Page 113 of Reckless Obsession

A hospital room.

My gaze moves back to her, slower this time, taking in details as my mind catches up. She’s still wearing the same outfit she wore to dinner at the Sinclairs’ house. Her hair is styled the same way too, not a strand out of place despite everything that must have happened after I blacked out.

Something in me loosens all at once.

An uneven, real breath leaves me, and I let my head sink back against the pillows. The sheets are cool beneath my hands. The room smells sterile and clean, touched with that medicinal scent all hospitals have. But beneath it, closer, stronger, is her scent—soft, floral, and achingly familiar.

It cuts through everything.

Through the nightmare and the panic, through the horrible sensation of still being ten years old, trapped in that dark.

I breathe her in again, deeper this time, and let it remind me that I’m not there anymore.

I’m here. In a hospital bed with my mother beside me. The realization comes slowly, like something I have to earn my way back into.

My mom’s hand smooths my hair, and I close my eyes for a second because I can’t bear the tenderness head-on. Not yet. Not when my whole body still feels flayed open from memory.

“That was just a nightmare,” she murmurs.

Her voice is soft, but I can hear the strain she’s trying to hide. The fear she has suppressed so I wouldn’t have to look at it. I swallow against the dryness in my throat. My voice, when it comes, is rough and small in a way I hate.

“I know.”

She doesn’t push. She doesn’t ask what I saw or remembered. She just keeps moving her hands through my hair, as if she understands that some horrors don’t need retelling to be understood.

I open my eyes again and stare at the ceiling for a while, breathing carefully, as if too much air might pull me back into that place. Each inhale brings her scent with it, and I cling to it shamelessly.

For a moment, I let myself be nothing except her son.

My eyes sting, but I blink the feeling away before it becomes something else. My mom notices, of course. She notices everything. But all she does is brush her thumb once across my temple, impossibly gentle.

“You’re with me,” she whispers.

For a while, I just lie there listening to the soft hum of the hospital room and the quieter rhythm of her breathing beside me. My body is still shaky in that embarrassing, aftershock way, like the panic has left but the memory of it is still lodged in my bones.

Then the question rises again.

The question I’ve been wanting to ask before little Richie had come and shattered the evening with his stupid spiders.

I turn my head slightly toward her, my voice still rough around the edges.

“How did you know?”

Her hand stills in my hair for half a second.

I watch her profile. The elegant line of her jaw, the careful control of her expression. She knows exactly what I’m asking. Of course she does.

“Maksim,” she says quietly, “we can talk about that later.”

I frown.

“Mom.”

Her fingers resume their path through my hair, but slower now, more thoughtful than soothing.

“You’ve just woken up.”

“And I’m awake now.” I shift slightly against the pillow, wincing at the lingering ache in my chest. “So tell me.”