We stopped outside his room.
Leah’s hand tightened around the strap of her purse.
I had become accustomed to Noah’s injuries because there had been no choice. The bruises faded by degrees. The swelling changed. The scar along the left side of his head shifted from something raw and shocking into a line I could look at without losing my breath.
Other people did not have that gradual adjustment.
They saw all of it at once.
Noah sat propped against several pillows, a blanket drawn to his waist. His left arm remained braced from wrist to upper arm, though the doctors had replaced the first heavy cast with a lighter support. The bruising around his eye had thinned to yellow and green. A dark curve of stitches remained near his temple, and the shaved section of hair exposed the path of the surgery.
He was reading one of the magazines I had brought.
Or trying to.
The page had not changed in ten minutes.
When we entered, he raised his head slowly.
His gaze came to me first.
The small recognition there was new enough that I noticed it every time.
Then he saw Leah.
He went completely still.
Leah stopped beside me.
No one spoke.
Noah’s eyes narrowed as though he were looking through rain.
His mouth opened.
“Lee?”
The sound was faint.
Leah’s bag slipped from my hand.
Her breath broke.
“Noah.”
She crossed the room in three steps, then caught herself before touching him. Her hands hovered helplessly above the blankets.
“You know me?”
He stared at her.
“Your hair’s different.”
Leah made a strangled sound that might have been a laugh.
“I cut it four years ago.”
“No.” He looked almost offended. “You had it down to here.”
