Page 131 of Unexpected Prejudice

The ocean?

Now, my body felt like it was floating in the sea, but how? Only a moment ago, I was taking out the trash, and now, I was floating in the ocean—a dark, scary ocean with no sound. Scared, I tried to get back to the shore but couldn’t. My body couldn’t move for some reason, and when I looked down at my feet, they were gone.

I screamed, but I was underwater, so no voice came out. Exhausted from screaming, I tried to kick the water with my hands, but they were missing, too.

My lungs flooded with water and panic as the ocean swallowed me, dragging me to the bottom of the darkness. That was it. I was going to die, but I didn’t want to. Ready to scream again, I paused and looked down at my chest. I had a massive hole in it, right where my heart was supposed to be.

My eye snapped open, and I groaned with the pain. Ignoring the throbbing ache in my face and head, I moved my hand to my chest. No hole. My skin was damp with sweat, and my chest rose and fell with my rapid breaths, but my heart was still there, still hammering inside my injured body. My throat was sore and dry, like I’d been asleep too long. When I reached for some water, my hand was covered in wires and an IV.

That’s right. I’m in the hospital.

Looking down at my body, I focused on my left leg. The bones were crushed, and it had taken three surgeries to repair them. The doctors had to screw metal pins into my flesh, all the way to the bones, holding them together.

My dream wasn’t just a dream. It was a memory.

A memory of my attack a little more than a week ago. After confronting Shay-Lee at the party, I’d headed to work. My attackers ambushed me after my shift had ended. The police said they found me on the shore, thirty miles from my workplace, and that I was more dead than alive.

The sound of the door opening caught my attention, and I looked up expecting to see my mom, only to find Shay-Lee standing there.

There he was, standing by the door, looking as if he had a right to be here after betraying me the way he had. I may not have been able to recall the details of the attack, but what came before was engraved deep into my memory. Him sending Ty to kiss me. Him partying with the twins. Him looking at me like I was nothing and then telling me to fuck off.

All the hurt, betrayal, anguish, and anger I’d felt that night returned to me in a flash and sliced into my soul like the wounds covering my body.

“The hell are you doing here?” I snapped and tried to search behind him for my mom, only then recalling she had said she was going home to change her clothes.

“I assumed you wouldn’t be happy to see me,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Not happy to see you? I want you out. Get out of here.”

“Jordan.”

“No,” I shouted and squeezed my eyes shut with the pain that radiated through me. Due to the swelling, I was only able to open one of my eyes, so whenever I tried to squeeze both, I was hit with unbelievable pain that forced me to groan. And if that wasn’t enough, seeing him here was just as painful, if not more. “No, no, enough with this. Just get out.”

I heard him step closer, then the bed shifted, and I felt him beside me.

“Oh god, what did they do to you?” his voice quavered.

“Get out.” My aggression sounded more like a plea.

“Your face,” he whispered and the sorrow in his voice was more brutal than the fifteen stitches I had on the right side of my face.

Ignoring the horror in his voice at the sight of my state, I gritted my teeth. “Get out of here.” I knew I looked scary. When I woke up from the induced coma they had put me under because of the swelling in my brain, they gave me a mirror to see the damage. I was hardly recognizable. I had a fractured eye socket, a torn cornea, and over thirty stitches in general. Thankfully, I didn’t lose my eye, but the doctor said it was close.

“I want to explain.”

“I don’t want to hear it. You don’t deserve to talk. Not anymore.” To fight the urge to look at him, I forced myself to keep my eye closed.

“Please, Jordan, I don’t want to upset you.”

“So, get out. Leave me alone.”

I heard him sigh, and then the weight from my bed shifted. Knowing he finally got up, I opened my good eye. Still not looking at him, I expected him to leave, but instead, he remained standing beside me.

“They’ve been arrested.”

He was talking about Don and Lin, the scums responsible for putting me here.

“I know they were,” I hissed. “The police were here to take my testimony. Not that it mattered. They’re probably walking free already.”