Within These Walls
Read Within These Walls Online
Authors: J. L. Berg
Within These Walls
Copyright © 2014 by J.L. Berg
All rights reserved.
Cover designed by Sarah Hansen at
OkayCreations.com
Cover Photography by Kelsey Keeton
© 2014 K Keeton Designs
kkeetondesigns.com
Editors: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing,
www.unforeseenediting.com
, and Ami Deason
http://bookglam.org
Formatting:
Champagne Formats
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Visit my website at
www.jlberg.com
ISBN: 978-0-9903460-4-3
three: The Great Pudding Mystery—Lailah
seven: The Someday List—Lailah
twelve: It’s Getting Hot in Here—Jude
seventeen: Shakespeare in Love—Lailah
eighteen: Dancing in the Rain—Jude
nineteen: Truth and Texts—Lailah
twenty-one: Flynn Rider—Lailah
twenty-two: Yertle the Turtle—Jude
twenty-three: Coming Home—Lailah
twenty-four: Time to Say Good-Bye—Jude
twenty-five: Date Night—Lailah
twenty-six: Decisions, Decisions…—Jude
twenty-seven: The Aftermath—Lailah
thirty-one: Pretty in Pink—Lailah
thirty-two: An Unwritten Future—Jude
playlist for Within These Walls
Other Books by
J.L. Berg
WITHIN THESE WALLS, he became my solace, my sanctuary, and my strength.
Like a white knight, he saved me from a life of gray and showed me a world full of color.
Within these walls, I gave myself to a man who said he would always fight for me and love me until the end of time.
But sometimes, not even love was enough when life got in the way.
When your heart was already damaged beyond repair, what was left to break?
Within these walls, I gave my less than perfect heart to the man I loved.
And then…he walked away.
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP…
Ever so slowly, I began to register my surroundings. My ears kicked in first as my sluggish, tired body came awake. I heard the sound of the pulse oximetry monitor as it beeped away in the background, tugging me out of dreamland. Like most days, before I even managed to crack open my eyelids, I’d take account of my surroundings, listening to the world around me and mentally checking off the things I could hear to determine where I was.
Someone wheeled a rickety cart down the hallway, its wheels spinning and squeaking, as she pushed it to its final destination. Across the hall, someone chatted outside a room. Close to me, the ever-present sounds of the equipment beeped and buzzed while monitoring my oxygen and heart rhythm.
All these sounds together could only mean one thing.
I was in the hospital—still.
Most kids had a favorite grandmother’s house, or a special friend they couldn’t get enough of—I had Memorial Regional. It had been my home away from home since I was an infant.
It was definitely not the same.
Home was quiet and warm.
The hospital bustled with noise at every God-given hour of the day, regardless of whether the sun or the moon was currently occupying the sky.
Staying here also felt like spending a night in a meat locker. I’d learned through my many years here that heat bred infection, which is why nurses buried patients in blankets rather than cranked up the furnace. Standing barely five and a half feet on my tiptoes, I weighed a little over a hundred pounds. No amounts of blankets could ever keep me warm. I seriously loved heaters.
I rubbed my chest as I took a labored breath though my lungs. It crackled slightly as I exhaled. Biting down on my lip, I tried to ignore it, focusing on my one and only goal for the day.
Going home today. I’m going home today
, I chanted.
My eyelids reluctantly lifted, my vision blurry at first until the room came into view. Nothing had changed since I fell asleep last night. I saw the same boring, lackluster eggshell-colored walls and the same white board listing my nurse on shift with a little happy face drawn next to her name.
Grace was working this morning. She was young, around my age, and she’d just recently graduated with her nursing degree. She loved happy faces, hearts, and anything else she could draw with a dry-erase marker. She reminded me of a Disney princess. Even in scrubs, she was over-the-top girlie. I swore, one of these days, she was going to break out into song, summon an entire forest full of small animals, and perform a musical, complete with dancing squirrels and singing larks.
But all that would have to wait for another day because I was leaving
—today.
What was supposed to be an in-and-out routine procedure had turned out to be another prolonged hospital stay. I was more than ready to get home to my own bed. I hated hospital beds. They were uncomfortable, hard, and never felt right.
Seriously, who makes these things? Do they actually test the beds out? I know the beds are supposed to be functional, but really, they could add some padding.
I’d arrived at the hospital two weeks ago, expecting to stay a couple of days, to switch out the battery in my pacemaker, but as always, things hadn’t gone as planned, and I’d ended up in the hospital—again.
Story of my life.
But not today. Today, I was free—well, as free as my life would allow.
I was born with a heart defect. Basically, my heart was larger than it was supposed to be. It made breathing and mostly everything else difficult because my heart had to work ten times harder than normal. In a nutshell, this little defect controlled my entire life.
It was also slowly killing me, which was why I couldn’t wait to break free of this prison. When you were living your life on borrowed time, every second you had to spend watching the days pass by through a hospital room window was one moment less you had to be doing something meaningful.
In my sheltered life, my idea of
meaningful
might be defined as something completely lackluster and conventional, but at least it wouldn’t be spent here.
I slowly exhaled another wheezy breath out through my mouth at the exact moment Grace decided to walk through the door.
“Good morning!” she nearly sang.
She gave me her dazzling white smile that was entirely too perky for the ungodly early hour. Her dark curls bobbed behind her as she bounced over to the computer terminal and began her morning ritual.
“Morning, Grace. How are you?” I asked.
“I’m fantastic! The sun is shining, and the birds are singing! My favorite patient is being discharged today! It’s a fantastic day!”
Wow, two fantastics in one breath.
The corner of my mouth curved into a smile, mimicking hers. “You’re extra chipper today. Any particular reason?” I inquired, knowing she had mentioned going on a special date with her boyfriend last night.
They’d been dating for two years, and she’d been hinting at an engagement for a while. My guess was her boyfriend finally caught on.
Grace played dumb. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She held her left hand up to her cheek as she shook her head back and forth.
There, on her ring finger, was a perfect, dazzling white diamond ring that matched her sparkling eyes.
“You got engaged! What a surprise!” I exclaimed.
It wasn’t a surprise though. She’d been talking about it since I had arrived.
I really want to be happy for her—no, scratch that. I am happy for her. She deserves all the happiness in the world.
My life is not horrible. It’s just different
, I reminded myself.
“Thank you! It was so sweet. He got down on one knee in his suit—on the beach, no less—and told me I was the only woman he’d ever want to share his life with, and then he pulled out this ring. It was so romantic.”
