Chapter Twenty-Eight
MILES
PRESENT
The sound of a beeping machine makes my mind stir behind my eyes.
“It’s okay, Miles,” I hear my sister’s soft voice somewhere distant. My mind feels hazy, like a low fog on a highway you have to move through at a cautious pace.
“ Isla ?” I mutter. It’s never felt so hard to speak. My chest feels tight.
“Oh my god, he’s awake,” she says to someone.
I force my eyes open, but shut them with a groan when I see the brightness of the room I’m in. A headache pounding behind my eyes.
“Miles,” my sister whispers. I get the vague feeling of someone holding my hand.
I try to move, but just groan in pain. “Mmm.”
She sobs. “Oh my god, I was so scared you weren’t going to wake up. Didn’t I tell you to bow out?”
“Okay,” I cough, my throat rough as sandpaper. I desperately need some water. “Can we wait for the lecture?”
“I’ll get the doctor,” I hear Caio’s voice, followed by the sound of footsteps receding until I can no longer hear anything but this stupid beeping.
I try again to open my eyes, and when I do, I look down to see a white hospital blanket draped over my body. The knuckles on my left hand are red with inflammation, but otherwise, things look okay.
I try to think. What happened? Why am I in the hospital?
I file through my thoughts, trying to remember the events of…was it last night? How long have I been here? I close my eyes, remembering the start of my fight with Boulder.
I remember feeling worried, which I hadn’t felt all night.
I remember getting a few jabs in, I remember him bowing out in the first round when I had him pinned, throwing punches to his head.
Then I vaguely remember the predatory look in his eyes at the start of the next round, the pain of a hard punch to my gut, the force of which I’ve never quite felt before.
I remember the feeling of my back hitting the ropes and the sound of Leo’s shouts.
Was he shouting at me? Or the referee? I can’t remember.
It hurts to think, so I stop, letting my memories hide behind the fog.
“How do you feel?” Isla says after a little while.
“Probably as rough as I look, how bad is it?”
When she doesn’t answer me, I open my eyes once more, seeing her teeth tugging on her bottom lip. “I’ll let the doctor explain.”
I let out a pained chuckle. “That bad, huh?”
The sound of sneakers squeaking on the floor fills the room and it irritates the ache in my head. One second, it’s just me and Isla, and the next, Marina is standing in the doorway, her eyes wide and shining as she looks over me.
What do I look like?
A lone tear falls over the edge, sliding down her face. But she doesn’t wipe it away, she just does her best job of putting on a brave face. A weak smile blooming on her face when she says, “Hey, hotshot.”
An ache pulses from somewhere deep inside of me, and it’s not from my injuries. It’s simply because I haven’t heard her call me that in four years.
She’s not supposed to be here. She’s supposed to be in Ruby Cove, not in a hospital in Sorrento. She’s supposed to be at home resenting me, but instead, she’s here in my hospital room.
Isla gives my hand a light squeeze before she gets up from her place by my bedside. “I’m going to go find that doctor.”
Marina all but rushes to sit in the chair Isla just vacated, her eyes frantically surveying the damage over my body, but she can’t stop looking at my face. “How are you here?” I ask.
Her nostrils flare, and she flicks her hair over her shoulder. “I’ve got this motorcycle. It can go around two hundred and fifty kilometers an hour if you really want it to.”
“You shouldn’t be doing that,” I cough and my ribs protest in a dull ache. “It’s dangerous.”
“Somehow, I don’t think you’re the one in the position to be telling anyone what is and isn’t dangerous at the moment.” She raises her brows like she’s telling me off, and it reminds me so much of the Marina I used to know I nearly smile, but my face doesn’t allow it. “What happened?”
“I met Boulder.” I try my best to shrug, but when screaming pain sears through my shoulder, I wince, looking down to see my right arm in a sling.
I didn’t notice that before.
Marina’s hand flies to mine. “Don’t move,” she says, her voice alarmed.
I just groan, discomfort settling into my bones. I can’t move my head, and when I try to, I realize my neck is in a brace. I just want to rip it off.
Marina stands up, huffing as she tries to rearrange the pillows behind my head. “Didn’t I just tell you not to move?”
“Isla told me you were having dinner with your parents,” I say, ignoring her bossiness. I couldn’t help but notice that everyone showed up to my match but her .
“I was,” is all she says, her eyes focused on all of the machines in the room instead of on me.
