Page 95 of Returned Mail

I stand slowly, adjusting my bag on my shoulder. The gate agent calls for boarding again. People begin lining up. And for the first time since I opened that notice, I stop wondering whether I'm making the right decision.

Maybe my mother is right, I don't know him. Maybe this whole thing is irrational, reckless, or even insane. But George is lying in a hospital somewhere on the other side of the world, and whether anyone understands it or not—I know exactly where I'm supposed to be.

So I wipe my eyes, take a shaky deep breath, and walk toward the gate.

The first flight is a couple of hours long, but I don’t eat, I don’t sleep, I don't do anything except sit frozen in my seat, staring at nothing. Which makes it feel way longer than it actually was.

Every time the plane shakes, I grip the armrest so hard my fingers ache. Every time the seatbelt sign dings, my heart drops into my stomach. Every time someone laughs, coughs, or shifts in their seat, my brain twists it into a scenario where I never get to see him.

To meet him.

To tell him I came.

I reread the notice once more: “Medically stabilized for now.” ‘For now’ feels like the cruelest phrase in the English language.

The window shows nothing except clouds, but I stare anyway, willing them to give me answers they don't have.

Time doesn't move between layovers. I walk circles around airport lounges because sitting feels impossible. My legs shake so badly I drop my bag twice. Every announcement over the intercom sounds like it's underwater. At one point, I sit on a bench in a bathroom and bury my face in my hands, whispering, “Please be alive. Please, please, please be alive.” No one looks twice. Airports are full of people falling apart quietly.

The second flight boards, and I get a window seat. Every second I spend on that airplane feels too slow and too fast at the same time. I think about telling Monica. I imagine the call. “Hi, so remember me? I called about the letters. The man you broke up with might die, and we have been sort of talking, and I’m on my way to him. Want to hop on a plane?”

I shake my head hard.

She's not who he would want.

And God help me, I think maybe I am.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Mia

When I finally get there, I go straight to the hospital.

I don’t want to lose time going to a hotel, checking in, and dealing with people.

I need to see him now.

The taxi drops me at the entrance, and I'm moving before the door fully opens, my bag catching on the seat, my hands shaking so badly I can barely grip the handle.

The hospital is too clean, too quiet, too bright. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, washing everything in sterile white that makes my eyes ache. The smell hits me immediately. Antiseptic and something underneath it, something else that makes my stomach turn. I can't feel my legs as I walk inside. My mouth is dry, and my heartbeat is a constant thrum in my ears, so loud I'm certain everyone can hear it.

At the front desk, a nurse glances up. “Can I help you?”

“I'm here for Sergeant George Hale.” My voice breaks on his name.

She types something into her computer, and I watch her face for any sign, any flicker of recognition or concern or something. Then she asks the question I've been dreading since I boarded the first plane. “Are you family?” The truth sticks in my throat. I'm not family. I'm not his wife. I'm not even his girlfriend.

I'm not… anything.

I'm just a woman who fell in love with someone through letters. A stranger who read his words and decided that was enough. But leaving him alone, letting him wake up to no one, feels like a bigger lie than anything I could say right now. I swallow hard.

“Something like that,” I whisper.

The words sound pathetic even to my own ears. “It's… complicated. I received an official notice.” It's all I manage to say before I choke on my own words. Before the rest of it, I came halfway across the world because I couldn't let him be alone, die in my throat. The nurse's expression softens slightly.

She opens her mouth to respond, and that's when the alarms start. The sound is loud, piercing in my ears. A sharp, mechanical wail that cuts through the quiet like a knife. Then the intercom crackles to life.

“Code Blue, ICU. Code Blue, ICU. All available personnel to the ICU immediately.” My heart stops.