Page 49 of Seven Minutes
His throat worked around something he didn’t say. “That’s enough.”
The way he said it made my chest ache.
I glanced down at my wrist. The bracelet caught the light, a dull, worn gleam against my pale skin. “You put this on me.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
He hesitated. “Because you loved it once.”
I turned my wrist slowly. The rough wood felt warm from the sun. “We were happy then.”
“Yeah,” he whispered. “We were.”
The quiet that followed was heavier than words. I wanted to reach for him, to tell him I still felt the tether between us, frayed but unbroken, but I couldn’t find the strength or the courage.
Instead, I asked softly, “What happens now?”
He looked up, startled by the question. “Now?”
“When I’m discharged. When I go home.” I swallowed. “What happens tous?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. For a moment, I thought I saw tears catch in his lashes, but when he blinked, they were gone.
“We’ll take it one day at a time,” he said finally. “You’ll focus on getting stronger. I’ll help however I can.”
I nodded, pretending that the answer was enough.
A leaf drifted past. I reached out and caught it clumsily in my lap. Adrian smiled faintly, the kind of smile that used to meanI love you,but now meantI’m trying.
“I missed this,” he said quietly.
“What, the garden?”
He shook his head. “You. Breathing.”
Something inside me broke all over again.
I looked away, blinking fast. “You should go home soon. Get some rest.”
“Maybe later.”
“Adrian—”
He reached over then, his hand finding mine, firm and warm and familiar. “Don’t ask me to leave yet.”
So I didn’t.
I just sat there with the sunlight spilling over my lap, his fingers around mine, both of us pretending for a little while that we were still the people who made love under the vines and believed the future was ours to shape.
The hospital quieted after dark.My room was dim but restless. I should’ve been asleep hours ago, but my mind wouldn’t settle.
Adrian was still here.
He’d promised he’d head out after the transfer paperwork, but instead he’d rolled his chair closer to the bed and started typing notes into his tablet, pausing every few minutes to check the drip or my chart. His hair was flattened because he’d run a stressed-out hand through it a hundred times, and the shadows under his eyes had turned the kind of purple usually reserved for bruises.
It was almost funny—my doctor, my husband, my almost-ex-husband—always impeccable, unflappable, looking as if he were the one involved in the wreck instead of me.