“Then why are you here?”
She’s quiet for a moment, and when her eyes finally drag back to mine all I can see is pure fear shining in them. Do I really look that bad?
“Isla called me last night—-when you were still at the gym. She told me you were hurt and I—” she shakes her head. “I had to see you.”
“Well, now you see me,” I chuff, all too aware of the fact that I probably look like I’ve been run over by a bus. “God if Wes was here he’d be dishing out some fucking truth bombs,” I chuckle as best I can.
A small smile picks at the corner of Marina’s mouth. “I feel like I need to meet this Wes.”
“No, you don’t,” I say. “He’d be hitting on you within seconds, making sure to tell me just how big of a fuck-up I am for letting you go.”
She goes quiet, and I immediately wish I’d just kept my stupid mouth shut. I’m betting on Isla to walk in any minute with that doctor to quell the awkward silence but she doesn’t.
“Can you tell me a story?” I ask, her eyes confused as she looks at me. “Give me something to focus on that isn’t this.”
I see her shoulders drop as she sinks into her chair, carefully letting go of my hand. If my reflexes were at their full potential, I would have held it there, would've threaded my fingers between hers, but her hand is back in her lap before I can even think about it.
“My parents are having their forty-year anniversary next month,” she says mindlessly, but her gaze is vacant as she looks over me, like she’s not at all focused on what she’s saying. “Ma wants me to help her organize a big party for it.”
“I can imagine your mom knows how to party,” I say, trying to shuffle down the bed, because I've only just realized how damn uncomfortable I am .
“Miles,” Marina watches me wearily as I slide down the bed.
“I’m okay,” I say. But she doesn’t carry on with her story, she just keeps staring at me, worry finding a home in the lines between her brows.
I let myself stare back, this is probably the longest amount of time we’ve been together in the last few weeks. I don’t let myself linger on the thought that it took me getting half beaten to death to get her in my proximity like this. I’m just grateful she’s here at all.
But I can't help but feel like this might be my one shot. The one time I’ve got her alone for a moment, long enough that I can explain things to her without her running off.
“Can I tell you?” I whisper roughly, looking down at where she spins a gold ring on her finger.
She meets my eyes, hers filled with pain and unshed tears. “What?”
“Can I tell you why I left?”
She’s still for a moment, like this was the last thing she was expecting me to say, it’s not the ideal time, but it might be the only chance I’ve got.
“You can’t let me die without getting this out.”
Her eyes widen, and she moves forward to hit me before thinking better of it. “Miles! You are not going to die. Not on my watch.”
Her face is all serious lines and contemplation. But I see it in her eyes the moment she decides to let me do the one thing I've been waiting weeks to do.
“I can’t really say no now, can I?”
“Not really,” I say.
She rolls her eyes before pulling her legs up onto the seat, hugging them to her chest as she looks at me, waiting. Her silence being her answer.
My heart surges, I’ve never had this chance before, I can’t fuck it up.
I try my best to wade through the fog, clearing my mind as much as possible.
“I fell in love with you,” I say. “And at the time, that was possibly the most inconvenient thing that could have happened to me.” I look down at my hands, playing with the edge of the blanket.
I can barely face those hazel eyes. I’m half expecting her to cut me off, to tell me to stop before I get further into the story. But she just stays quiet.
“I was just moving up in the company, my boss called me a few nights before I left, telling me he wanted me to step up, that I was an integral part of their team and that they wanted to offer me more. More benefits, more flexibility, more responsibility. I had been working my ass off since I first started there, I knew that one day they would see how much value I could add, and finally they did. But then there was you.” I finally look up, and the look in her eyes has me wishing I didn't.
“You, this perfect thing that made me second-guess if I should even go back, if I should give up everything I had worked so hard for just to be with you. That summer with you, Marina it—it changed me. It sounds cliche, but I didn’t know that feeling even existed.
That feeling that you were more important than anything else on this entire planet.
That the universe pulled me into your orbit for a reason.
” My breathing is quick, I can hear my heart rate spiking on the monitor in the corner of the room, Marina must hear it too because her eyes flick over to it before she takes a deep breath.
“That’s why I left. Because you made me want to give everything up.
I think if you had asked me to stay…I would’ve said yes on the spot. ”
“I never even thought about asking you that,” she drops her legs down. “I knew you had your own life?—”