Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
still here
SOREN
The first thing I became aware of was light—too bright even through closed eyelids, sterile and wrong in ways that told me I wasn't in my bedroom.
The second thing was the dryness in my throat, like I'd swallowed sand and glass in equal measure.
The third was the ache in my body, deep and exhausting, like I'd been hit by a truck and left to recover in slow motion.
I tried to move and immediately regretted it. Everything hurt. My chest, my head, my arms where I could feel the pull of an IV line taped to my skin. Even breathing felt like work I wasn't sure I had the energy for.
Hospital. I was in a hospital.
The memories came back in fragments that didn't want to fit together cleanly. The court papers on the floor. The pills in my hand. The bottles. The quiet decision that maybe everyone would be better off if I just stopped trying to hold everything together.
And then nothing.
I forced my eyes open, blinking against the light until the room came into focus. White walls, beeping machines, a TV mounted in the corner playing something on mute. Standard hospital room, antiseptic and impersonal and exactly what I deserved for being stupid enough to—
Movement caught my attention, and I turned my head to find Rook sitting in a chair pulled close to the bed, slumped forward with his head resting on his arms on the mattress near my hip.
His hand was wrapped around mine, fingers laced together in a grip that looked uncomfortable but felt like the only thing anchoring me to reality.
He had a beard. Not a full one, just a few days' worth of growth that shadowed his jaw and made him look rougher than I'd ever seen him. It suited him.
He looked exhausted even in sleep, dark circles under his eyes and tension still visible in the set of his shoulders. His clothes were rumpled, and there was a coffee stain on his shirt that suggested he'd been here for a while.
He'd stayed.
Despite everything he was here. Holding my hand like letting go wasn't an option he'd considered.
I smiled and felt tears start streaming down my face before I could stop them. They came silently at first, and then the sob that tried to escape made my chest hurt badly enough that I gasped.
The sound woke Rook immediately.
His head snapped up, eyes going from sleepy to alert in half a second, and the relief that flooded his face when he saw I was awake was so intense it made me cry harder.
“Soren—” My name came out rough and broken, and his hand tightened around mine. “Oh thank goodness. You're awake. You're actually awake.”
I tried to say his name back and couldn't make my voice work past the rawness in my throat. The attempt turned into a cough that hurt badly enough to make me wince, and Rook was immediately on his feet.
“Don't try to talk yet. Just—fuck, I need to get the nurses. They said to call them the second you woke up.” He was already reaching for the call button, pressing it repeatedly with his free hand while refusing to let go of mine with the other. “You're okay. You're going to be okay.”
The nurses came in quickly, two of them moving with efficient calm that suggested they'd done this a thousand times before.
They checked my vitals, asked me questions I could barely answer with nods or headshakes, adjusted the IV and made notes on a chart I couldn't see.
Through all of it, Rook stayed close, watching everything they did with an intensity that would have been funny if it wasn't so clearly born from terror.
“Throat's going to be sore for a while,” one of the nurses said gently, meeting my eyes with a kindness that made me want to cry again. “They had to pump your stomach. You're lucky your boyfriend found you when he did.”
Lucky. The word felt wrong for what had happened, but I didn't have the energy to argue.
“Doctor will be by in a bit to check on you,” the other nurse added. “Try to rest. You've been through a lot.”
They left, and the room went quiet again except for the beeping of the machines and the sound of Rook's breathing beside me. He'd sat back down in the chair but hadn't let go of my hand, and I could see the exhaustion and fear still written all over his face.
“How long?” I managed, and my voice came out as a rasp that barely sounded like me. “And boyfriend?”
“Two days. And I had to tell them that to make sure I can get in here.” He said it quietly, like the number itself was painful. “They weren't sure when you'd wake up, or if you'd—” He stopped, jaw clenching. “You scared the shit out of me, Soren.”
“I'm sorry.” The words felt inadequate for what I'd done, but they were all I had.
“Why?” The question came out of him like it had been building for days. “Why did you—” He stopped, voice breaking. “I need to understand, Soren. Please.”
