“I don’t think I was conscious for a while. My memories are… confusing. For a bit, I thought I was talking to my mom.”
“Really?” I ask. “What did she say?”
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I just remember telling her I wasn’t ready to go yet. I wasn’t ready to leave you.”
My eyes fill with tears as I lean up and press a soft kiss against his lips.
He kisses me back, both arms wrapping around me, and for the first time since it all happened, the tight knot in my chest finally loosens.
He’s here.
He’s here with me.
When we pull apart, his thumb brushes away the tears sliding down my cheeks.
“Don’t cry, sweet girl,” he murmurs. “I’m right here.”
I rest my head against his chest again, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath my ear, when after a moment he speaks again.
“I keep thinking there was a whale beside me when I was out there.”
“There was,” I tell him with a soft laugh. “Finn said she stayed with you right up until the moment they lifted you into the helicopter.”
And like that, with my cheek resting against the steady rise and fall of his chest, the long tension of the day finally releases its hold on me, and I fall into a deep sleep.
Chapter 45
The night moves slowly inside the quiet hospital room, measured mostly by the steady rhythm of the monitor beside Aiden’s bed and the occasional footsteps of nurses who slip in every couple of hours to check his vitals.
At some point after midnight, one of the nurses rolls a small recliner into the room for me. She sets it beside the bed with a sympathetic smile.
After she leaves, I pull the recliner a little closer to Aiden’s bed until I can reach him easily. I settle into it and unfold the blanket April brought me earlier, wrapping it around my shoulders before reaching for his hand again.
My fingers close around his, and I settle back into the recliner, content to sit there beside him with his hand resting safely in mine.
Sleep comes in scattered pieces.
Each time my eyes drift closed, they open again not long after. My eyes always drift to him first, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath the blankets.
One of the times I wake in the middle of the night, I realize Aiden is already awake, watching me.
My eyes flutter open slowly, and the moment he notices I’m awake too, the corner of his mouth lifts into his now familiar crooked smile.
“I could watch you sleep forever.”
The words send warmth rushing straight into my cheeks.
I shift slightly in the recliner, suddenly aware of the fact that I haven’t showered in several hours and probably look exactly like it. Still, he only tightens his fingers around mine before lifting our joined hands toward his mouth.
His lips brush softly against the back of my hand.
A quiet flutter runs through my chest.
Later in the night, sometime closer to morning, I wake once more when I feel his fingers move faintly against mine.
The room is dim, the only light spilling in from the hallway outside, and for a moment, we look at each other in the quiet.
“You stayed,” he whispers.
