Page 67 of Seven Minutes
When he finally came back, he had that forced calm about him, the one he used with patients who didn’t know they were dying.
“You should eat something,” he said softly.
I nodded, but my throat was tight, and I couldn’t tell if it was from pain or pride.
He kneeled beside the couch, adjusting the blanket over my legs, avoiding my eyes. I almost reached out to touch his hair, to smooth the line between his brows like I used to. But then he looked up, and the distance between us felt wider than the Gulf.
It felt final.
“Adrian—” I started, but he stood before I could finish.
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” he said and walked away.
I wanted to call out—to apologize, to tell him I didn’t mean what I’d said in the car—but I didn’t. My voice felt useless.
I’m afraid, I wanted to scream.I’m scared of losing you again, and even more terrified that things will fall apart again and I won’t have the courage to ask you to leave.
Later, when he came back, I pretended to be asleep. He stood there for a long time, close enough that Icould feel his warmth, the faint hitch of his breath. I knew he was watching me, cataloguing every sign of pain as though he could still fix me if he just tried hard enough.
But what he didn’t understand was that I wasn’t broken the way he thought I was.
The damage wasn’t in my leg. It was in the space between us.
Chapter 28
Reconnecting
ADRIAN
The house was dark except for the dim under-cabinet lighting I’d left on in the kitchen. It cast everything in a kind of half-shadow. Enough to move around, but not enough to feel awake. I’d cleaned the counters twice, reorganized the medicine cabinet, and even wiped down the coffee maker. The quiet still felt heavy.
Eli had gone quiet hours ago. I’d checked on him once, pretending to grab my phone charger from the bedroom. He’d been lying on his side, the blanket pulled to his chest, his face turned toward the window.
Now, standing in the hallway, the soft, muffled sounds carried through the closed door. Breathing that wasn’t quite steady. A quiet hitch every few seconds, followed by a swallow, as if trying not to let it out.
My husband was quietly falling apart. Alone.
The sound hit me square in the chest. For all the ways I’dfailed him, I’d forgotten what it meant to hear him cry. He wasn’t loud about it. He never had been. Eli had always been private with his pain—quietly stubborn, silently breaking.
My hand hovered near the doorframe, knuckles brushing the wood. I thought about going in and sitting on the edge of the bed. Saying something, anything. But what?
I’m sorry I hovered until you hated me? Sorry I smothered you in the name of love?
Or did this go deeper? Eli died. Maybe that was hitting him now.
None of it sounded right. None of it would make him stop crying.
So I just stood there listening. Every hiccup and sniffle cut through my heart like a knife.
Eli thought I didn’t see how hard he was trying. He thought I didn’t notice the small victories—the extra step, the longer walk, the way he forced himself upright even when his face paled with pain. But I saw everything. I just couldn’t stand watching him hurt.
That was the problem. I’d spent my whole career fixing people. Setting bones, closing wounds, bringing bodies back from the brink. But Eli wasn’t a patient. He was the one person I couldn’ttreat.And the more I tried, the worse I made it.
I leaned my forehead against the door, exhaling slowly.
What was I even doing anymore? Taking a leave of absence, hovering, cooking meals, scheduling appointments—it wasn’t love. It was penance. A slow, methodical form of self-punishment disguised as care.
Because if I stopped—if I sat still long enough to thinkabout what almost happened, what I almost lost—then I’d have to face the truth.
