Page 39 of Seven Minutes
His name scraped out, broken and thin. Still, the sound of it made him crumble. He leaned close, forehead against mine, shaking with relief as his tears bathed my face.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here, baby. I’m right here.”
His hand moved to my cheek, thumb brushing tears I didn’t know had fallen. I closed my eyes and leaned into his touch, just barely. It was all I could manage.
The nurses adjusted monitors and dimmed the lights. Someone called “stable.” Someone else said, “rest.”
But I couldn’t stop looking at him. The circles under his eyes. The exhaustion and love coiled in the same breath. He wore rumpled sweats, and a three-day stubble covered his square jaw. He hadn’t left.
I blinked slowly, fighting to stay awake, to memorize the shape of his mouth when he whispered my name again.
When sleep pulled me under, his voice followed.
“Don’t you ever do that to me again,” he whispered fiercely.
And even through the haze, I managed the faintest smile. Because I wouldn’t. Never again.
Chapter 19
First Glimpse
ADRIAN
For a second, I thought I had imagined the twitch of his mouth, the flutter beneath his lashes. I’d been hallucinating versions of him for days now: the sound of his laugh, the feel of his lips on mine, waking me from sleep. But then his eyes opened.
And Jesus, they werereallyopen.
Not some reflexive flutter. Not a flicker of the nervous system firing off the last of its sparks. His eyes found mine.Sawme.
I forgot how to breathe.
The team moved around us in a blur—removing the tube, monitoring vitals, calling orders—but the world narrowed to a pinpoint. Just him. Just the sound of his broken voice scraping my name.
Hearing it shattered me. I leaned in so fast that I nearly ripped the IV line. My voice came out shredded.
“Yeah. I’m here, baby. Right here.”
He looked at me as if he didn’t believe it. Like maybe he’d wandered somewhere too far to ever find his way back and was shocked that I’d waited on the other side. I pressed my forehead to his, shaking.
“You scared the hell out of me,” I whispered. “Don’t you ever—ever—do that to me again.”
He made this small sound, something between a sigh and a hum, the barest flicker of a smile ghosting across his lips before he slipped back under.
His vitals steadied. Oxygen leveled out. The nurses murmured something about keeping him sedated, giving his body time to adjust. I nodded numbly, thanked them, watched them file out, and then the door clicked shut, and I was alone again—with him, but not really.
The silence was deafening. My pulse felt wrong in my throat.
I sat down hard in the chair, elbows braced, my face in my hands. Every bone in my body quivered, every muscle finally giving out after days of pretending to be steel.
My hand found his again, thumb brushing over the rough edge of the bracelet. The vine had dried and darkened over the years, but it still circled his wrist, unbroken.
“Every year,” I murmured. My throat hurt as if I’d swallowed glass. “Every damn year, I’ll take you back there. Just wake up all the way first, okay? We’ll start over. We’ll do it right this time.”
His pulse thrummed beneath my fingers, slow and steady, the faintest reminder of a promise we hadn’t finished keeping.
My hand was still wrapped around his when I pulled my phone from my pocket. The screen blurred twice before I even managed to unlock it. I’d rehearsed this call a hundred times over the last few days, but all the versions ended with excuses, condolences, apologies. Not this. Notgood news.
My thumb hovered over “Mom & Dad.” I hit call before I could think too hard.
