“Do you want to go back?” The vulnerability is clear in his voice, and the fact that he had to ask breaks my heart.
I fight against the pain in my neck and shake my head slowly, but clearly.
Relief washes over him. He doesn’t try to hide it. “Okay. I’ll fix this.”
I open my mouth to argue that it isn’t that simple, but he cuts me off with a look that begs me to trust him.
“It’s okay,” he says softly. “I promise everything will be fine. I’m going to make a couple of phone calls while you’re being checked out in hospital, then I’m going to take you home. This will all be over in a few hours.”
I don’t know if it’s the exhaustion, the pain medication or the determined look on Connor’s face, but I relax a little. I spend the rest of the journey dozing while Connor and the paramedic chat about nothing in particular, but I notice that Connor never takes his attention away from me for more than a minute or so at a time. While he talks, he glances back to give me a reassuring smile or squeezes my hand to let me know he’s still there.
For now.
It crosses my mind more than once that I’ll have to give Connor some sort of explanation about how I ended up in the sea, but my brain is too fuzzy to deal with that. I’ll have to cross that rickety bridge when I come to it.
It doesn’t take much longer to reach the hospital and get settled into a cubicle. They bring me a gown, which Connor insists on helping me change into, and I climb into bed, achingand exhausted. I look over at him sitting in the chair next to me and feel a pang of guilt, remembering how uncomfortable Rhys said hospital chairs were.
“You don’t have to stay,” I croak. “I don’t mind if you want to go back to the hotel—”
“Are you kidding?”
“It’s just that when I was in hospital after I fell…”
“Rhys left you there on your own,” Connor guesses, grinding out the words through his clenched jaw.
“It’s okay, I don’t mind. The chairs look really uncomfortable.”
Connor looks at me for a moment, choosing his words. Finally, he sighs and steps towards me.
“Move up.” He taps my hip to nudge me closer to the other side of the bed. I awkwardly shuffle over while he removes his shoes, then he climbs in next to me. When Connor puts his arm around me, I instinctively settle my head onto his chest. His lips find the top of my head.
“There. Now I’m comfortable,” he says softly into my still-damp hair. “Baby, I’m not Rhys. He and I are very different people. As long as you’ll let me, I want to be here for you through everything, whether that’s wiping your tears, distracting you while you have blood taken or sitting for hours on that chair. I almost lost you today, I’m not letting you out of my sight ever again.”
“What about when I go to the bathroom?” I joke, trying to deflect his attention.
“I’ll be there to hand you the tissue.”
We both lie in silence, listening to each other breathing, my hand resting on his chest while his glides lightly up and down my side. Just as I feel myself start to drift off to sleep, Connor speaks. His voice is quiet and uncertain, a voice I’ve never heard Connor use before, and it breaks my heart.
“Tilly, I really think we need to talk about what happened today if you’re feeling up to it?”
“Connor…”
His heart beats a steady rhythm under my hand, while mine jumps erratically.He knows.
“I want to believe that you fell, that this was all an accident, but it doesn’t add up. We can leave the details for when you’ve had some rest, but I have to know because it’s eating me up inside… Was this intentional?”
My chest tightens even more, and I draw in a ragged breath. I can’t lie to Connor; I don’t want to. But I also don’t want to talk about what happened. Reluctantly, I nod my head against his chest, leaving streaks of tears down his T-shirt.
Connor’s arms tighten around me, and he seems to hold his breath. “Is it me?”
I jerk up my head so quickly it spins. “Oh my God, Connor, that’s not it at all!”
Ugly tears fall from the shame of making Connor think I don’t want him. I should have left him a note explaining everything, but there hadn’t been time.
“Please believe that’s not why I did it! You have to believe that!”
Connor makes gentle shushing sounds and cradles my face in his hands, using his thumbs to wipe at my tear-stained cheeks.
