Page 46 of Seven Minutes
I just watched him breathe, realizing that for all the things Iknew how to fix, this was the one that would undo me: the quiet miracle of him still here.
Chapter 22
Unspoken Words
ELI
Morning came in fragments—voices at the doorway, the shuffle of rubber soles. I was somewhere between dreaming and waking when I realized the noise was for me.
A nurse smiled, too positive for the hour. “We’re going to get you sitting up a bit today, Mr. Hawke.”
Her words didn’t quite compute. Sitting up sounded like a normal thing, something easy. It wasn’t until the physical therapist wheeled in a tray of equipment that my heart started pounding.
Adrian was standing in the corner, still in yesterday’s clothes. The shadows under his eyes told me he hadn’t slept again. He straightened when the therapist introduced herself, his entire demeanor shifting from husband to doctor in half a beat.
“We’ll take it slow,” she said kindly. “Just a few degrees at a time.”
Slow turned out to be an understatement.
The moment the bed angled upward, fire shot through my ribs. My lungs seized. Sweat prickled across my temples. Every inhale scraped.
“Stop,” I managed. “God—just—wait.”
Adrian was beside me instantly, one hand braced near the control panel, the other hovering over my shoulder but not quite touching.
“You’re okay,” he murmured. “It’s just your intercostals protesting. You’re breathing too shallow. Try slower.”
I wanted to snap that there was no such thing astry slowerwhen every breath felt like gravel, but then I saw the look in his eyes—calm, clinical, but pleading too—like if I gave up now, it would undo something vital in him.
So I didn’t give up, even though I wanted to protest alongside my intercostals.
We inched up again. Ten degrees. Fifteen. Twenty.
My arms trembled, and my vision blurred. The therapist guided me to roll my shoulders, to turn my head side to side. “Range of motion,” she called it. It felt more like torture.
“Good,” she said. “Let’s see if we can swing your legs a bit.”
My right leg moved fine. The left… not so much. Pain flared down my thigh, and I sucked in air through my teeth. Adrian’s voice cut through everything.
“That’s enough for now.”
The therapist hesitated. “A few more minutes would?—”
“He’s tachycardic. Look at his pulse ox,” he said, already reading the monitor.
She glanced at the screen, then nodded. “All right. We’ll stop here.”
I collapsed back against the pillow, chest heaving. My whole body quavered, part effort, part adrenaline. The therapist adjusted my pillow and offered a faint smile.
“You did great.”
Great. I’d survived sitting up.
When she left, Adrian stayed, adjusting the blanket that had slipped down to my waist. His hand lingered there for a beat longer than necessary, eyes searching my face.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
“Define okay.”
