Oleander - Bucky BarnesxOC

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: CANNONBALL

"Yes."

"Any confusion?"

"No."

"Headaches?"

James shakes his head.

"Any tingling in your limbs?"

"No."

"Trouble sleeping?"

James shakes his head again.

"Haven't tried yet."

Steven nods and digs in his bag, pulling out a pad of paper and a pen.

"James, I want you to draw a clock face on here and set it to 10 minutes past 11."

"What's that for?" Dahlia asks. "The clock thing?"

Steven glances behind him and smiles. It's a little arrogant and off-putting. Dahlia feels a shiver run down her spine. Steven's eyes are cold and icy. He has an intimidating presence. Dahlia instantly feels stupid for asking a question.

"I'm trying to determine if he has a cognitive impairment from the accident."

Dahlia nods and James offers her a soft smile to comfort her that makes her stomach flutter and almost forget about the fact that she has some questions to ask him. She's not sure if she wants to bring them up now. He's clearly not in the right state of mind to be interrogated right now. She watches as James quickly sketches a clock and sets the hands at 10 minutes past 11. He hands the pad of paper back to Steven who looks it over and nods.

"Okay. Do you remember how you hit your head?"

"Some guy cut me off and I wrapped my car around a tree," James replies.

"I thought it was a pole," Dahlia interrupts.

He blinks and runs a hand through his hair, his face turning pink. Dahlia raises a brow. Something about this doesn't feel right, and the story about the car accident isn't sitting well with her. She doesn't want to think that James could be lying to her, but how else would he get these kinds of injuries?

"Right. Yeah. Maybe I am a little confused, doc."

"It's normal. Did your head hit the dashboard?"

"No," James replies. "I got knocked to the side."

"Did you pass out?"

"No."

"That's a good sign." Steven pauses. "You probably have a mild concussion. I would take the rest of the weekend to rest - stay away from your phone. You can watch TV and do some light reading, but I wouldn't recommend anything more than that. I know it sounds strange, but mental stress and overstimulation can exacerbate things and make you nauseous."

"Wasn't planning on looking at my phone for the rest of the weekend, doc," James says as he glances over at Dahlia with a sly smile on his face. She blushes and looks down at her feet, suddenly feeling guilty about being suspicious of him. Still, she can't escape this feeling that things aren't quite what they seem. She's had this feeling before, when she first came over here, but his charm threw her off completely. Dahlia chalked it up to James being afraid to show her who he really is, but is that a lie? Is the soft, sweet, gentle James she's come to know over the past few weeks just a facade?

You're spiralling based on one possible lie. Maybe he just thought he told you about his doctor. Maybe it's not a big fucking deal.

Wanda once told her that she looks for the worst in people, and she wasn't wrong. On dates, Dahlia would just wait for the guy to fuck up instead of enjoying the time she was spending getting to know another person. James is the first guy who didn't make her feel like that, and now she's possibly sabotaging something really good that's happening in her life.