Dark circles smudged the skin under his eyes. His face, usually so guarded and stoic, was etched with lines of worry and exhaustion that made him look older, more vulnerable.
Just as I was trying to process the heartbreaking sight of him, a soft knock sounded at the door before it swung open. A doctor, a woman with kind brown eyes and a warmly professional smile, stepped inside.
“Ms. Holloway. Iris. Good to see you’re awake,” she said, her voice calm and reassuring. “I’m Dr. Sharma, the hospitalist on duty this evening.”
Her voice startled Austin awake. He jerked upright in his chair, his eyes flying open, wide and full of a raw, panicked confusion for a split second before they landed on me. The relief that washed over his face was a physical thing, a palpable wave that seemed to ease the tension in the entire room.
“You’re awake.” His voice was a deep, rough rasp. He squeezed my hand, his grip tight and grounding. I offered him a confirmatory smile that was a bit shaky.
Dr. Sharma moved to the other side of my bed. She did an efficient check of my pupils with a penlight, took my pulse, and asked me a series of questions. Did I know where I was? What was the last thing I remembered? My answers came out a little fuzzy, my tongue thick, but they seemed to satisfy her.
She smiled after tapping on a tablet in her hand. “You gave us all quite a scare. You have a moderate concussion, so you’ll likely be dealing with a headache and some dizziness for a few days. We’ll need to keep a close eye on that.” She patted my uninjured leg gently. “But the main event was your other leg. You have some pretty significant fractures of your tibia. Dr. Starling, the orthopedic surgeon, was able to set it with a titanium rod and a few screws. The surgery went well. You’ll have a long road of physical therapy ahead, but we expect a full and complete recovery.”
A rod. Screws. The words sounded clinical, foreign, like they belonged to someone else’s story.
I tried to wiggle the toes on my left leg, to connect my brain to the heavy, bandaged limb propped on the pillows. Nothing happened. It was like trying to send a message down a disconnected phone line.
“That’s the nerve block working its magic,” Dr. Sharma explained with a reassuring smile. “It numbs the nerves from the knee down. The block will last for another six to eight hours, most likely. It will wear off gradually.”
She looked at me, her expression turning serious. “Now, when it starts to wear off, you will start to feel it. It’s very important that you press that call button and ask for pain medication before it gets bad. Understand?”
“Yes,” I said, the word a little hoarse. “Stay ahead of the pain.”
“Exactly.” She gave my uninjured foot a gentle pat. “For now, just rest. Press the call button if you need anything.”
She left, the door clicking softly shut behind her, leaving Austin and me in a new kind of silence. The clinical, professional buffer was gone. The air in the quiet hospital room became thick with unspoken emotions, with the weight of his vigil and the reality of what had happened. He was still holding my hand, his thumb stroking the back of my knuckles. I watched him, my heart aching.
He looked… broken.
The usual guardedness in his expression was gone, replaced by a raw, naked fear that he was clearly fighting, and failing, to control. A muscle in his jaw twitched relentlessly. His shoulders were rigid with tension that appeared to go soul-deep.
“Austin,” I said softly, my voice still a little hoarse. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
He shook his head, a jerky, tight movement, his eyes fixed on our hands. “Nothing. You’re safe, and that’s all that matters. You need to rest.”
“No,” I said, my grip on his hand tightening. “Look at me.”
Slowly, reluctantly, as if it took every ounce of his considerable strength, he lifted his head and met my gaze. What I saw in his eyes stole my breath. It was a maelstrom of anguish, of terror, of pain so old and deep I could feel the chill of it. A surge of adrenaline cut through the last of my grogginess.
“Talk to me,” I said gently.
“When Gus called… When he said you fell, I thought…” His voice was low and frayed. He squeezed his eyes shut. “I thought it was happening all over again.”
A single tear escaped from the corner of his closed eyeand traced a slow, solitary path down his tanned, stubbled cheek.
The sight of it—of this strong, solitary man at the end of his tether—shattered something inside me.
He opened his eyes, and they were swimming with unshed grief. “I can’t… I can’t lose you.”
He leaned forward, burying his face in the scratchy hospital blanket that covered my stomach, his broad shoulders beginning to shake with silent, wracking sobs. My tears, which had been threatening, began to fall freely. Not for my pain, but for his.
The dam was breaking.
Thirteen years of walled-off grief, of suffocating guilt, of soul-crushing loneliness were all pouring out of him, right here in this sterile hospital room. I threaded my fingers through his thick, dark hair, holding him, my heart breaking for the sheer weight of the pain he had carried for so long.
“This is my fault,” he finally said, his voice a muffled, broken sound against the blanket. “It’s what I do. I let people get close, and then something bad happens. Iris, I love you. I was too much of a goddamn coward to say it, but that didn’t make a difference. It should be me in this bed. Hell, it should have been me thirteen years ago. This is what happens when I let myself care about someone. The universe takes them away. To punish me.”
The last remnants of the fog enveloping me vanished, along with the dull pain at the back of my head. I barely registered that he told me he loved me because of everything else he’d said. His last word was a choked, broken thing. But I couldn’t respond?—
