Page 37 of Twisted Fate

“Is this Logan Sinclair’s room?” Keily waved her right hand in the direction of the room.

“Oh yes, he’s down in surgery. Are you a relative?” The nurse’s face changed, became concerned.

“I’m his girlfriend.” Keily wondered if she should lie, tell them she was his fiancé or something, but decided against it.

“Okay. Well, he’s got a fractured leg and a serious head injury. They’re operating now. You can wait here and I’ll update you if I hear anything.”

“Oh god.” Keily gasped, her heart pounding. She felt like sinking down to the floor but held herself together enough to stand on her shaky legs and squeeze out a question. “Is he… alright?”

“He was unconscious when they brought him in and the doctors were concerned about a bleed in his brain, so he went straight into the OR after his scans. The doctors are hopeful he’ll make a good recovery but we’ll know more when they’re out.” The man, probably in his late thirties if the lines around his eyes meant anything, spoke low and soft, as if he were afraid Keily was about to collapse.

Keily stood firm now though, knowing she had to be strong for her daughters and for Logan. She’d get through this, and so would he. He’d fight to come back for the girls, and for her. He deserved a happy life and she promised herself that when he managed to get through this, she’d spend every day making sure he had a reason to smile.

Logan didn’t wake up that first night, but Keily held firm through every day. Every morning she shaved his face because she knew he hated to not be clean-shaven, and she told him about all the things they would do together and with the girls. At the end of every night, she ignored Rosa’s and Violet’s pleas to go home and rest.

Logan needed her. The girls did too, of course, but Logan had nobody to look after him. The girls had Avery, Violet, and Rosa, and her when they were at the hospital with her. She felt a pang of guilt over it all, but she was terrified to leave his side. What if he…woke up and she wasn’t there?

She refused to think of any other possibility, even in silent meditation, her thoughts locked away from everyone around her. Even in the most private place of all, she refused to allow herself to think that anything else would happen. Logan would wake up. It was only a matter of when.

The doctor reassured her that Logan would wake up when he was ready. It wasn’t uncommon for patients to stay in a coma for a while after a serious brain injury. If all went well, she’d see his gorgeous brown eyes again without having to peel his eyelids open, she’d feel his warm dry lips pressing back against hers as he took her in his arms.

“You have to come back to me, Logan.” She said a week after his accident, as the second week of coma started. “You have to come back so I can tell you I love you. So, you can watch the girls grow up. So, we can grow old together.”

She laid her head against his on the pillow and clasped his hand in hers. For a second, she thought he squeezed back, but the moment passed. “Please, Logan. Don’t leave me alone like this.”

19

Logan

In that void of nothing, Logan wondered if there was something more he could have done. He knew then that he should have told Keily he loved her, should have asked her to be his wife, should have made more of an effort to push her, even if it had made sense not to. She needed that space he gave her, needed to adjust to being a mother and a woman who would never have more children than the three that she had. But she’d needed him too, hadn’t she?

Logan wanted a chance to tell her that he not only loved their children, really loved them in a way he’d never expected, but he loved her too. He concentrated when he could, worked on finding a way out of this infernal nothingness, tried to let the voices he heard draw him back to where those voices lived. He couldn’t scream or break anything in this place, but he was certain he nearly broke his own mind trying to escape it.

He had to get back to Keily, no matter what it took. He had to tell her…

“I love you.” The words whispered from dry lips as he opened his eyes and found himself in a very unfamiliar place.

“Did you say something, Mr. Sinclair?” He heard a voice ask.

“Where am I?” His dry throat barely squeaked the words out but they did come out.

“You’re in hospital. You had an accident and you’ve been in a coma. We were just running some scans to check on your recovery.” The disembodied voice said mechanically. “Mr. Sinclair, can you hear me?”

“Keily.” He whispered, wanting her there with him, needing her there to make the confusion go away. She was the only one that could make the world make sense.

He looked around with just his eyes, so used to not being able to move that it didn’t occur to him to try to turn his head yet. He heard loud pulsing sounds and seemed to be lying in a small white tunnel. An MRI?

“Please don’t move, Mr. Sinclair.” The voice spoke from somewhere above him, through a speaker perhaps?

Logan blinked his eyes, realized his head was strapped down and that his body didn’t feel like his own. He wanted to ignore the voice, to explore the white panels that surrounded him, to get out of the machine, to find…Keily.

“My wife…er, no.” Logan paused. That was wrong. Keily wasn’t his wife, but he desperately wanted her to be. She should be his wife. “Keily?”

“She’s upstairs waiting for you, Mr. Sinclair. Now, please, relax and don’t move.” The technician relieved Logan by saying.

“What’s wrong with me?” He couldn’t really feel any part of his body, everything was numb. They must have given him drugs.

“You’ve been in an accident. I won’t know the extent of your injuries until I’ve finished the tests.”