Page 38 of The Space Between Heartbeats
I don’t know what I was expecting to hear, but I had a smidgen of hope that maybe she could set aside her feelings toward him and at least let him know what happened. That’ll have to fall on me. But not now. I don’t have the strength.
“I want to see Knox,” I say quietly.
She scrunches her brows. “Sawyer, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Please.” I hear the pleading in my voice and don’t even know where it’s coming from. She’s not the one who can help me, but winning her to my side is a start. I just need to see him with my own eyes. I need to confirm he’s real, that those moments on theride weren’t some trauma-induced hallucination. “I need to see him. We were together when it happened. We survived together. Please.”
She studies me for a long moment, and I can see the wheels in her mind turning. What to say, how to say it, whether to say it at all. Finally, she sighs. “I’ll ask the nurse. But honey...the Aldrich’s just lost their son. They might not want?—”
“I know.” My throat constricts and the words struggle to escape. “I know what they lost. I lost him too, Mom. But I was there. Knox and I were both there, and I just…” I stop, not sure how to explain this pull I feel. “I need to see him.”
She doesn’t look convinced, but she nods. “Okay. Let me see what I can do.”
It takes forever, and the whole time I click through every channel on the TV, not really watching anything, until I’ve gone through them all at least ten times. Nurses and doctors come in and out, and some kind of hospital administrator talks to my mother, using words like “trauma protocol” and “patient privacy” and “family wishes.” But eventually, someone wheels in a wheelchair, which I insist I don’t need but apparently hospital policy demands, and my mother helps me into it.
Every movement sends pain shooting through my ribs, my shoulders, my neck. I guess I’m more battered than I realized, and the effort of just sitting up leaves me dizzy and nauseated.
“You okay?” Mom asks, bracing one hand on my shoulder.
“Yeah.” I grip the armrests, willing the room to stop spinning. “I’m fine.”
We move slowly down the corridor, Mom’s footsteps quiet behind me. The fluorescent lights are too bright and the smell of antiseptic stings my nostrils. Everything feels too loud, too sharp. I think my body used up all its ability to brace and filter and now there’s nothing left between me and the full weight of the world.
“Are they going to let me see him?”
“The nurse is asking.” She takes a breath, gripping the handles. “But, Baby Girl, you need to prepare yourself. The Aldrich’s...they might not want to see you right now.”
But Knox will. I know it.
“Ms. Thorne?” A nurse appears, he’s younger than the others, and looks like he pulled the short straw for this errand. He glances between my mother and me. “Um. Ms. Thorne? The Aldrich family has agreed to let Sawyer visit for five minutes. Just Sawyer. They’ve requested that...That no one else accompany her.”
Well, that’s to be expected. Victoria and Richard don’t want to see or hear about my parents on a good day. I’d be afraid of what would happen if Mom was in a small room with them, after everything.
I see her nod in my periphery. “Of course.”
“You sure, Mom?” I’m only asking to be nice. If she changed her mind and said actually no, either I go in with her or she doesn’t go at all, I’d find a way to keep her out. Even if it means locking her in a supply closet.
“It’s fine.” She squeezes my shoulder, but her grip is still tense. “I’ll be right here when you’re done.”
The nurse wheels me down the hallway, leaving my mother standing alone by the nurses station. I can feel her watching me go…can imagine the expression on her face—that mixture of anger and helplessness and old, festering hurt that she tries to hide, but it always shows.
We stop outside a closed door. Knox’s door. My heart pounds knowing he’s on the other side, and I swear my fingers literally itch to touch him, to feel him solid and warm and alive.
“You have five minutes,” the nurse says softly. “The family is...they’re grieving. Please be respectful.”
He opens the door and wheels me inside, then quietly retreats, leaving me alone with Victoria and Richard.
And Knox.
He’s sitting up in bed, and the sight of him steals whatever words I’d been planning to say.
He looks utterly destroyed.
There’s a thick white bandage wrapped around his head, cleaving a stark line through his dark hair. The side of his face is swollen, the skin around it already changing color. More bruises darken his jaw, and spread down his neck where they disappear underneath the hospital gown. His bare arms, resting on top of the thin blanket, are covered in cuts and scrapes—some bandaged, some just cleaned and exposed to air.
But it’s his eyes that has my breath catching.
Those gray eyes that normally hold a glint of humor are completely hollow. He looks at me and there’s nothing there. No kindness, no relief, no echo of the trauma we shared.
