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Eric turned to me immediately. “You go first.”

I looked at him in surprise. He had every right to walk through those doors before anyone else, but he shook his head before I could argue.

“She’d want you,” he said. “Go.”

I followed the doctor through the double doors I’d been staring at for five hours. Down a hallway, past rooms with curtains drawn, machines beeping, and the low murmur of voices I didn’t register. Then we stopped at a door and the doctor gestured me in.

I walked to her bedside and froze. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her skin was still too pale. There was a bandage wrapped around her head, and her blonde hair was more matted and tangled than I’d ever seen it. An IV line ran into her left hand. A monitor beside the bed tracked her heartbeat in a steady green line, and the beeping was the same rhythm I’d clung to in the ambulance.

She looked like she was sleeping. If I didn’t know better, I could convince myself she’d just dozed off on the couch at the hockey house after a long day and I’d come to carry her to bed.

But I did know better.

The doctor left and closed the door behind him. The room got very quiet and still with only the beeping and hum of the machines and the sound of my own breathing, which was shakier than I wanted it to be.

I pulled the chair next to her bed and sat down. I found her hand—the one without the IV—and wrapped both of mine around it. Her fingers were warm, which was something. Warm meant alive. Warm meant blood was moving, her heart was working, and, most importantly, she was still here.

“Hey, Sam.”

My throat tightened and I had to stop. I leaned forward, pressing my forehead against our joined hands, and focused on breathing until the tightness loosened enough to let words through.

“I need you to come back.” My voice was rough and barely above a whisper. “I know you’re in there somewhere, and I need you to fight your way out. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met and I’m not just saying that. I’ve watched you battle bigger obstacles than this, like surviving your parents’ house for two weeks and having the courage to get back on the ice after five years. I’ve watched you carry guilt that was never yours to carry and still show up for every single person you love without asking for anything in return.” I swallowed hard. “So I know you can do this. I know you can come back from this because you’ve come back from worse.”

I lifted my head and looked at her face, my gaze catching on the bandage, her closed eyes, and the stillness in her body that was so wrong on a person who was so rarely still. This was the woman who danced in the kitchen and sang in the car. She moved through the world like it was something to be grabbed with both hands.

“I love you.” The words came out cracked but steady. “And I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here in this chair every single day until you open your eyes and tell me to stop hovering.” I almost smiled, but couldn’t quite get there. “You’re going to hate how much I hover. You’re going to tell me you’re fine and try to get up too fast and I’m going to drive you absolutely crazy, but I don’t care. I don’t care, Sam. Just come back so you can yell at me about it.”

Her hand didn’t move in mine. The monitor beeped, steady and unchanged.

“Please.” My voice broke on the word and I stopped fighting it, letting the tears come. There was no one here to see them, and even if there had been, I wouldn’t have cared. “Please, baby. Wake up. I need you.”

The room stayed quiet, and my helplessness grew to a fever pitch.

I had never been a religious person. The Gordons were far too pragmatic for organized religion.

But sitting in that hospital room, holding the hand of the woman who had become every good thing in my life, I prayed. To God, to the universe, to Pop’s Montana sky, to whatever power might exist beyond what I could see and control.

I begged.

I bargained.

I offered up everything I had and everything I would ever have—the trust fund, the Gordon name, hockey, all of it—if someone, anyone, anything would just let her open her eyes.

The monitor beeped.

I held her hand tighter and waited.

THIRTY-NINE

My walk back to the waiting room was slow, like there was lead in my shoes that got heavier with every step I took farther away from her. Every part of me had resisted the idea of letting go of her hand and walking out of that room. But we could only visit with her one at a time, and I wasn’t so much of a dick that I wouldn’t let her brother get some time with her. I knew he was just as worried as I was.

So I made my way back to the waiting room to give him a chance before I commandeered the room again.

I rounded the corner and pushed through the double doors before coming to an abrupt stop.

Pop was standing in the middle of the waiting room. He was in his ranch coat—the old canvas one with the frayed collar that he’d owned for as long as I could remember—over a flannel that was misbuttoned, like he’d dressed in a hurry. Viv was next to him, worrying her lip between her teeth as they both stared at me.

Pop crossed the room in four strides and wrapped me in a hug so tight that it cracked the composure I’d been barely holding together. I gripped the back of his coat and held on. He smelled like wood smoke and coffee just like always, and the smell was so comforting that I felt the tension I’d been carrying since the accident ease a little.