I nod.
A few minutes later, after being handed protective clothing, shown how to sanitise my hands and told what I can and can’t touch, I find myself standing in the doorway of her room.
And fuck.
Nothing could have prepared me for this.
Piper lies motionless in the hospital bed, so pale and frighteningly small that if it weren’t for the steady rhythm of the monitors beside her, I wouldn’t know she was still here.
A ventilator breathes for her, the tube disappearing past her lips, while wires and monitoring leads trail from her chest and hands, each machine around her producing its own relentless series of beeps and numbers.
The sight punches the air from my lungs.
I just stand there and stare.
My feet eventually remember how to move, and I somehow manage to reach her bedside.
A crushing pain takes hold of my chest, so fierce that even breathing hurts, and for the first time, I understand exactly what helplessness is.
I pull the chair closer and reach for her hand, though it takes me a moment to navigate around the wires and monitors attached to her before I can finally lace my fingers through hers.
Lifting her hand carefully, I press a kiss to her knuckles and keep hold of her as I sit beside the bed.
The hours blur into days.
I stay by her side.
I talk to her about everything and nothing, I beg her to come back to me.
Because it feels as if my heart has been ripped from my chest, and the only person capable of giving any part of it back is her.
“I don’t need anything else in this life,” I murmur, tightening my hold on her hand. “I just need you.”
Chapter 44
Piper
I hear beeping, and for a while I think that’s all there is.
The sound is loud.
Too loud, if you ask me.
Everything hurts, yet somehow my body feels numb, and how those two things can possibly coexist is beyond me.
I try to move my hand and realise someone is holding it because the grip around my fingers tightens.
The beeping keeps going in the background, and part of me wishes it would stop, though the thought barely forms before another follows, because that sound might very well be my heart and if that’s the case then perhaps it should keep going.
The sterile scent of antiseptic finally reaches me, and with it comes the growing awareness that I’m in a hospital.
I try to open my eyes, but nothing happens.
My eyelids feel heavy, but I try again, and then once more.
“Love.”
The gruff voice reaches me through the haze.
