Long seconds stretch into minutes as I listen to her wild heartbeat wrapped in pain. Pain that’s been a shadow throughout her whole life. Every teardrop falls on the damp concrete with a silent scream. Every breath filled with questions and doubts.
I’ve suppressed those memories for a long time. I tried to erase them from my mind. Tried to eraseher—my Aurora—but I should’ve known better.
“It was an unusual storm that night. Violent but also quiet.”
At the sound of my voice, Aurora shifts, looking away into the night with puffy, red-rimmed eyes.
“What are you doing here?”
“Telling you how we met.”
“I know how we met.”
“Do you?” A small, humorless smile grazes my lips just barely before my head drops back and I look up at the night sky. The very same that was the cause of everything that followed.
I take a deep breath as I close my eyes.
“I was in the hospital, that day, when they brought you in, I was already there.”
Aurora stills but doesn’t look my way.
“I was just getting ready for an away game, my bag all packed and ready to go when my phone ringed with anunknown number. I never pick up from an unknown number, but something compelled me to do it. Something…something…” I point to my heart. “Nastya got caught in the storm that same night. Her car spinning off the road, but you already know that story. We were still technically married, so that’s why they called me, but I wasn’t going to come to the hospital. She could die all alone in a different state, for all I cared, but as soon as I hung up the phone, this lightning flashed across the skies and a bout of ruckus thunder beat against the glass of my apartment. Its roar was so powerful, it felt like it was trying to get my attention. I stopped and it happened again, this time shooting straight to me.” I wet my lips and finally bring my gaze back to Aurora.
“To this day, I can’t explain what possessed me to pick up my keys and get into my truck—other than that thunder.” I watch Aurora as I talk, but she makes no move to walk away and so I continue, lying it all at her feet.
“The whole drive I had this feeling, kind of like the one you had when we were driving to Iris Lake, except I couldn’t explain it. I was simply possessed with getting to Boston as soon as possible. When I got there, the nurse directed me to Nastya’s room in the ICU, yet somehow, I walked into yours instead.”
I hear the sharp inhale of the air all the way here as memories of that day wash over me.
The scent of the antiseptic, the whoosh of the breathing machine. The unsteady beeps of the heart monitor, and her warmth even when she was cold as ice and bathed in blood and mud.
“You were just headed in for your first surgery, lying there so weak and broken in every place of your body. I had no idea who you were, yet I couldn’t leave, watching with fascination as you fought for your life. I stayed until I heard the nurses come for you and told myself I was a fucking psycho for wandering intoanother patient’s room and watching them breathe. So, I left and finally made it to Nastya’s room.
“It was the oddest feeling, because it felt like I was in a wrong place. The doctor was explaining to me her difficult but stable condition, and all I kept wondering about was how you were doing in surgery. I didn’t even know your name, yet I sat across the hall, in the shadows, watching your room for when you’d be back. Then an older man and woman ran in, both crying and shaking the doctor for some answers. And I was shamelessly eavesdropping.
“That’s when he explained about your pregnancy and wasn’t sure if you’d both make it. I swear, Lychik. I swear on everything in my life, a bolt of lightning went straight through me that moment. The very same one that I felt at my apartment.”
A small, lone tear runs down her face, and I catch it with the back of my finger.
“I couldn’t stop myself from coming closer. I have no idea what possessed me, but I just needed to be closer and that’s when Sam—your dad—spotted me.” Aurora’s spine straightened at my words, but she still didn’t look at me. “Yeah, I knew your father. Met him that day and I don’t know what he saw in my eyes, but he didn’t question why I was hovering around your room. He didn’t say anything at all, but his silence snapped me into place and I left.” I let out another humorless chuckle.
“Only to be back the next day. Back in the shadows of the hallway. I saw Joey’s family lawyer come and speak with your father and I’ve learned that the father of your baby wasn’t going to show up. That was the same night I sent Denis to investigate your accident for me because I needed to find the fucker who was responsible for it. And that, in itself, was madness because I didn’t even know you, but I wanted to tear the world apartforyou. I was there when this stoic looking woman broke down and begged anyone who would listen to save you and I understoodwhy. I understood why she was so terrified to lose you. Because, suddenly, so was I.” I swallow hard.
“I was also there when the doctor told your family you needed a heart transplant. I wanted to get into your room. No, that’s the wrong word. I didn’t want it. I was desperate to see you again, but Stella was a constant presence in there. She wouldn’t leave your side apart from one small moment when someone called her. So, I used it and snuck in. Know what happened next?”
“What?” Aurora’s shaky voice asks.
“You opened your eyes. You opened them and looked straight at me. I wasn’t able to get the color of your eyes out of my nightmares—and then dreams—ever since. I know you had no idea what you were doing, your body and mind fragile after the accident but you looked straight at me, and I felt your pain as acutely as if it was my own. Every fiber of my being pleaded for that and that’s when I felt what it felt like to be terrified of something. My father tried to break me for twenty-five years and couldn’t manage it yet there you were, lying on that bed, unsuspecting, as you changed the course of my entire life. The perfect weapon created just for me. It brought me to my knees, and something tugged deep inside me, something fierce and raw. It demanded you survived.”
“You’re a fighter,” Aurora whispers into the night, making me snap from my memories, because here she is, repeating my own words from that day as she slowly turns her face and those green eyes lock in on mine. “You’re a fighter. It was you. You’re the one I heard. I thought—I thought it was a hallucination. A dream. Because I didn’t know the voice that spoke to me, and Stella—she didn’t see anyone come visit me.”
I nod, watching her in wonder and shock. “You heard me. You remember.”
Aurora’s chest rises and falls with labored breaths for a few silent moments before she says, “What happened next?”
“I was still in your room when I overheard the nurses behind the door. They were saying how it was so unbelievable that there was a perfect match for you in the hospital, but she wasn’t pronounced brain dead yet.”
“Your wife,” Aurora gasps, and I nod.
