I push inside, skipping the sign-in sheet and blindly walk down the hall.
She’s awake when I get there, and the worry that slips over her has my heart shattering.
Everything shatters.
“Oh, honey.” Her hand lifts. “Come here.”
I drop onto my mom’s hospital bed, and I lose it.
The only two people I love in this world are both here, their lives in the hands of someone else, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.
I’ve never felt so helpless in my life.
TriCity Medical, once again, becomes my home.
All of our homes, really, as none of us leaves for more than a few hours here and there, be it to catch a shower or maybe a few minutes of sleep in an actual bed.
Mason still hasn’t gotten in touch with his parents, the end of their trip being their time off the grid, backpacking through Europe and cut off from communication for thirty days, so they have no idea their daughter was hit by a car, let alone that she’s been in a coma.
It was the day before Christmas Eve when the doctor came in with the news we’d been waiting for. After six long, torturous days, the risk of swelling was finally gone, the pain expected to have subsided, and they were ready to allow her to wake up.
Something in me stirred, a second wind and an anxiousness I’ve never known woke me up.
Soon, I’d get to look into her eyes.
I’d get to tell her how sorry I am for walking away, for questioning her feelings for me.
I’d promise to never do it again and trust I was enough for her, when I know, deep down, she’s more than any man could ever deserve, especially a simple man like me.
I don’t have a large family to love and adore her. I don’t have a home full of memories to take her to or a path to follow to make our own. I didn’t have what she did growing up, so I’m already at a disadvantage, but I do have the love of a mother who showed me what it meant to be a man. To work hard and to appreciate the things I have.
To love with all you are, and I do.
I love her with all I am, all I’m not, and all I’ll be.
I should have been able to look into her beautiful eyes to tell her all of this on Christmas Day, but I wasn’t, because Ari didn’t wake.
They said we could expect her to after the first forty-eight hours.
It’s been four days and the only change is the slight fading of her bruises.
The deep purple has faded into a soft yellow, and the swell of her lips has disappeared, the perfect pout now a familiar one, a new, tiny scar just below her bottom one.
I reach out, guiding my thumb along the end of her hair, wishing I could run my fingers through it like I have so many times before.
With the help of a nurse, they allowed Cameron to do what she could to hand wash Ari’s hair, and then she braided it to one side, just like Ari had done to it the first day we hung out. And every six hours, like clockwork, Cam covered her lips with Chapstick, one less thing she has to recover from, Cam had said.
Ari couldn’t ask for a better friend.
Mason doesn’t talk much, just frowns at the TV in the corner, though I’m not convinced he’s ever watching what’s on. He’s losing his mind, and he’s bound to snap soon.
We all are.
“Anything?”
Cameron looks up from her pile of beads, offering me a small grin. “No, Noah, nothing happened in the point two seconds it took you to take a piss.”
A low chuckle leaves me, but it falls flat as I make my way to Ari’s bedside.
Cameron’s phone beeps and then she’s pushing to her feet. “The boys said they finally put out fresh coffee downstairs. I’m going to go make Mason buy me one. You want?”
“I’m good. Thanks.” Gently pushing Ari’s hair behind her ear, I lean in, placing a soft kiss to her forehead before lowering into my seat.
I don’t have to look up to know Cameron hesitates in the doorway.
“Noah…” she whispers, concern in her tone.
I only shake my head, and in the next breath, she slips out.
And then it’s just us, a rarity I selfishly want more of.
I slide my hand beneath her lifeless one, the movement a triggering one for me considering, but necessary. I need to touch her. To hold her.
“Juliet, baby, open your eyes. It’s time to wake up,” I whisper. “Open those big, beautiful eyes and look at me… please look at me.” The last word barely makes it out of my mouth, and suddenly, I’m overcome with all the emotions I’ve tried to push down. I clench my teeth to the point of pain, my jaw flexing as I will the moisture building in my eyes not to fall. Not here. Not where she might sense my agony, the way she always does.