Beep. Beep. Beep.
My tears keep falling, hot and unrelenting, soaking through the fabric stretched over his shoulder. They bleed into the gown, into him. My fingers dig harder into his ribs, nails biting through fabric.
I lift my head enough to press my mouth to the underside of his jaw. It’s a soft kiss, trembling and uncertain, breaking open something deep inside me with how gentle it is. “Please, sir.” The words come out broken, so quiet they barely qualify as sound. “Come back to me. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. Please…”
I curl tighter around him, pulling myself deeper under his arm. My entire body is trembling now, wracked with grief and desperation. I hold him like he’s the last thing anchoring my soul to my body.
And I just keep whispering. Begging. Calling him home. Over and over.
The door creaks open., but I don’t move. My face is still pressed against the side of his neck, skin damp and hot with tears that won’t stop, won’t slow, won’t give me a single second of peace. And my heart—God, my heart’s still breaking. Not like glass, not all at once, but like muscle, tearing open one shredded fiber at a time and still trying to keep beating anyway. Still praying in a language I never learned, to a god I stopped believing in years ago.
Footsteps approach but they stop before reaching the bed. I don’t turn. I know who it is. I know by the silence. By the weight of it. “Mr. Mercer,” the doctor says, soft around the edges, like he’s trying to lay it down gently. Like he knows it won’t matter, it’ll still hurt.
He clears his throat awkwardly. “I wanted to update you all on Mr. Kade’s condition. I’ll be brief.” There’s a pause—a long one—and he knows better than to come closer, staying planted at a safe distance as he begins, words quiet and deliberate, “Damian suffered significant internal trauma from the crash. The impact fractured three ribs and his left femur. He sustained a concussion and a tear to the left lung. He flatlined once at the scene and again on the table.”
My body tenses, bracing for impact all over again.
“We managed to stabilize him,” the doctor adds, softer now. “But it was close.”
So close.
I still don’t look at him. I press harder into Damian, not enough to hurt, but enough to remind him—remind me—that he’s still here.
The doctor shifts slightly behind me, quiet in that particular way people are when they know they’ve said enough. Or maybe too much. “We performed emergency surgery to stop the internal bleeding,” the doctor says, still keeping his voice low, “repaired the lung, and stabilized the leg with a titanium rod.”
His words are too calm. “The operation was successful,” he continues, and for a split second, something in my chest loosens, like hope might be allowed back in. But then he says it. That word.
“But…” It hangs in the air, heavier than anything that came before it. “There is significant swelling in the brain.”
The floor drops out from under me.
“His CT scans show no irreversible damage,” the doctor adds quickly, like he’s trying to soften the blow. “But we won’t know how his memory or motor functions were affected until he wakes up.”
That gets a reaction. My whole body flinches, hard and violent. I jerk against Damian without meaning to, heart slamming into my ribs like it’s trying to tear out of me and reach him first.
Around me, the team shifts. Shane curses, his voice thick, almost unrecognizable with emotion. Behind me, Cole goes rigid, his whole frame locked tight. Coach exhales, a long, low sound that carries the weight of a man who saw this coming and still wasn’t ready. The kind of breath that saysfuckwithout needing to form the word.
The doctor must see it, all of it, the collapse happening in real time, because he softens again. “We’re keeping him sedated to give the brain time to rest,” he explains, careful and slow. “It could be a few hours. It could be longer. When he wakes, he might be confused. Disoriented.”
He hesitates and it makes my skin crawl. “There’s a chance of temporary memory loss. He may not remember the crash. He may not remember… you.”
That lands like a blade. Straight through the middle of me. My head snaps up before I can think. My eyes find his—fast, sharp—and I finally look at him. He flinches. Whatever he sees in my face must be worse than the wreckage he walked out of. The fire behind my eyes burns too bright, too wild, even for someone used to delivering bad news.
But I don’t scream. Not this time. I stare, hard and hollow, something essential already gone. Rage is all that’s left. My hands tremble against Damian’s ribs, but I don’t let go. The doctor holds my gaze for a second.
“He’s stable now,” he says softly. Almost like surrender. “The worst is over. The rest is waiting. Monitoring. Letting his body heal.”
I curl back around Damian, pressing my face to his neck once more, letting his warmth bleed into me, because I don’t know what else to do. There’s nothing left in me to break.
“Thank you,” Coach says behind me, clipped and formal.
The doctor nods. He doesn’t push, doesn’t linger, doesn’t try to touch me or offer false comfort, and sure as hell doesn’t pretend any of this will be easy. He turns and walks away. Smart man.
And I stay where I am, wrapped around the man I love, breathing him in. Because the truth is brutal and simple. I’m terrified that when he finally wakes up… he won’t remember he’s mine.
I don’t move.
Not when Coach crouches beside the bed, voice gruff but low. Not when he says my name like it’s something soft. Not even when he lays a hand on the blanket over my shoulder and mutters, “Elias, you need to rest. Come on, you heard the doctor. He’s sleeping now.”
