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“In my dreams, you were away. I was looking for you but I couldn’t find you.”
She closes her eyes. I’m tempted to do the same, sleep always tugging at me. I feel so damn tired, and I just woke up.
But she says nothing, and I don’t like it.
“I love you, Hay,” I whisper against her hair. “You know that, right?”
She lifts her face, her eyes wide once more. I can read the shock in them plain as day, and I don’t get it. “You do?”
“Fuck, you act like I’ve never said it before.”
She smiles, then frowns. She keeps doing that: shifting between happiness and what looks like annoyance. “You haven’t. Well, not since that first time, after we just met. You said it was love at second sight, remember?”
Yeah, I remember that. I remember meeting her at the bar, I remember taking her home. Making her come against the wall. Then I remember her arriving to find me at the garage, and how she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
How she called my brother without my permission and got him to talk to me again.
How she came to find me at the cemetery where my dad is buried and said she was sorry. Said she loved me, too.
“You’re everything to me,” I whisper. “You’re the only girl I’ve ever loved. Hell, didn’t I ever tell you that?”
She shakes her head, burying her face on my shoulder, and her shoulders tremble.
Shit, I made her cry.
I never told her all this?
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I wish I could turn back time and make sure you knew. But we have all the tomorrows, right? I’ll make it up to you.”
That makes her cry harder, and I shut up as I’m obviously saying all the wrong things.
But she loves me. She said so. And she’s here.
Dammit, I must have done something right if she hasn’t run away from me yet. She’s here. That has to count in my favor.
Mom comes to check in on me, smuggling in donuts and my favorite double shot espresso. I don’t have the heart to tell her the smell turns my unsettled stomach. I listen to her chat about the weather and traffic and Matt’s kids, while my mind wanders back to Hailey who left to freshen up and grab some breakfast.
When I asked her to bring me some things from my apartment, she paled.
When I asked if she was going to her apartment instead, she fled.
Or so it looked like.
The worry that has been digging its claws into my chest is growing stronger, tearing me up inside.
Something happened between us. It’s right there, in my memory, right out of reach, like a word on the tip of your tongue.
What happened was… What happened…
“Kaden? Have you heard a word I’ve said?”
I blink, coming back to my hospital room, and mom who’s giving me a long, searching look.
“Hm… what?”
“You feeling okay?” She’s half out of her chair already, and I finally realize that the long searching look is a look of worry and fear.
“I’m fine, mom, honest. Just thinking.”
