Take It - Part Two Read Online Free Page A

house.”
    Unable to will my voice to accept such a fate, the best I can do is nod in agreement. This is where my life has brought me. Back to the beginning. Back to zero. Back to nothing.

Chapter Four
     
    There are flowers when I come back into my room after having my hand x-rayed, and they were sitting beside my bed. A really nice bouquet, not overdone or cheesy. No card. My mom brought me flowers the morning after she got the call, with a lengthy note inside, half gushy sentiment and half motherly scolding.
    Very few people even know, or care, that I'm here. It certainly didn't come from Mr. Jones or anyone else at BioSim. As far as they're concerned, I'm old garbage, ready to be drop-kicked into space. My heart thuds, thinking they might be from Harrison. There would be no excuse for what he did to me. There would be no coming back from that, but for some reason I still hope he cares for me. Maybe only to feel validated in my love for him.
    As I stare at the flowers I try to hold onto one bit of good news: the injury to my hand is not as bad as everybody assumed. I broke one finger, and it's going to be badly bruised for some time. But there are no torn tendons or ligaments. Some of the swelling has gone down, and I've regained some finger dexterity.
    This hospital stay isn't so bad, though I have no idea if I still have medical coverage through BioSim. I’m putting off finding out.
    The hospital stay is giving me time for serious clinical self-analysis and an undisturbed shot at shaking myself out of this fog. God knows, when I get to Mom's house I won't have much alone time for deep introspection. If I know my mother, by the end of the first day she will have a kitchen table full of job openings clipped from the local paper and phone numbers scrawled across the clipboard next to her phone. It’s her idea of fixing things. She doesn’t understand I didn’t just lose my job; I ruined my career. I trashed my chances of working in my field ever again. I need to let that go and put my former life behind me. If I don’t tell her why, she’ll never stop trying to convince me something that drastic isn’t necessary.
    My plans for a future with Harrison Burke crashed with my car. I don’t have the energy or ammunition to confront him. For all the world knows, I was part of a devious plot to thrust his flawed Ultimate Glucose Solution on an unsuspecting public. But there will be someone to come in behind me and spot the same things I did. The drug will not make it through rigorous testing. I may have bought Harrison more time, but I didn’t give him any approval, so if that was his end game, it failed. I'm not even addressing the fact I thought we had the start of something special. The damage to my heart is a different beast all together. One I don’t feel brave enough to let out of the cage and slay.
    What frightens me more than anything about this scenario is if Harrison walked through my hospital room door right now, professed his love to me, and begged for forgiveness, I don’t know how I’d react. I feel so empty, but given the chance to refill myself, I might be stupid enough to actually allow him back into my life.
    He doesn’t seem to be trying to do that, so I don’t have to worry about my reaction, because it doesn’t look like he cares enough to even try.
    Staring at the bedside phone, I wonder if I should reach for it. My mom has gone home for the night. I only know two other numbers by heart. Tracey’s and Harrison’s. Straining toward it, I pull the whole thing to my body, and it tumbles off the stand and into my lap. Slowly I punch in Harrison’s cell phone number. It rings four times and goes to voicemail. It shouldn’t surprise me. No one picks up from a number they don’t know anymore.
    After the long beep I sputter out an almost incoherent message. “Harrison, I’m not sure how I’m going to do this. How am I supposed to do this? I can’t do this.” My voice trembles as the sobs come,