Hope sounded small in that room.
“Can I see him?”
“Briefly, before he’s transferred.”
They made me wash my hands.
I scrubbed grease from beneath my nails while a nurse explained tubes and machines I would see. She told me not to be alarmed by swelling. Not to touch the dressings. Not to interfere with the lines.
I nodded to everything.
Nothing prepared me.
Noah lay beneath white blankets in a narrow recovery bay, surrounded by equipment. A rigid brace framed his neck. Bandages covered the left side of his head. His face was bruised, swollen, and marked with shallow cuts.
The ventilator breathed for him.
His left arm was immobilized. His skin looked colorless beneath the harsh light.
I stopped at the curtain.
The nurse waited.
I forced myself forward.
Noah never slept quietly. He kicked free of blankets. He muttered. He reached across the mattress until he found me.
This stillness belonged to someone else.
I stood on his uninjured side and touched two fingers to his wrist. His skin was warm.
That small warmth broke something inside me.
“Hey,” I whispered.
The machine exhaled.
“It’s Reid.”
No response.
“I’m here.”
My eyes flooded. I bent over his hand, careful of the tape and intravenous line.
“You don’t have to do anything right now. You hear me? Just stay.”
The nurse touched my shoulder. “He may be able to hear you.”
I swallowed a sob.
“You were supposed to call me,” I told him. “I’m going to be impossible about that when you wake up.”
The ventilator sighed again.
I pressed my mouth to his knuckles.
“I love you.”
