I let her, taking her fingers in mine and kissing her knuckles.
My parents got into the row ahead of us, my father already on the phone with someone about security, access, privacy, and words that meant my life had become a controlled operation. My mother twisted in her seat and looked back at me three times before the Escalade even pulled away from the curb.
“I’m fine,” I said.
All three of them answered at once.
“No, you’re not.”
Fair.
The drive into Saginaw took thirty minutes. It felt like three hours as I fought to hide the pain from every slight jostle the SUV made.
Outside the window, late-fall Michigan moved past in dull gray stretches of highway, bare trees, patches of stubborn snow in shaded ditches, gas stations, brick buildings, and wide roads that didn’t care that my entire life had rearranged itself. Bliss kept hold of my hand the whole way. Not tightly, not enough to hurt. Just there. Her thumb brushed over my knuckles in littleabsent circles, and every time my breathing hitched, her eyes lifted to my face before I could hide it.
“Stop watching me like I’m a science experiment.”
“I’m not.”
“Pip.”
“I’m watching you like you’re a man who thinks pretending pain doesn’t exist makes him hotter.”
“It does make me hotter.”
“No, Cade. It makes you annoying.”
“Same genre.”
Her mouth twitched, but her eyes grew wet, and that did something worse than pain. I lifted our joined hands and kissed her fingers. “I’m here.”
“I know.”
“I’m leaving the hospital.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to be fine.”
She looked out the window fast.
Too fast.
“Pip.”
“Don’t,” she whispered.
So, I didn’t.
I kept my mouth shut and held her hand because sometimes loving her meant shutting the hell up while she remembered the things I hadn’t seen. I had been in a coma, blind to everyone who loved me suffering around my bed, and letting her carry that without trying to talk her out of it remained one of the hardest things I had ever done.
The high-rise looked exactly like something my father would choose while pretending to compromise. Sleek glass. Secured parking. Private elevator access. Marble lobby with too much silence and a concierge who looked like he had signed several nondisclosure agreements before breakfast. Theapartment one floor beneath my parents’ penthouse had floor-to-ceiling windows, a view of the city and river beyond it, modern furniture in cold expensive neutrals, and enough space that Bliss immediately narrowed her eyes.
“This is your recovery apartment?”
I glanced around from where I leaned against my father’s arm with a cautious grip, which was humiliating but unfortunately necessary. “Looks like it.”
“This is bigger than my dad’s house.”
