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Thirty-One
Riven
I squint at the patient log in front of me, but all of the letters blur together. This is the fifth time I’ve read through it, and I still have no idea what it actually says. I can’t concentrate. My mind is somewhere else.
I keep imagining Daisy, hunched up in the snow, terrified as she feels her body starting to shut down. Resigning herself to dying out there, completely alone, frozen in the cold.
My bedroom door opens, and Cole strides right in, not bothering to knock. He raises an eyebrow at me, sitting at my desk in the dark. “Hiding?”
“Giving them some alone time,” I say, keeping my eyes on the page. “I don’t think Eli feels like sharing right now.”
Cole snorts. “Liar.”
I don’t say anything. He comes to stand behind me. “What?” He asks brusquely. “She’s alive. What do you have to be upset about?”
I lick my lips. “How did you find her?”
“I would’ve given her ten more minutes.”
I close my eyes. “I almost killed her.”
He doesn’t deny it. Instead, he draws himself up. “She needs you.”
I look up at him. His jaw is clenched. “What?”
“She needs you,” he repeats firmly. “She needs you to hold her and tell her you still care about her.”
I shake my head. “She doesn’t want me—”
His eyes are serious. “Yes, she does. And you’d know that, if you weren’t hiding in here like a scared rabbit.”
“I—”
“Pull yourself the fuck together. You’re better than this. You made a mistake. Apologise. It’s that simple.”
Before I can respond, he turns on his heel and leaves again, his heavy footsteps disappearing down the corridor.
I look down at my hands. They’re trembling. I ball them into fists.
I’ve done a lot of hard things in my life. I’ve held patients’ hands as they passed away. I’ve told people their loved ones have died. I once performed an emergency tracheotomy on the floor of a restaurant, cutting a hole in the throat of a woman who was choking to death.
I’ve never been more fucking scared than I am right now.
When I step into the lounge, Daisy is sitting squashed between Cole and Eli, cuddled up between them. Eli is playing with the ends of her hair, and Cole—
Cole has their clasped hands laying on his knee. I don’t remember the last time I saw him hold hands with a woman. This might literally be the first time.
I stay back for a few seconds, just watching her. She looks so peaceful between my friends. The firelight flickers over her skin, licking her with a soft gold glow. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
And I almost killed her.
The thought makes me flinch, and she looks up. Her eyes widen. She slips off the sofa. “Riven,” she starts. “I am so sorr—”
“Stop.” I cross the room and pull her into my arms. She burrows into my chest, shaking slightly. I run a hand through her long hair, fuckinghatingmyself. “I’msorry,” I tell her, closing my eyes and breathing in her sweet peaches-and-cream scent. “I should’ve just asked you what was happening, instead of blowing up like that. It wasn’t fair on you. I should have let you defend yourself.”
She shakes her head. “It was a normal reaction,” she mumbles into my sweater. “I’d be fucking pissed if I found out a guy I’d been sleeping with lied to me about who he was. It was a shitty thing to do.” She pulls back. There are big tears shining in her eyes. “I wouldn’t have done it if I thought I had a choice. But if I’d told you my real name, you would’ve looked me up. To check out my Facebook, or look at my paintings online, or check I wasn’t a murderer, or whatever. And I was trending in the local news, so I couldn’t tell you where I lived, or the name of my school, either. If you’d done an internet search, you’d’ve found the video.”
“I wouldn’t have thought of you any differently,” I say gently.
