West of Want (Hearts of the Anemoi) Read Online Free PDF Page A

help. Not after everything. Among her friends, most lived an hour away in D.C. and had families and jobs of their own they wouldn’t be able to walk away from to come play nursemaid. Not to mention, she had no desire to see the pity in their eyes, to watch them tiptoe around all the landmines in her life.
    No thanks.
    She’d be fine. What choice did she have? She’d been one of two her whole life, literally, now she needed to go it alone. If everybody else could do it, so could she.
    Resolved, Ella pressed the edge of her fork into the pancake. It slipped, splattering syrup onto the tray. “Damn!” She cleaned up the spill, but couldn’t wipe all the stickiness off the fork handle. Cutting pancakes one-handed with your weak hand was a lot more difficult than it seemed. She sighed and attempted it again and again until she finally managed to free a few mangled bites. Giving up on cutting her food, she speared the whole sausage patty with her fork and ate it that way. She shoved the rest of the tray away.
    She wanted to sleep, but found she couldn’t get her mind to stop churning. Every worry demanded airtime in her thoughts until she simply itched to get the hell out of there.
    Maybe getting out of bed would help. Ella threw the light covers back and shifted one leg at a time over the edge. Keeping her immobilized right arm against her chest, Ella held onto the bed with her left hand and rose to her feet. Her back muscles ached and her head swooned, but she kept herself upright as she shuffled to the bathroom door and flicked on the light.
    Her gaze went immediately to the mirror and the horror show that was her appearance. “Holy shit,” she murmured. The whole right side of her face was swollen and bruised from cheekbone to eye. She had a nice gash on her cheek with three—she leaned in closer—no, four stitches. Her lips looked like she could use a whole tube of Chapstick and never get them soft again. And that wasn’t even mentioning her limp, messy hair or the dark circles under her brown eyes. The latter she couldn’t really blame on the accident.
    Relief flooded through her when the doctor arrived a little before noon. She was ready to be back in her own bed. Well, it wasn’t really hers, but as close as she had, right now…
    “I see Janet left a note in the chart that you were making arrangements for company at home for a few days.” He looked up from the computer where he’d been entering findings from examining her.
    “Oh, uh, yeah. Yes, I did. My, uh, a friend from D.C. will be over after work tonight. She’s going to stay with me a few days at least. She can telecommute, so it works out good.”
    The doctor, an older man with a kind face and bushy eyebrows, nodded and smiled. “Good to hear. We’ll get you out of here as soon as the physical therapist can see you. In the meantime, a nurse will be in to go over your discharge instructions. You should follow up with your regular physician within forty-eight hours, and don’t hesitate to call the number on the discharge paperwork if anything worsens.”
    A nurse came in just as the doctor left, a sheaf of paper in hand. In addition to the home-care instructions for her injuries, Ella also received a bundle of forms from admissions and billing. Normal people had loved ones who could take care of those things when you arrived in the ER, but, of course, she wasn’t normal. Not in that way, at least. And she couldn’t even use filling out the forms as a means of busying her hands and mind, because her right hand was largely immobilized and her left hand produced scrawl no better than a kindergartener. She set the paperwork aside.
    In the afternoon, a gentle rain shower pattered against the window. The relaxing sound made her sleepy, so of course the physical therapist finally chose that moment to make an appearance. A young guy with far too much pep for her current mood delivered the disturbing news that she was going to have to use her injured