Someone asks my name. I answer, correctly I think. Then more questions follow. Date. Location. Pain level. I try to respond. Words come out wrong or not at all.
Alek stays where he is, his hand never leaving mine, even when the vehicle hits uneven pavement. Everything else shifts. Light. Sound. Movement. Throughout, his grip stays constant.
The city moves past in flashes through the rear window. Red lights blur. White lights streak. Buildings break apart and come back together between blinks. My thoughts come in pieces now, harder to catch.
Money. Hospital. What happens next.
I picture the stack of bills on my table. Rent due. Missing work tonight and all of my earnings from today gone. The idea of adding another expense tightens something deep in my chest.
I try to speak. “Cost—”
Alek leans closer. “Please don’t worry about it.”
Easy for him. I let it go anyway because I don’t have anything else to hold on to.
The noise presses in harder. Motion. Light. Questions I can’t quite follow. Everything pulls inward, narrowing down until there’s no room left for anything except the one thing that hasn’t shifted since he knelt beside me.
His hand.
So, I focus on the one thing giving me comfort. Skin against skin. Heat against the cold still clinging to me. I tighten my grip once, not sure if I mean to.
He doesn’t pull away.
The steadiness of it cuts through everything else.
Who is this Alek person? All I know is he was at the market and knows my name. A stranger said I was his wife and made it sound real enough for everyone else to believe it.
None of it lines up. None of it fits.
My eyes close.
This time I don’t fight it.
The last thing I register is his hand still wrapped around mine, holding steady while everything else slips out of reach.
seven
Present Day
WhatwasIthinking?
Hope lies in the hospital bed with one arm outside the blanket, tape fixed to the back of her hand. Her dark hair is fanned over the pillow in loose, tangled strands. A few hours ago she held her guitar in her hands and transfixed the entire crowd at the market.
Now fluorescent light drains the color from her skin and a monitor keeps time in soft electronic blips from somewhere near her shoulder.
I sit beside her with my fingers laced through hers and try not to picture how close this came to going worse.
“Her name is Hope Kristiansen. She’s my wife.”
The words ring in my head.
I didn’t plan this. Didn’t weigh options or stop to think through consequences. The words came out because she was on the pavement fighting to send help away and all I could hear under her panic was money. Cost. Bills. Fear big enough to make her choose bleeding on a sidewalk over getting into an ambulance.
So I lied.
One lie compounded into another. Once I started, stopping would have left Hope alone and helpless with no one speaking on her behalf.
So fucking presumptuous.
