AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But the best line of all had been saved for Finn’s closing sentences.
It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed right now when I look into your eyes and see the love, faith and trust that you give me every single day. Gemma, yours is the face I want to wake up beside each morning for the rest of my life, and the one I’ll forever hurry home to. You’re the picture in my wallet of my unborn children’s mother. You are, quite simply, my partner, my best friend… my everything. This is just the start of our love story and I promise you today, in front of all our family and friends, that I will never, ever let you down.
‘And you didn’t. You haven’t,’ I said, leaning over and kissing Finn gently on the lips.
*
Sleep must have claimed me with almost no warning. I woke up contorted like a pretzel, draped halfway between the chair and Finn’s mattress. I could feel the waffle weave of the blanket pressing into my forehead, but I could feel something else too. Something that had woken me. There were fingers in my hair, moving tentatively among the tangled curls.
The mattress swallowed most of my overjoyed cry, but enough escaped for him to hear me.
‘Hey, you.’ His voice was hoarse. It rasped like a rusty tool that hadn’t been used in a long time.
I sat bolt upright, unthinkingly jarring his arm and bringing a spasm of pain to his face. And yet somehow he still smiled through it.
It should have been the moment to say something deeply meaningful or memorable, but all I managed to come up with was, ‘You’re awake.’
‘I am.’ His eyes were bloodshot, and there was a horrible bruise darkening the brow above the right one, but they remained fixed unblinkingly on me. ‘Unless this is just another hallucination. And if it is, I don’t want it to end, because it’s so unbelievably wonderful to see your face again.’
There was pain in his eyes, but not the physical kind, as he lifted his arm and traced the contours of my features with his fingertips, as though imprinting them on his memory.
‘I never thought I’d get to touch this face again.’
And with that I was undone. I closed the space between us, covering his face with featherlight kisses. I wanted to kiss away the pain from every graze, cut and bruise, but there were deeper wounds that would take much longer to heal.
‘I’m so sorry, Gemma. I can’t imagine the hell you must have gone through.’
‘It was nowhere near as bad as what you lived through. I was there, Finn – I saw the car, the gully…’ My voice trailed away, the memory still too raw and painful. Perhaps it would always be.
‘You know what the worst thing was…’ Finn’s list of injuries was so long, it was hard to know which one could be deemed the worst. ‘It was knowing that you’d been there, at the church, waiting and waiting for me and thinking that I’d let you down.’
I shook my head so fiercely that the bones in my neck cricked in protest. ‘Never, Finn. Not once did I think that.’
His hand slid gently behind my neck and brought my mouth down to his. In the years to come we would probably kiss thousands of times, but no kiss would ever match this one for love and tenderness, or for the sheer joy of being reunited.
We broke apart to the sound of running feet, followed by a laugh. The friendly nurse from the night before rocked to a squeaky halt in her rubber-soled shoes as she saw the reason for Finn’s elevated pulse.
‘Well, that explains your increased heartbeat,’ she said to Finn, giving me a small grin. ‘Welcome back, Mr Douglas. It’s good to see you.’
Finn’s grip felt stronger now as he wound his fingers through mine. ‘It’s very good to be here.’
*
They should probably have fixed a revolving door on Finn’s hospital room to accommodate the constant flow of medics who came through it over the next few hours. I was pleased to see the surgeon who I’d met the night before, now looking considerably more refreshed and less concerned than he’d done straight after the marathon surgery.
Finn listened intently as the doctor explained each of his injuries in detail and then carefully outlined his road to recovery.
‘As long as you take it steady, stick with the physio and don’t give up, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t make a full recovery.’
‘He won’t give up,’ I said confidently. My eyes locked on to the man in the bed, who I loved and had almost lost. ‘Finn doesn’t quit on things. It’s not in his nature.’ My words were rewarded with a smile worth treasuring.
The doctor paused at the door and turned around to face us again. ‘What happened to you is one of the most incredible stories I’ve ever heard. It’s like something out of a film or a book.’ He shook his head and closed the door behind him, but his words lingered in the air.
‘You always said you’d write a book if you found an interesting enough story to tell. I think this one might qualify.’ Finn was dangling the suggestion like an enticing carrot, and even though it was too soon to think about it, I could feel the idea finding a quiet corner of my mind where it could germinate and grow.
*
Between the physical examinations and a hospital breakfast that Finn devoured as though it was a gourmet feast, I listened in horror as he gave me what I believe was a heavily censored version of the hell he’d lived through since the night of the accident. I wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse that we would probably never know what caused the crash. For now, it was enough to have him back.
