In an ideal world, the plane wouldn’t have crashed. I wouldn’t be lying in a hospital bed with a hole in my skull. I would have had time to introduce Wyatt to Brian, and to Meret.
In an ideal world, I wouldn’t havehadto.
“I’m going home to Meret,” Brian says, and my jaw drops.
“What?”
He nods, scooting closer to the bed. He reaches for my hand. “There was no way I wasn’t flying here to make sure you were all right,” Brian says. “And I’ll confirm with the doctors. But the prognosis is good. Meret needs one of us. And I assume he’ll bring you to Boston when you’re discharged.”
“Yes, but—”
“Dawn. You want to be with him.”
He says this so evenly that I hold my breath, certain that there is abut.
He stands up, his green eyes crinkled at the corners, even if the smile does not reach them. “All I’ve ever hoped for is to give you what you want.”
Brian leans down and so gently, so tenderly kisses my forehead, framing my face in his hands. “You were coming back to me, when the plane crashed,” he says. “You just don’t know it yet.”
He slips out of the room without looking back.
—
WYATT REFUSES TOleave my room and charms the nurses with his accent and his dimples so that he can camp out overnight, even though he isn’t supposed to. He contacts Yale and talks at length to the dean of the faculty. The neurosurgeon comes by twice to tell me I’m doing better than expected. I nap, and when I wake, I feel like myself. We do a crossword puzzle and watch a few episodes ofLaw & Order: SVU. Wyatt eats the Jell-O from my tray. He tells me what I don’t remember: how there were thirty-six survivors. How we were brought to this hospital; how I became woozy watching him get stitched up and slipped out of the room to get some air; how he heard the commotion and ran out to find me on the floor, surrounded by medical personnel. “Couldn’t you have been less competitive?” he asks drily. “I was the one with the bleeding head wound, but youhadto win the plane crash.”
He is joking, because it is easier than facing the truth: had I been sitting in a different seat, had I struck the ground in a different way, I would not be here. Our story, which has just begun again, would be over. Somewhere, in a parallel timeline, there is another me at my own funeral.
That makes me think about Win. Is she still alive? If I’d died, would she have been waiting for me?
This, even more than the bandage around my head, makes me realize how close I have come to death. I start to shiver and can’t stop. Wyatt crawls into bed beside me. “Hey,” he says, holding me close. “Hey, Olive. It’s all right.”
“It’s not all right.” I can barely breathe; it is as if I’ve only just seen the odds of my survival and I am crushed beneath the weight of them.
“It’s going to be,” he announces, and I have never been more grateful for his arrogance.
“What if the doctor’s wrong?” I whisper. “What if I close my eyes and don’t wake up?”
Wyatt stares down at me, fierce. “You do not get to die. Period.”
I smile a little at that. “You know, if it came down to it, I think you could strike a bargain with Osiris himself.”
“If you’re afraid to close your eyes, I’ll keep you awake. If you don’t believe the doctors, I’ll find a hundred more to convince you.” He grins ruefully. “Plus, you have to stay alive if only for my own safety. If you die on my watch, your husband will kill me.”
“I didn’t want you to meet him that way,” I say.
“Hematoma aside, I don’t imagine there was any scenario where that would have been less awkward.” He hesitates. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, butIwouldn’t have left you.”
I don’t know how to explain that the reason Brian went home was about not how little he cares for me, but howmuch.
I wonder, had the roles been reversed, if Wyatt would have given me the space to make a choice.
He takes my hand and places it over his heart, which beats steady and strong.
“Do you think anyone ever makes love in a hospital bed?” he muses.
I muffle a laugh. “I think if you’re in a hospital, you’re supposed to be too sick for that.”
“What do they know?” His hand slips around my waist, coming to rest. “It’s like this spot was made for me,” Wyatt says. “Like we were carved from the same block of limestone.”
