Page 25 of What We Become

Micah looks inside the bakery bag and sets it on the nightstand before standing up and stretching out his limbs. Then he moves closer to the bed and settles down beside me, balancing on the edge of the mattress and resting his hand on the top of my thigh. His other hand hovers near my ribs for a second before he pulls it back to his lap. “How are you feeling, baby girl?”

“Shit,” I breathe, a fresh bout of tears threatening to spill from the relief of seeing him.

He swallows hard, swipes at his own eyes. “I asked Holden to pick you up an almond croissant.” He gestures at the bakery bag. “But if you want the raspberry Danish next time, you have to do me a favor and call your doctor ‘Doc McStuffins’ at least twice in the next twenty-four hours.”

I want to laugh. It comes out as a hiccup. “Deal. But only if you feed it to me.”

“Deal.” Micah smiles and adjusts the bedding slightly, like he needs something to do with his hands.

“Dr. Shahid says your numbers are improving,” Holden says. “O2 is at ninety-four. If you stay stable through the afternoon, they’ll step down the oxygen tonight.”

“And then?”

“And then when the doc gives you the all clear, we get to take you home.” He squeezes my knee. “Where you belong.”

“I heard him say something about keeping me for a few days,” I say, and Holden nods.

“One of us will be here with you the whole time.”

“Good,” I say, meaning it. Because for the first time since this all started, my freedom feels more like a trap than a liberation. After being sealed into a wall and thinking I was going to die, right now, I think I’d be okay with one of them handcuffed to me at all times.

Knox hasn’t moved from the foot of my bed. He’s standing shoulders squared, eyes scanning the room like he’s expecting the bricks to follow me here. Everyone else has found a way to be next to me—Micah on the mattress, Eli holding my hand, Milo riffling through his own gift basket like he might’ve missed something. Knox has posted himself between me and the door, and the distance isn’t physical. I know this man. I’ve watched him love people through walls of silence. Something is eating him alive and he’s not going to say it out loud.

“Knoxie.”

His eyes come to me.

“Come closer.”

For a second I think he’s going to refuse. Then he moves around the bed, and stands there, jaw working like he’s trying to find the right word in a language he doesn’t speak.

Then he leans down and kisses me, as close to my mouth as he can get without removing the oxygen mask.

“Hey, Fury,” he says against the mask.

“Hi.” I’m smiling and crying at the same time, which is becoming my default setting. “You taste like oxygen and plastic.”

“You taste like hospital.” He straightens and steps back. But I’m not letting him get away that easy.

I pat the mattress. “Sit. You’re giving me a neck crick, and I already have a signature neck injury.”

Milo chokes on a laugh he tries to disguise as a cough. Holden mutters, “Too soon,” but he’s smiling.

Knox sits. Carefully. Like the bed is rigged with explosives. I take his hand—it swallows mine whole, warm and rough, foam still ground into the crescents of his nails. Evidence that he dug me out with his fingers.

“Don’t ever do that to me again, Fury.”

“Get bricked into a wall?”

“Befriend a psychopath with a mortar trowel.”

“In my defense, I didn’t know he owned a trowel.”

Knox manages a ghost of a smile.

Milo has been uncharacteristically quiet for approximately forty-five seconds, which means he’s about to detonate.

“Okay,” he says, clapping his hands together. “I need to say something and I need everyone to be present and not interrupt me because if I stop I’ll lose my nerve and then I’ll make a joke instead and we’ll all pretend this moment didn’t happen.”