's cart as she unscrewed the syringe and hooked up the antibiotics. "I sure did. It would have been empty by now anyway... What time is it?" Kat pulled a sticky note off the pad, putting some medial name on the bag and her initials. 

    "Uhh... Nine forty... three." It was almost too early for my eyes to be able to focus on the smallest tick marks on the clock. "Okay. Don't forget, Doctor Andrews will be here after lunch to check on you, and this bag should finish before my shift ends. If you want to take a shower, wait till this is done and then we'll cover you up and you can shower. Besides, you'll need to know how to do that." Kat pressed the button to make me lie back, and got out a new set of supplies. 

    When I'd first become infected, the doctors threw me onto antibiotics, but we couldn't run those through my line and my TPN, which wasn't helping me all that much anyway. So they made an executive decision to place a J tube, which I quickly learned was a more permanent option. Since I wasn't doing well with the whole mouth to stomach eating, my tube went into my small intestine and came out through my skin. 

    It was kind of strange to look at for a week, but I couldn't argue with results. I was up nearly seven pounds in three weeks, which sounded like nothing at first until Kat told me she and the nurses would throw me a party when I hit ten pounds. 

    Apparently, being one of the only alert patients gets you well-liked on the critical care floor. 

    "Alrighty, you are all hooked up sister. Now, Dr. Walker did just change your formula for a higher density one, so if your stomach starts to hurt you need to call us so we can stop this bag and put you back on the other kind." Kat handed me a small bottle of water and a sealed cup of pills.

    "You know what to do. I'll see you later when I make my rounds." She started to walk out when I called after her, "Hey Kat, should any of these medications be affecting Winter? It's almost like she'd not here anymore. Practically gone." I noticed her eyes flash from their normal steady velvet black to a slightly brighter onyx color. 

She's either guilty or going to lie about something. 

    "I don't think so, maybe bring it up with Andrews when he comes to visit. I gotta go, I've got more IVs to change out." She pushed her cart out and quickly closed the door behind herself. Sighing, I carefully broke up the pills and tore open the caplets, adding the water and stirring the powders together with the water. Balancing the cup on my knee, I tore open a new syringe and sucked up the sludge. 

What do you think they're hiding from us?

I dunno, Jess. Can I go back to sleep, please? You need to calm down, I'm sure it's nothing. Just a nasty side effect that will go away once you're off... whatever's causing this...

    She turned in a circle and laid back down, but not before I put a block between us. I didn't want my anxieties to wake her up again. Reaching up to pause the feeds, I wondered why Kat didn't let me push my pills before starting them up in the first place.

She's definitely hiding something. Hopefully, Andrews will have the guts to tell me. 

Fuck. I forgot to get a water syringe. 

    Groaning to myself, I fumbled around for another syringe, setting the one with the medications on the nightstand. Filling the new one with water, I double-checked to make sure I had everything I needed before I tried to start this mess. 

    As I went through the motions of running my medications through the feeding tube, I wondered if I should just call Grace. It was the second to last Friday of the school year, and she already knew she wasn't going to graduate on time, so it's not like she would be busy... Letting the second water syringe hang for a moment, I quickly went around to the basket by my window seat and opened up the laptop. 

    The chat program was still open from last night, and she was online. Clicking her name, I reconnected my feeds and started them while waiting on her to answer. When it ended the call after five rings, I got a notification about her calling me. Selecting accept, I frowned at her as she came on the screen. "Sorry, I didn't get my headphones plugged in in time and Harrison is not in a good mood today. I think it's because I'm the only one here and the reason he's stuck here for this class," she said, sounding almost out of breath.

    "What's got you so grumpy today? Isn't it the last day of your antis? I thought you were excited." She grimaced as I explained what was going on with Winter. "Oh s**t, oh sorry, Mr. Harrison! Yeah, that doesn't sound good. You should call me and let me join in for your chat with Andrews. He can be an a- a butt, but he's a good man and he won't lie to you. IF this is normal, he'll let you know." Grace paused mid-sentence to stop herself from cursing again. looking off-screen. 

