Page 40 of Seven Minutes
It rang once. Twice. Then her voice broke through, sounding as shaky as I felt.
“Adrian?” Eli’s mother was terrified.
“He—” My voice cracked. I cleared it and tried again. “He opened his eyes.”
A soft but startled sob burst through the line. “Oh, thank God.”
“He saw me,” I whispered. My throat felt tight. “Hesaid my name.”
There was shuffling on the other end—his father, murmuring something, the rustle of movement—and then her again. “We’re coming back. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Drive safe,” I managed, though my voice was useless, strangled by tears. “Please. Just… drive safe.”
When the call ended, the room quieted again. The adrenaline that had been keeping me upright for days drained out all at once. I sat there staring at his hand in mine, trying to memorize every inch—the scars, the veins, the way his fingers curled slightly even now.
And then it hit me. The flood of pent-up emotions I’d been too numb to feel.
All the words I hadn’t said. The hours I’d spent sitting heretrying to fix the unfixable with excuses and recriminations. The guilt that had clung to me like a second skin finally cracked open, raw and ugly.
I folded over his hand, pressing it to my cheek as if I could pray through skin and bone. “I’m sorry,” I choked. “God, Eli, I’m so fucking sorry. For every fight. For every time I wasn’t here. For every night you went to sleep alone.”
Tears hit the blanket in rapid succession, soaking into the pale blue cotton. I tried to stop, to breathe, to pull it together before his parents came, but my chest gave out on me.
I couldn’t hold the line anymore. Not the doctor, not the husband trying to be brave. Just a man who’d finally realized how close he’d come to losing the only thing that ever mattered.
Eli—laughing, grounding, impossible Eli—had been my center. My reason. My north. And now, watching him breathe again, I realized I’d been orbiting him all along, too preoccupied to notice until the universe nearly ripped him away.
By the time his parents arrived, I was on my feet again, wiping my face with the back of my hand, trying to compose myself. But when his mother saw my expression—hope and exhaustion colliding—she didn’t hesitate. She wrapped her arms around me, her tears warm against my neck.
“He’s coming back,” I whispered into her shoulder, voice breaking apart one word at a time. “He’s coming back to us.”
And for the first time in days, I believed it.
The room was dim again;the edges softened by dusk.
He’d woken once. Just once.
Long enough for me to see his eyes, unfocused and glassy, buthis.Long enough for my name to stumble out of him, barely a sound, before the sedation took him again. The team said it was normal, that he needed rest, that his brain had to heal slowly. I nodded like a man who understood, but I hadn’t stopped quaking since.
Now it was just us again. The stillness felt different this time—fragile, tender, a place to recover instead of a harbinger of death.
I’d moved my chair close, our hands still joined. His parents had gone to stretch their legs after I’d convinced them it was okay to rest. I couldn’t. I didn’t dare.
I traced the curve of his wrist with my thumb, brushing the edge of the bracelet. His skin was warm under my fingers. Healthy. “You scared the hell out of me,” I whispered. “You always knew how to make an entrance.”
Just like the day we met, when he doused me in coffee and foam, but all I could see was his blinding smile.
A quiet laugh escaped me—half-broken, half-relieved. My voice sounded foreign, hoarse from disuse. “You should’ve seen me, Eli. God, I lost it. Everyone in this hospital saw me fall apart like a first-year intern who didn’t know what to do.”
Silence answered, but not the same hollow kind as before. This one hummed, waiting.
“I thought I’d have time,” I went on softly. “To fix things. To make us right again. I kept thinking there’d be another day to say I love you like I meant it. Like it wasn’t a reflex.”
I took a breath, my chest tightening. “When you said myname earlier…” I swallowed hard, feeling it all over again. “You have no idea what that did to me. I’ve replayed it a hundred times in my head already. It’s the only thing keeping me upright.”
I leaned forward, my voice breaking. “You hear me? I’m right here. You come back when you’re ready. No rush. Just… don’t leave again, okay?”
My thumb brushed the vine at his wrist. “You still have this,” I murmured. “Guess you kept your promises better than I did.”
