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“He’s not injured?” Elspeth asked, and when I looked, she was now standing herself. “You said he was shot.”
“Flesh wound to his arm. Other than that, nothing serious,” Thelma said back to her. “The palace is still on lockdown. One of the attackers is still at large; that is why it’s taken so long to hear anything from the king. They were on lockdown as well. They’ve brought him back to the palace secretly. He will be down shortly.”
Shortly felt like years.
They said he was okay.
They said he was coming and yet being in this bunker, waiting, still made me nervous. It was almost impossible for me to sit still.
When we finally heard a hurry of footsteps, we all stood up, and I held my breath until I saw him…completely disheveled, his suit jacket and tie gone. His left arm bandaged, though I could still see blood on it. The rest of his shirt was covered in dust and sweat. His hair was an utter mess….and his face…exhausted, but I’d take that over anything else.
I didn’t care that I was pregnant. I ran right to him. I hugged him as tightly as I could, and he hugged me back just as tightly, kissing the side of my head.
“Bevilën,” he whispered, and finally…finally…I could breathe a real sigh of relief.
“Thank God.”
They always say in near-death moments, your life flashes before your eyes. But for me, it wasn’t like that. The moment the bullets started flying, the moment I felt the pain in my arm right as my guards tackled me to the ground and dragged me to safety, I saw…the future. The life I would miss if I died.
It was like an out-of-body experience, where I saw my own funeral. It was similar to my father’s, and then from there I saw Odette…I saw her crying…everyone crying. I saw her with our child celebrating birthdays and Christmases without me. I saw my sister getting married and cousins. All of them moving on, and life goes on without me there for any of them, and I hated every bit of it.
I wasn’t sure what in the hell was happening, but I knew for damn sure I wasn’t going to die, even as I heard screaming, more gunfire, and felt the building shake at what sounded like explosions. I refused to believe I was going to die because I wanted to be here. I wanted my family. Now that I was back, after hugging and kissing and reassuring all of them…I felt so exhausted.
All I could do was sit on the floor of the restroom. The weight of all of it only now hitting me.
Knock.
Knock.
“Gale, it’s me. Can I come in?” I heard Odette’s voice from the other side of the door.
For a split second, I thought I didn’t want her to see me like this. I moved to get up, but then…a part of me…really needed her to see I was not okay.
“Are you alone?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“Come in.”
She opened the door a crack, first peeking in until she saw me on the floor. Quickly she came in and closed the door behind her. “Are you okay?”
“Physically…yes. Mentally…” I didn’t know.
She walked over to me and slowly eased her way to sit next to me. I held on to her, helping the best I could until she was beside me. The very first thing she did was hug me again, and I held on, hoping to clear the thoughts from my mind.
We didn’t say anything. We just stayed there holding each other for a moment.
“Gale.”
“Mhh?”
“I think I’m really in love with you.”
A small smile spread across my face. “Two years in, and you’re just realizing it?”
She pulled back from me, placing her hand on my face. “I know I’m really in love with you. So much that I think I almost lost my mind when they said they were ‘taking me to safety.’ All I wanted was to be next to you wherever you were.”
Cupping her cheek, I pulled her in closer, kissing her lips…and it felt so much better now than it ever had because now I realized I could have never kissed her again.