    "Yeah, I just, I wish you could actually be here. He wants you to stay away till the weekend, just to be safe... I miss you. It's too quiet here." I smiled through the sharp pain that bolted through my stomach. "Really? From what Kat tells me, your music could wake the coma patients!" Grace giggled, and I laughed with her, even though I was already starting to get nauseated from the new formula. 

    "So, where are the boys? Don't they have second with you?" I asked as I reached up, fumbling around for the keypad that controlled my feeding tube. "Yeah, but they're downstairs, practicing for graduation and all that- hey. Stop distracting me, what's wrong?" She must have heard me pounding the pause key. 

    "I will be right back." I locked my tube and unhooked it, shoving the laptop off my legs. I could hear Grace yelling even as I knelled over the toilet in the bathroom, gagging. 

    There was nothing in my stomach to get rid of, but nothing would convince my body of that. I stayed on the tile for ten minutes before I could get up. On shaky legs, I climbed back into bed, leaving the feeding tube disconnected. Grace grimaced when she saw me, her eyes darting between the tubing and me. "Not tolerating the new feeds, I see." 

    I could hear the disappointment dripping off her voice. I shook my head, laying back and rolling on my side so I could see her. "Nope. I've never rejected that quickly. Guess my body's just as stubborn as me." I smiled again, and she glared, seeing through it this time. "Call Kat, get back on the other stuff. What's that formula again? We're going to have to buy it when you get out." 

    I made a face, sitting up and grabbing my chart off the end of the bed. Flipping through a couple of pages, I reached the dietary section and scanned for yesterday's log. "Umm... Let's see here, it says I was on Jevity 1.5 Cal at 75 milliliters per hour. J-E-V-I-T-Y." I spelled it for her so she could write it down. "Okay, I'll be sure to stock up before you come to live with us. Oh, Mom's so excited, she loves a good shopping spree and everyone in town has already heard about you and we just can't wait to bring you home, Jess! So, do you want us to shop for you, or do you want to come with us? I mean, if we go ahead and stock the room, then you don't have to worry about maybe having to use Ethan's old stuff for a-" 

    "Wait wait, I'm going to be moving in with you? And... your parents? I-Uh Grace are you sure that that's a good idea, I mean, I don't really know how I... if I want that. Can we talk about that?" I tore at my lip, not wanting to crush any of her grand plans but also distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of staying in her house. 

    "Well, umm, yeah I guess. What did you have in mind? For when you get out?" Grace's eyes were swimming, and as much as I hated hurting her, I knew I couldn't live with her parents. It just... be too weird. "Uh, I guess something along the lines of getting a job? An apartment, somewhere. Night school, working during the day, get my diploma. Maybe go to college in a couple of years, when I save up the money." 

    At some point during my planning, Grace had started to laugh. "Oh, Jess. Don't you realize that you have a donation fund going back here? I think we just hit fifteen grand. Between the boys and I, somehow the whole town's fallen in love with you. How do you think teenagers managed to put together such a huge care box in a few days? How do you think you haven't been asked about payment or insurance? Everything's being paid for- a welcoming present from the Alpha family."

    She threw her head back, laughing so hard tears began to stream down her face. "Jess, you aren't going to need any job when you get out. I mean, f**k, Principal Walker's already talked to me about you coming here next year, no tuition. Sorry, Mr. Harrison. Yes, I promise. Okay." 

Holy f*****g s**t.

Okay, what the f**k am I supposed to say to this? 

Hi yeah, thanks for the money I'm an awkward fucker and I...

Yeah no. That does not work. At all

    "I'll be there in three hours. I'm not going to graduate anyway, and there's no reason for staying here. Screw Andrews, I'll don the gown if he absolutely insists. Get some sleep, I'll be there when you wake up, okay?"

    "I love you, Jess." Grace smiled, waving as she hung up the call. I smiled, waving back.

    There were no words to describe the relief I felt as I fell asleep.