Myke chuckled. “Otto? Do you want Dex to hold your hand?”
Yes! Damn it, yes!
“If not, speak up.”
Wow, he was really doubling down on thecan’t communicatejokes, but it seemed to do the trick because I felt the air move against my skin before the chair creaked, telling me that Dex sat as instructed.
If I’d had the ability, I would have held my breath.
“Very funny,” Dex sounded more upset than amused but I felt the air move again. The soft skin of his palm brushed over my arm and settled on the back of my hand. “Otto, it’s me. I, um, I hope you’re okay with me touching you. Myke thinks that maybe it could possibly help wake you up but I’m not sure why.”
“Technically, the doctors are the ones who think it might help,” Myke interjected kindly. “It’s because coma patients sometimes respond to familiar presences, in a nutshell. Kind of like you providing an anchor for him to pull himself back to the awake world.”
“What he said,” Dex said dryly, carefully curling his fingers around my hand. “I don’t know if I can really be an anchor or if you even want me here, but I want you to wake up so much, Otto. I need you to come back to us.”
I would have sworn that my heart stuttered but this time the machine didn’t let out one of those squealing alarms.
I want to come back to you, Dex. You know I do. I just don’t know how.
Chapter Twenty
Dex
I felt silly sitting in Otto’s hospital room and trying to make small talk with someone who couldn’t respond. With someone who I wasn’t sure would even if he could. Even though I didn’t feel like I belonged there, the hospital staff seemed to disagree. Since Myke had cleared them to talk to me, the doctors regularly asked me if I had any questions. The nurses were all super nice and very sympathetic, even going so far as to bring me meals, water, and snacks during the hours I was there. On the second day, I arrived to find that the standard armchair had been replaced with a recliner type chair that was usually kept in the maternity ward to make my hours there more comfortable.
“Can’t have our little poppa-to-be going hungry!” Otto’s morning nurse, Paula, chirped when I thanked her for a tray of scrambled eggs, sausage, toast, and juice. “Now, I didn’t know if you need it, but I tucked a vitamin under the napkin, just in case.” She sent me a sympathetic smile. “With everything on your mind, I wasn’t sure if you’d remember them.”
“I actually didn’t this morning,” I admitted, slipping the tablet out of the blister pack and swallowing it with a mouthful of apple juice. “Thank you so much. I feel so stupid trying to talk to him, though. I have no idea what I should be saying or what’s going through his mind.”
Paula smiled warmly and patted my shoulder. “There is a library in the lobby in case you want to read to your husband. Some people find that easier than trying to keep a one-sided conversation going.”
“Thank you. That’s a great idea.” When Paula closed the door behind her, I started picking at the scrambled eggs. “Whatdo you think, Otto? Want to read for a while?” I sighed and swallowed the last bite of eggs, setting the tray with the rest of the food on the bedside table. “I need to pee and then I’ll pop down and see what they have to choose from.”
The library was across the hall from the non-denominational chapel, cozy but barely more than a closet with soothing cream-colored paint on the walls and dark wood shelves packed with books of every description. I was scanning the stacks of books when the familiar spine of a well-worn paperback caught my eye.
“No way,” I breathed out, snatching it off the shelf. “Mortal Engines. I haven’t thought about this book in years!”
I caressed the cover lovingly, my mind flashing back to eighth grade when Otto had tossed a handful of pebbles against my window in the middle of the night, gesturing franticly for me to open it. We had been on the waiting list at the library forweeksto read it when it came out and the minute his name came up on the list, he raced in to check it out.
I was grounded at the time and my dadsrefused to let me go to Otto’s house, so instead, Ottomade the precarious climb up the privacy fence to my second-story window, and we’d hidden under the covers of my bed with his flashlight, devouring every word.
School on no sleep the next day had been absolute hell, but when the second book in the series came out? We read it the exact same way even though my grounding was long over by then. Ditto for the remaining two books in the series and my folks never had a clue.
Scribbling my name, Otto’s room number, and the title of the book onto the honor registry, I scampered back toward the elevator, feeling every bit like the middle schooler I’d been thefirst time I read it instead of the frightened, depressed, and very pregnant adult I actually was.
Escapism is a wonderful thing.
“Otto, you’re not going to believe this!” My voice was breathless as I pulled the door closed behind me and dropped into the recliner, gulping for breath. “They hadMortal Enginesin the little honor library!”
Carefully balancing the book on my thigh so I could turn the pages awkwardly with my left hand, I reached for Otto’s hand with my right and began to read. I read through the entire morning, only taking impatient breaks when the doctors and nurses made their rounds and then resuming the story where my finger was pressed against the line we’d stopped at.
At lunchtime, Paula appeared with a turkey sandwich. I thanked her and asked her to set it down, but she planted one hand on her ample hip and shook her head.
“No can do, sweetie. You barely ate the breakfast I brought you and you need to keep your strength up. You’re eating for two, remember.”
I sighed and tucked the napkin from my tray into the book to mark our page and dutifully tucked into the turkey on wheat while Paula flitted around the room, checking Otto’s vitals and filling them in on the little chart on the wall before entering the same numbers into an app on her phone.
“There we go!” she said with a smile, taking the plate from me as I finished the last bite of fruit salad. “Now I’ll stay out of your hair while you get back to your story, love.”
