“I love you, too, Daddy! I never thought I was going to be able to tell you those words out loud, but I shouted them loud in my mind, hoping that you were hearing them.”
Daddy smiled down at her before leaning down and pressing his lips on hers. Groaning, she opened her lips allowing him to deepen the kiss.
“I’ve got to stop, Little girl. You’re so tempting, but you're hurt.”
“I don’t hurt that badly, Daddy. We don’t need to stop.”
“Don’t even think about lying, Liv.”
She sighed at his words, but didn’t push the issue any further. Instead she snuggled in against Daddy’s chest and just enjoyed listening to the beat of his heart. It played her favorite song and she never wanted it to end.
Several moments passed again, before she spoke the question that has been bouncing around in her head since she woke up.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, babygirl?”
“What happened to David?”
“He’s dead, Olivia. You don’t have to worry about him coming for you anymore.”
The words sank in her mind and a sense of peace spread upon her. David was her husband and shouldn’t she be sad that he was dead? Olivia shocked herself at the next words she muttered out.
“Good, I’m glad he’s dead.”
She guessed that Daddy was waiting for her to fall apart at the news, but the feeling of remorse never came.
Olivia hated David and everything he did to her. At least now there was no way he could go on to hurt someone else.
“When can we go home, Daddy?”
It was another voice who answered her question, catching her off guard. “Once we can get the pain under control and are stable enough to fly, there’s no reason why you can’t go back home and continue your recovery there.”
Olivia just stared at the man who stood at the bottom of her bed. She assumed that this must be her doctor.
“It’s good to see your eyes, Ms. Carter. I’m Dr. Jones. I’m the one who has been over your care since you arrived.”
“Hi, Dr. Jones. Thank you for helping me.”
“You’re welcome. I did want to talk to you about the surgery you underwent and everything that we did after.”
Tensing, she snuggled closer into Daddy before nodding her head for him to continue.
“When you arrived you had suffered a great deal of blood loss already. We immediately rushed you back to surgery to repair the damage done to your abdomen. When we got in there we noted that the injury had penetrated your uterus. We did all that we could do, but I’m sorry to say that we couldn’t save your uterus. We had to do a hysterectomy.”
No, no, no. There was no way that this was happening. She was only twenty-two.
She still had her whole life ahead of her. One that she imagined was filled with babies. All of that faded as the words rang in her head. ‘You will never be able to have children.’
Olivia cried at the loss of the future she had always dreamed about. One that she dreamed she and Miles would have.
“Again, I express my deepest condolences.”
Numb, Olivia nodded her head at the doctor. Tuning outthe droning on he did about the rest of the care she received, she retreated further into her mind.
David was still affecting her life even now. He inflicted one more lasting lesson on her and she doesn’t know if she will ever recover from this.
Olivia heard Daddy thank the doctor before gathering her further into his arms. It was that moment that Olivia broke.
