I’ve stood in some bad rooms in my life.Crime scenes.Interrogation basements of cartels.Hospital corridors with brothers bleeding out.Courtrooms where the verdict could’ve ended everything.Desert boxes of combat.
None of them compare to standing beside Kelly’s hospital bed while she looks at me like I’m some stranger who stepped into her life by accident.And yet, she says she trusts me.The confusion in her eyes, the fear behind it, the way she saidI think I trust you…
It’s a knife.A clean, quiet one.Slides in without resistance, then twists.I force myself to breathe evenly, to not let it show.She’s rattled enough.She doesn’t need my shit stacked on top.
Ally steps out to talk to Dr.Salazar, and I’m left alone with Kelly again.She’s looking at the window, the blinds casting pale striped shadows across her bruised cheek.
Her eyes track the shifting light like she’s trying to make sense of a world she woke up to without instruction.
Her fingers cling to the blanket, twisting the edge between them.I remember that habit.She used to do it when she was trying to hide stress.Bakery rush, an order gone wrong, a customer who pushed too far, she'd retreat into her hands.
Now she doesn’t even know why she’s doing it.“Hey,” I say quietly.
She turns her head, throat working.“Hey.”
“You need anything?”I ask.“Water?Food?”
“No.”She swallows.“Just not being alone, it helps.”
Something splinters in my chest at that.“You won’t be,” I tell her.“Not now.Not later.I’ll be right here.”
Her eyes flutter, softening like that means something.Maybe it does.Maybe not the way it used to but it’s something.
“I want to remember,” she whispers.
I run a hand over my jaw, feeling the rough scrape of a day-old shave.“Then you will.When your mind’s ready.”
“What if it never comes back?What if it forever stays jumbled and complicated.”
I step closer before I think better of it.The nurse told me to maintain space, to keep things calm.But calm doesn’t come easy to me not when she looks like this.
“If it doesn’t,” I say, lowering my voice, “then I’ll help you build new ones.We will uncomplicate your mind if need be.”
Her breath catches, lips parting like she wasn’t prepared for that answer.Maybe I wasn’t prepared to say it.She looks at me for a long time longer than someone who doesn’t remember me should be able to.Her gaze drifts over my face, lingering on my eyes, then my mouth, then back up again.
“Why do I feel like we’ve had a conversation like this before?”she asks softly.
Because we did.The night at her apartment, after she told medon’t fall in love with me.
She sat on the edge of her bed after, sheets wrapped around her, hair a mess around her shoulders, telling me she didn’t want things to get complicated.I told her nothing scared me less than complication when it came to her.
Then, like an idiot, I let fear talk louder than truth.
“You’re probably just reading my face,” I say instead.“I’m not that subtle.”
She actually laughs a soft, unexpected sound.It’s a knife too, but it cuts in a better way.
“I don’t know,” she says.“Something about you feels familiar and right.”
My chest tightens.“Yeah, well.I’ve been around.”
She gives me a small smile.“That doesn’t explain why being near you makes my stomach flip.”
I freeze.Her eyes widen slightly, like maybe she said too much.
Before I can respond, before I ruin the moment by admitting it does the same to me a knock hits the door and a nurse peeks in.
“Ms.Ringle?The neurologist would like to do a brief cognitive exam.”
