Wait…what?
I adjust my body to try and sit up, but she urges me not to by placing her hands on my chest. She doesn’t touch me hard, but I feel everything. At this point, even the stroke of a feather could have me hunching over in pain. Well, if I could manage to hunch over, which I think is impossible right now.
“Where is he?” I murmur, the frantic pace of my heart stabilizing the consistent pain in my ribs.
She steps to the side, revealing a body in one of the visitor chairs against the wall in the room. Even asleep and exhausted, Colten’s handsome features have my heart rate spiking, but then an aching follows behind my rib cage. His head is perched uncomfortably on his shoulder, his chest rising and falling steadily.
My eyes remain trained on him when I respond to something my mom mentioned earlier. “He’s not my boyfriend,” I clarify.
My mother glances at him, and we both stare. I’m sure the same thought is running through her head because how can he sleep like that with his legs straight out and crossed at the ankles and his head using his shoulder as a pillow? It looks incredibly uncomfortable.
Her attention finds me, and she grins. “That’s not what he said.”
The slow spread of a smile overtakes my lips.
Boyfriend, huh?
“Breathe so I can get on my knees and lay my heart at your feet and beg for your forgiveness before I tell you how much I love you—how badly and profoundly I’ve loved you since you sat across from me in that office.”
His voice—those words—circulate in my head on a loop as if I’m never supposed to forget them. It’s like a song carved into a record, but the tune and lyrics were engraved into my heart instead.
I’m unsure how I heard him say that or how I registered his words, but I think that admission grasped onto my soul and wrenched me out of death’s cold fingers, ready to claim me.
“You were—dead,” my mother chokes. “He saved you…”
Raking my eyes over his exhausted form, I suppress a smile at his slightly parted lips. Lips that have always made me feel alive, but now they’re the reason I’m breathing.
“I think in a lot of ways we’ve saved each other,” I tell her honestly.
A tear falls off her bottom lashes, and she wipes it away. “Your father.” She swallows the emotion. “I’m going to go get your father.”
Pressing her lips to my forehead, she hurries out of the room, the silence settling around me. Turning my head toward the ceiling, my eyes flutter closed, and I attempt to draw in calming breaths.
I wince in pain. Damn. Why is a tiny person in my chest scraping my bones against a cheese grater?
Try again.
In through my nose, out through my—
“I know you need to breathe to live, Little Ghost, but don’t hurt yourself.” Colten’s smooth, sleep-ridden voice numbs the pain.
Turning my head on the pillow toward him, his vibrant light green eyes clash with mine. They take my breath away, which probably isn’t healthy right now, considering my state. The corner of his mouth tilts up as he pushes himself off the chair and strides to my bedside. Lowering his head to mine, his lips brush against my temple so lovingly that my heart splinters as if I could transfer the pieces to where we’re connected and embed myself into him.
Lifting my left arm, I place my hand on his jaw, the weight of his head falling into my hand. “At least the pain is a reminder that I’m living. Thank you for jumping in and saving me.” I stroke the stubble on his cheek with my thumb.
Straightening, he sits in the chair beside my bed, the one I assume my mom was in before I woke. He reaches for my hand, grasping it tightly enough as if he’d lose me if he let go.
His thumb moves in soothing, circular motions on my wrist. “You wouldn’t be in here if it wasn’t for me.” Shaking his head, he twists his lips to the side, emotion swirling in his glassy eyes. “I shouldn’t have let you go—”
I squeeze his hand tighter. “And I shouldn’t have run,” I whisper, all the emotions hitting me because this is equally our fault.
Yes, he should have answered me back and said something instead of nothing when I said I loved him. But I’m used to running or at least leaving when I feel any kind of discomfort or angst.
“We share the blame for this, Colten. I won’t allow you to carry the weight of this on your own.”
His eyes lift to mine, flashing with something I’ve never seen in his gaze. It’s empathy. But then his eyelids shut, the thoughts swarming in his head, working against him.
“But you’reherebecause of me,” he says again. His tone is laced with grief. “Your ribs are fractured, Taryn.”
