#Chapter 57: Bedside Manners

Rowena The first thing I noticed was the aching—no, searing—pain in my head. Next, I felt the same pain lower, in my ankle this time. In fact, my whole body hurt, but I was still too far away from consciousness to groan. Then, I heard the voices: two voices, in fact. My father and Eric. They filtered in through the haze of my unconscious state, tethering me back to the real world once again. “...want to tell her.” Eric’s voice was tense and insistent, a little hoarse as though he had been talking for hours. There was a pause, and then my father’s deep voice responded. “You’ll only get her hurt if you do that. Do you want a repeat of what happened back then? The pool?” Eric sounded upset as he retorted, “That was years ago, and I was a child. I’ve never let her be in harm’s way since then. When will you move on from it?” Move on. I knew what they were talking about: the time I had fallen into the pool when I was a child. Eric was right when he said that it was a long t