I looked at him properly for the first time since waking up and saw how wrecked he was. The beard and the exhaustion and the red eyes all pointed to a man who'd been falling apart while waiting for me to wake up. The sight of him like that—devastated because of me—made the tears start again.
“I couldn't—” My throat hurt too much to get the words out cleanly. “Everything was too much. I didn't know how to keep going.”
“So you decided to stop.” He said it without judgment, just stating the terrible truth. “You tried to—”
“Yeah.” I couldn't make myself say the words either. “I'm sorry, Rook. I'm so fucking sorry.”
He made a noise that might have been a sob or a laugh or both, and then he was leaning forward to rest his forehead against our joined hands. “Don't apologize for being in pain. That's not—that's not what I need from you.”
“Then what do you need?”
“The truth.” He looked up at me with eyes that were swimming with tears he was trying not to let fall. “All of it. No more hiding, no more deflecting. I need to know what you've been carrying so I can help you hold it.”
I should have deflected anyway. But I was too tired to perform anymore, too raw to pretend I had anything left to protect.
“I need to show you a thing first,” I said, and lifted my left wrist as much as the IV would allow.
The bracelet was still there, thin brown leather with a small silver charm that caught the hospital light. Rook's eyes tracked to it, and I watched him try to figure out why I was showing him a piece of jewelry in the middle of a conversation about why I'd tried to die.
“It's from the rehab center,” I said, and the words felt like they were being dragged out of me. “From the first time I tried this.”
His face went pale. “The first time.”
“Yeah.” I traced the charm with my thumb, the motion automatic from years of doing it whenever the noise in my head got too loud.
“I was twenty-two. Just got custody of Talia and Micah, Poppy was still with foster care, and everything was falling apart faster than I could hold it together.
I couldn't afford rent, couldn't find work that paid enough, couldn't stop the panic attacks that made it impossible to function.”
Rook's grip on my hand tightened, but he didn't interrupt.
“I took a bottle of my mom's old sleeping pills and washed them down with whatever alcohol I could find. Talia found me passed out on the bathroom floor and called an ambulance.” The memory was distant enough that I could say it without breaking, but only barely.
“They pumped my stomach, kept me for observation, and then sent me to a treatment center for two weeks because I was a danger to myself.”
“Soren—”
“The bracelet was from there. One of the counselors gave it to me on my last day.
Said it was supposed to remind me that I'd survived the worst day of my life and I could survive whatever came next.” I laughed, but the sound came out hollow.
“Wore it every day since. Thought maybe if I kept it on I'd remember that I was supposed to stay. Supposed to keep fighting.”
“But you forgot.” His voice was wrecked, barely above a whisper.
“Not forgot. Just—stopped believing it mattered.” I looked away from him because seeing the pain on his face was too much. “It all just piled up until I couldn't see a way through anymore.”
The silence stretched between us, and I waited for him to say I was weak or broken or too damaged to be worth the effort. Waited for him to let go of my hand and walk away now that he knew the full extent of what I'd been hiding.
Instead, he stood up and leaned over the bed rails to press his forehead against mine.
“Show me the rest,” he said quietly. “I know there's more. I want to see all of it.”
I didn't ask how he knew. Just reached for the neckline of the hospital gown with my free hand and pulled it aside enough to show him the edge of the tattoos on my chest. The ones I'd gotten specifically to cover the scars that ran across my ribs in thin white lines that had faded over the years but never fully disappeared.
His breath caught when he saw them, and I felt his hand move from mine to trace the edge of one scar where it peeked out from under the ink.
“From before?” he asked.
“Yeah. Different methods, same goal.” I let the gown fall back into place. “The tattoos were supposed to make them go away. Cover up the evidence so I could pretend it never happened. But they're still there underneath. Still part of my history whether I want them to be or not.”
“How many times?” The question was barely audible.
“The attempts? Just the one that actually got me hospitalized. But the scars—” I stopped, trying to figure out how to explain the difference between wanting to die and just wanting the pain to stop.
“Self-harm was how I coped before I found healthier ways to deal with the noise. The scars are from that. From years of not knowing how else to make the feelings manageable.”
Rook pulled back enough to look at me properly, and the devastation on his face made my chest ache. “Why didn't you tell me?”