Still, my heart wants what it knows it can’t have.
Him.
“Can we wait a bit?” I ask. “I’m just…tired.”
“Of course, honey.” She looks up at the doctor. “Is it okay if she sleeps?”
He smiles. “Yes, it’s a good thing she wants rest.”
“Let me in!” I hear someone screaming from the hallway.
“Sir, you have to stop. You can’t go in there.”
“Lark! Lark! I’m here!”
My eyes go wide. “Tristan?” I ask, barely audible.
“Oh Lord, that man,” Daddy mutters.
“He loves her,” Momma says with a smile. “We’ll head out before you have to have security come get him.”
I glance at them both as they slip out of the room, wondering what the hell happened while I was out. Tristan is here? Why? How did he know? Why is he back?
All these questions swirl as I stare at the door while the man I love strides toward me with unshed tears in his eyes.
“Lark,” he says my name on a breath, and then he’s across the room, cradling my face in his big strong hands.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
His brown eyes are filled with so many emotions. Hope, relief, fear, and most of all…love. “Don’t ever leave me again. Don’t even think about a world where you’re not mine.”
“What?” I breathe.
Maybe I’m still in the coma and this is just a really vivid dream. My parents were here. Then he was in the hallway—screaming. Now my parents are gone, and he’s touching me.
Yeah, nothing makes sense.
Not. A. Thing.
This is a dream. A really good one where he’s saying the things I’ve dreamed of hearing, so I’m perfectly fine with not waking up.
“I’m yours?” I ask for clarification.
I figure dream Tristan will totally say I am. Which will be really nice to hear.
“Yes, and I’m yours,” he says before kissing the tip of my nose. “God, I…fuck, I’ve never felt fear like I did when I found out you were hurt.”
Okay, so apparently in my dream-coma state, I’m living in a partial reality. “You were?”
“Of course I was, sweetheart. Hell, I’ve been in agony. I was sitting at your bedside, begging you to wake up every day.”
He was?
I mean, I would’ve dreamed he was here, because I would want that. But if this is a dream, would I dream of him in my dreams?
So much to consider, and my head is still pounding.
I rest my palms on his wrists. “I’m not following any of this. You’ve been here? You were in agony?”
