Page 122 of Just Between Us

The doctor looks around at our group. “She’s in ICU and visiting hours don’t start till morning.” She checks her watch and looks around the room and then to me, taking in what a mess I must look. “Just this once, I’ll let you in. Give her about an hour. One at a time, and quiet. A nurse will notify you when you can come back.”

Cassie’s aunt and uncle excuse themselves to go check on Penny, but her mom kneels beside me. Bracing against the mounting guilt weighing down on me, I’m surprised when she reaches over and takes my hand, giving it a light squeeze. No words, just one little squeeze of my hand. I have to pinch the bridge of my nose to fight off the telling burn.

My girl is in a medically induced coma, but she’s alive. She’sbreathing. We’ll get through this together, whatever her recovery looks like.

After what feels like hours, a nurse approaches, and Cassie’s mom motions for me to go first. Pressing my palms into my eyes so hard I see white, I gather my nerves and stand, following her through the fluorescent lit corridor.

Cassie’s room is the first one we come to in the ICU, monitors beeping and whirring around my beautiful sleeping girlfriend. I pause in the doorway, feet nothing but lead.

“You can talk to her. Hold her hand. Just don’t do anything to agitate her,” the nurse instructs me, and turns to head to the nurses’ station in the center of the unit.

I can do this. Forcing my feet to move, I approach and scoot a chair as quietly as I can so I’m right at her bedside. She looks so small lying in this hospital bed and it’s a shock to my system. Cassie’s a force who never looks small. There’s a bandage wound around her head and the gash on her temple is sutured closed. Her face, that breathtaking face I’ve spent months memorizing, is swollen, a deep bruise already forming along her cheekbone. But she’s breathing. The beeping monitor next to the bed says so. The rise and fall of her chest says so.

Her hand lies motionless at her side, and I take it in my own, hooking my pinky with hers, the way we’ve done dozens of times. Her skin is warm to the touch, but the absence of her finger curling against mine is the one of the loneliest feelings. I wait, purely on instinct, for the squeeze that doesn’t come.

“I’m here, baby,” I whisper, leaning close to her ear. “I’m right here with you. Both our families are in the waiting room, all ready to see you.”

I know they told me she’s in a medically induced coma, but part of me still hoped I’d get some kind of reaction. But Cassie doesn’t so much as twitch, eyes closed.

“You’re still my sleeping beauty. You know that? I love you so much.”

A crazy part of me wants to lift the blankets and check on hertoes. I need to see if there’s something, anything to assure me this is my Cassie and she’ll come out of this with minimal damage. I’ve avoided Googling the long-term effects of a brain bleed. I can’t handle the statistics tonight. Instead, I choose to believe she’ll be the same woman I fell in love with. And if she’s different when she wakes up, it doesn’t matter. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there and I’ll love every new version of her with everything I’ve got.

My phone vibrates with a text and I glance down, the first smile in hours tipping up my cheeks.

“Welcome to the world, baby Lizzie,” I say out loud. On my phone is a picture of Austin, smiling ear to ear holding a tiny baby, wrapped up tight in one of those pink and blue hospital blankets.

Josie

She’s here and she’s perfect. Lungs are a little weak, but otherwise a healthy baby girl.

“Congratulations, my love.” I say, hoping Cassie hears me. My voice hitches and I look to the ceiling, working to gain control of myself. I exhale a long breath and drop my gaze back to her sleeping frame, my vision blurring despite my efforts. “We have a new baby in the family.”

My head hurts.My throat is as dry as the desert. Everything feels heavy. My body. My eyelids. Even my thoughts feel like thick sludge. I take a breath. It smells all wrong. Too clean. Is that a thing? And whose voice is that?

I strain to hear. Something aboutit takes time to wake up. Who needs to wake up? Then another voice.

“They told me that, but is this normal? It’s been too long.” I’d know that voice anywhere. Green eyes. A smile that feels like home.

“Liam,” I croak, but to my ears it sounds like two garbled syllables.

A familiar hand covers mine. He’s here. Liam. I wish I could manage to open my eyes and see him. I try to pry them open but my lids refuse to budge.

“It’s me. I’m here.”

Maybe I can manage a smile for him. He likes when I smile. With everything I’ve got, I try pushing my lips up. I think I did it. Now…sleep.

My lids flutter open, then shut, then back open. I squint against the light and look at my surroundings.

An unfamiliar bed.

A television mounted on the wall, the screen black.

Several vases of flowers sit on a table under the TV.

There’s a beeping sound behind my head and I try to focus on what it could be. Vitals? My lids lower to my arm. An IV. Yes. I think a hospital.

Images flash through my mind of rain. A tree. Lights. But they’re just out of my grasp.