"I'm here." My voice breaks clean down the middle on the last word. "I'm — yes. I'm here. I'm coming. I'm…yes."
I'm already standing, my legs automatically moved, carrying me up off the step while my brain is still somewhere three seconds behind trying to catch up with what she just said.
"We'll see you shortly. Take your time?—
"I'm coming now," I say, and I end the call.
Hayden’s on his feet before I've turn around. I don't know what my face is doing but whatever it is makes him close the distance between us in two steps, his hands coming up to my arms, steadying me.
"Olivia." His voice is low and immediate. "What happened?"
I press my lips together; my eyes are burning and that's not helping either. I need to say the words out loud but every time I try to start them something rises up in my chest and takes up all the space where words should be.
"Hey." He dips his head to find my eyes. "Talk to me."
"Mom woke up," I manage. It comes out as barely anything. A breath with edges. "My mom…she…she's awake, Hayden, she's awake.”
Hayden's arms come around me before I can think about it, pulling me in, one hand at the back of my head, and I press my face against his chest and cry in a way I haven't let myself cry since the first day in the hospital when this nightmare started.
Not from fear this time.
Not from guilt or grief.
Just from relief. Pure and overwhelming and so long coming that my whole body doesn't know what to do with it.
When I pull back, my face is a mess, but I don't care. Hayden looks at me, his thumb moves across my cheek, wiping without making a thing of it.
"Let's go," he says simply.
I nod. I can't speak yet and I don't need to. He keeps one arm around me as we move, and I let him.
My mom is awake.
The doctor meets us in the corridor outside mom’s room.
"She's awake and she's responsive, which is genuinely good news," he says. "But I want to be honest with you. She's not out of the woods yet. The swelling has reduced but her heart took significant strain from the impact. We're monitoring her closely." He pauses. "She asked for you the moment she could form the words. That's a good sign. It means she's fighting."
I nod. I understand everything he's saying and I'm filing it somewhere to process later because right now the only thing my body wants is to be on the other side of that door.
"Can I see her?"
"Of course."
She looks smaller than I remember.
That's the first thing that hits me, walking through the door. She's always been small, but she looks it differently now, against the white of the bed, with the tubes and the monitors and the pale blue of the hospital gown. Her hair is loose around her shoulders. Someone must have brushed it.
Then she opens her eyes and smiles when she sees me.
"Livvy." Her voice is rough, barely there. But it's hers. It's completely, entirely hers, and it goes through me like a current from my throat to the base of my spine.
"Mom." I'm at the bed before I finish the word, her hand between both of mine, and it's warm. She's warm. She's here, and she's warm and her fingers curl around mine. I press them to my mouth and hold them there and just breathe.
"Don't cry," she says softly, which is a completely useless thing to say.
"I'm not," I say, which is an obvious lie.
She makes a sound that is almost a laugh. Almost.
