Elevators and hallways, doctors and nurses, voices, cries, laughter, it’s just a barrage of sound.
But then there’s a door in front of me, and the creak of a handle and I see him.
I see him, and I break.
Chapter Forty-four
He’s lying in a hospital bed, a sterile blue blanket pulled up to his hips, tubes and wires connected to him and his eyes are closed. Physically he looks fine, his skin is pale and there’s dark circles under his eyes, but he looks unharmed other than that.
But he’s not awake. And he barely looks like he is breathing.
There’s a doctor in the room with us, he’s talking with Torin and Rett and I hear the word hypothermia before he goes on to say that he was pulled from the water, and he wasn’t breathing. There’s the word drowning. And brain damage. Andwe won’t know more until he wakes up.
“K-Kolt,” His name is a stutter from my lips, a whispered plea for him to hear me. I grasp his hand which rests above the blankets, and he feels so cold, not the warm hands that have touched meand loved me and comforted me. There isn’t a single twitch as my skin connects with his.
“Why is he so cold?” I hear myself ask, running my thumb over the skin of his knuckles. No one answers me. It feels as if I’m a new mom again, standing at the side of a bed, watching for the rise and fall of a chest to ensure they are breathing. Kolt’s barely moves, it’s hard to see if that strong chest of his is rising.
If the heart monitor wasn’t steadily beating behind me, I’d think he was gone. Panic swarms me, not the screaming, all consuming panic that makes you lash out, but this quiet, crushing kind of panic that feels as if it is burying me. The type of panic that makes it hard to breathe.
“I didn’t mean it,” I whisper, sucking in breaths to try and fill my lungs, “I didn’t mean it. Please don’t leave me.”
“We will give you some time,” The doctor says. The tone of his voice raises alarm bells, like he’s telling us to prepare ourselves. The somber look on his face and the downturn to his shoulders tells me he doesn’t have hope for recovery. Aren’t doctors supposed to be hopeful? Aren’t they meant to tell us they’re doing everything they can?
This one doesn’t, he just leaves the room, leaving us all standing at Kolt’s bedside, praying it isn’t his time.
He looks so small in a hospital bed, not at all like the man I know. This isn’t Kolt. This isn’t the larger-than-life man I met on the beach that one day many years ago. This isn’t the man who went swimming at midnight or entertained my games long after the sun had set.
This isn’t Kolt.
My heart breaks the longer I look at him, because it is him, isn’t it? This is the father of my child and the man who owns myheart. I have to divert my eyes, the pain too much. I didn’t know you could physically feel your heart breaking, but I can, I can feel it splitting in two, the pain so bad I want to rip it from my chest and give it to him.
How do I live without him?
At least before, I knew he wassomewhere, he was alive, but now, while he looks helpless, death a breath away, I can’t imagine a world where he doesn’t exist. What would I ever say to Ethan?
A hand lands on my shoulder and I jump. “He’s going to be fine.” Everett says, his words directed at his brother and not me.
I know they had their own issues, knew they were fighting to get back that bond that was there before and even if I couldn’t see it, both Rett and Torin love Kolten.
He’s their older brother, not by blood but that didn’t matter. They were raised together, did life together and it’s not just me in this room falling apart.
Torin looks pale in the corner, Maya clinging to him and I can only imagine how triggering it is. He lost his wife and son the same way. And now his brother is laying in a hospital bed and he’s having to watch the whole thing. It makes me want to climb into his head to find out what he’s thinking. He has Maya now, and I know she’ll take care of him.
“I fucked up,” I whisper the words, but I may as well have shouted them for the way every head turns to me. “I was so lost in the past and what I went through, I never even considered his perspective. I told him I needed space. I didn’t. I didn’t need space. I was so scared.” I tell them, “So scared because I never stopped loving him. I couldn’t see past the pain to see our future and he’s going to think I didn’t want him. That I didn’t need him.”
“Ness,” Arryn steps closer.
“I need him,” I cry. “God, Ineedhim.” My tears land on his hand, “This is all my fault.”
“That’s not fair on you,” Arryn soothes.
“Come back to me,” I beg Kolt’s sleeping form, “Please.”
My fingers curl around his still hand, “Don’t say goodbye.” I whisper as I bring my mouth to his knuckles, “Please Kolt. I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Chapter Forty-five
It’s been three days.
