I was readingto her when it happened. All I kept thinking was that Waverleigh was supposed to be here. She had been checking in daily about Sevyn’s progress.
Sometimes, I LiveTimed her so that she could see her friend and talk to her. We both hoped that she could hear us while she was in a coma and that it was comforting, but there were no guarantees.
I set my phone aside, forgetting all about the book I had been reading on the Kindle app when I saw her arm move. Sevyn made a slightly grunting, panicked noise. The last thing that I wanted to do was freak her out any more than she probablyalready was by waking up in a strange setting with a stranger beside her.
I chose not to get up out of my chair and frighten her. Instead, I pressed the button on the side of her bed to summon a nurse.
“May I help you, Officer Fullwood?”
“Yes. Mrs. Shields has awoken,” I stated calmly into the speaker.
I watched as almond-shaped, chestnut-brown eyes flitted around the room and finally rested on me. It was disconcerting at first. The woman had been asleep for the last three weeks that I had been visiting. I had not really seen much of a sign of life other than the seizure she had the week before, and now she was awake and staring in fear at me.
Those eyes were so beautiful and yet haunting, as though they could see right through me. It was difficult for me to look away. She had been beautiful before, but now with her eyes opened, she was breathtaking. A part of me was deeply afraid as she stared at me. I wondered what she saw when she looked at me. Did she have flashes of the night of the accident? Did she see my face so clearly through the rain and in the darkened night? Had me stepping into the street haunted her nightmares while she had been in her coma?
“Hi, Sevyn. My name is Officer Deuce Fullwood. Uhm, . . . you don't know me, but I have been with you for the last three weeks. I was there . . . the night of your accident. You're safe. The doctor is on the way in to see you.”
The emotional attachment that I had formed with her over the last few weeks paired with her beauty overwhelmed me. I fought the strong urge to run from the room, and instead, I remained at her side until the doctor and two nurses, Kayla and Vivienne, appeared.
“Mrs. Shields, it’s great to see you awake. You have had a team of people rooting for you, concerned about you, and anticipating the day that you would open those gorgeous eyes for good, and I believe today is that day.” Dr. Davenport greeted Sevyn when she stepped into the room.
It took several coughs before she spoke.
“Where am I?”
That was another thing that I always wondered. What did her voice sound like? I wasn’t sure, but I imagined a dozen different tones, and all of them failed in comparison to the reality. Her voice was scratchy because of unuse, but there was a natural raspiness to it that reminded me of the singer T-Boz. It was slightly deep, yet extremely sexy.
I took a step back as the doctor explained to her where she was and asked if she knew the date and time. There was a moment of confusion where she didn’t appear to know who she was.
“Why is the officer here?” she asked.
I had been afraid that she would identify me immediately as the source of her pain, loss, grief, and so much more. But when she spoke those words, a slight wave of relief washed over me. She didn’t associate me with any of that, but before I could dwell on that too long, or what it meant, I was asked to step out of the room.
I wanted to rebel against the order, but I knew that I had no right to be here. If Waverleigh had known who I was and why I was really here, she would never have approved me to be on the list.
I pulled my phone out and dialed a number.
“Hello?”
“Frost, it’s me.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m at the hospital, and she just woke up.”
“The lady who you’ve been sitting with since that night?”
“Yeah. They sent me out of the room so that they could examine her.”
“How’s it look? Did she seem like she was good?”
“She didn’t know who I was, of course. It seems like she might have some memory loss.”
“You can’t take this all on your shoulders, man. You already know that some things were just meant to be. If it wasn’t you, it could have been someone else. It was his time to go.”
What he didn’t say, but I heard anyway, was that just like it was Lena’s time to go. The finality of death could be so crushing, leaving people without hope. But I didn’t want to believe that was Sevyn’s fate. She was still young enough to meet someone, fall in love again, and have children.
My time was running out. I was older, and depending on the woman I met, I might not have had the same opportunities to have children that she did.
