Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 43

Chapter 41: Sedona’s Friends From Her Past

Sedona’s POV

On a Thursday morning in the third week of aggressive treatment, when I had not yet gotten used to the side effects of being exposed to chemicals daily, I was lying in my hospital bed during an infusion when there was a knock on the door.

I was feeling particularly destroyed that day, and not in the mood to see anyone. The combination of both therapy and undergoing chemotherapy was doing something to me that felt less like fighting and more like being dismantled and hoping something better got assembled back together in the aftermath.

My mother had gone to get coffee, Cameron was on an urgent work call outside that he couldn’t reschedule and I had told him to go because he had been hovering around, trying to make sure I was comfortable and I needed a few minutes to myself., and I was staring at the ceiling making deals with whoever might be listening about what I’d agree to in exchange for not vomiting for the next four hours.

“Come in,” I said, mostly because whoever it was would come in anyway. At least this way I would have the illusion of being the one who granted them permission.

The door opened.

For a moment I just stared, uncertain if the anti-nausea medication was causing hallucinations, because there was no way that I was actually seeing who was standing right in front of me.

Rachel.

Rachel Park, who I’d left without a word five years ago/who’d been my closest friend for fifteen years before I’d destroyed our friendship by running from a wedding and taking my explanations with me, and leaving her to deal with the aftermath of being my bridesmaid, being in a wedding that got abandoned and forced to answer questions from the screaming public while being blindsided by it as well.

But it was definitely her. She was standing in my hospital room door in a yellow coat with her dark hair shorter than I remembered, looking at me with an expression couldn’t quite read. Like she was both hesitant and uncertain if I would be welcoming to her.

I burst into tears.

I didn’t cry with the style of a sophisticated lady in public, whose appearance mattered more, but heavy deep, tears ruining the little makeup my mum had touched on my face saying I looked too pale. My crying took my nurse unawares as she looked up from her station in alarm, thinking something was actually wrong with me.

“Oh, Sedona.” Rachel crossed the room in three steps and had her arms around me before I could say another word, careful of the IV lines, her chin on my head. “You absolute idiot. You complete and total disaster of a person.”,

“You look terrible, by the way,” she said into my shoulder. “I’m not going to pretend you don’t.”

“I know.”

“You also look like yourself, which I wasn’t sure you would.” She pulled back and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Cameron said you looked lost when he found you. And that he had no idea if you were ever going to find yourself. He said it was like you’d been slowly disappearing for years.”

I thought about that. About the woman I’d been in Logan’s house-quiet and careful and small, making herself convenient, taking up less space with every passing month, until I was gone.

“I was,” I said, refusing to dwell on my terrible past. “I think I was.”

“Well.” Rachel settled into the chair beside my bed with the ease of someone claiming territory she intended to occupy indefinitely as she got comfortable crossing her foot over the other as she placed her hands on her laps.

“You’re not lost anymore. You’re right here, and I’m going to sit in this chair and annoy you through this entire infusion, you will gain enough strength to actively chase after me with a chair and you’re going to tell me everything. Every single thing. And I’m going to listen and then we’re going to figure out what comes next. Yes?”