Chapter Thirty-five
T hirteen days, five hours and thirty seven minutes have passed since I found out about Savannah’s accident and so many days since she’s been in her coma with no sign of waking up.
Until now.
My legs feel heavy as I walk the corridor toward Savannah’s room, my exhaustion and fatigue a plague I now carry on my shoulders for all to see. I haven’t slept more than three hours in one night and those are haunted by nightmares.
But it isn’t my past haunting me anymore. It’s the accident. Dean pulled the footage from that night so we could understand just how it happened and the guy who hit her had ran a red light, plowing into the side of her small vehicle. Savannah was lucky to survive it. And now all I see is that accident, all I hear is the crunch and scream of metal and the skidding of tires as rain pours down onto the city.
In the aftermath, as both cars smoked in the rain, it was silent. No other cars joined them on the road, no one came running. There was no one, for several minutes the scene was so still I thought that the video had been cut off.
How could a street be this empty, this deserted and still this happened? Two people in the middle of the night running into each other with such violence when the rest of the world was sleeping all around them.
Eventually, someone had come across them and called the emergency services but it’s the crash and then the silence that keeps my brain churning, night after night replaying it over and over.
Sometimes I think I can hear her scream.
I greet the nurses at the station with a quick nod before I push on the door and step into Savannah’s room.
And stop dead.
Awake. She’s awake.
Sebastian is here with Willow and they’re talking with her where she is propped up on pillows.
All eyes turn to me.
“Savannah,” Her name croaks from my mouth.
“Hi Killian,” There’s a rasp to her voice from lack of use. The bruises are still marring her skin, faded but there, the cuts healing slowly. She’s pale, looking thin and frail. But she’s awake.
I step toward her on impulse, wanting to take her face in my hands and press my mouth to hers. I want to taste her again, feeling her skin on my body.
A doctor entering the room stops my forward momentum.
“Miss Levine,” He addresses Savannah, “It’s good to see you awake.”
Curling my fingers into my palm, I change direction and force myself into the corner to watch.
“Do you remember what happened?” He asks which helps me put a time stamp on how long she’s been awake. Based on this, not very long at all.
She glances at Sebastian before she shakes her head.
“Understandable,” He nods, “You were in an accident thirteen days ago and have been in a coma since. Can you tell me the last thing you remember?”
My heart stops in my chest.
“Um,” Her brows draw low, “I went to see a house.”
Willow gasps.
“Please, continue,” The doctor urges when the sound distracts Savannah.
“I um, went to see a house and put in an offer. It needs a little work.”
She doesn’t remember. She doesn’t remember anything .
“But the realtor thinks it could go through quickly.”
The doctor nods.
“What else?”
“Me and Sloane were watching a movie, that’s my best friend who I’m staying with at the moment. Willow and Bast had a baby and got married. Um, Olivia is pregnant.”
The doctor turns to Bast to verify, “This was all months ago.” Sebastian swallows, “Months, Savannah.”
“This isn’t uncommon,” The doctor assures, “I am going to order some tests to be done. In the meantime, talking helps. Memories are strong and I believe they’ll come back with some help.”
After the doctor leaves, Bast takes the chair on one side, Willow on the other and Bast recollects everything he knows about from the past couple of months. Savannah listens but you can see she doesn’t remember it.
“You got anything to add, Kill?” Bast urges.
Savannah’s big blue eyes turn hopefully to me and it’s then I notice the warm, soft way she looks at me is gone. Her eyes don’t devour me, they don’t watch every move I make, they don’t look at me like she loves me. She is just Savannah, my best friend’s sister and not the woman who told me she loved me only a couple of weeks ago.
The hurt I caused her is erased. The pain gone.
“No,” I swallow, “Nothing.”
Beside the bed, Willow hangs her head, a sigh pushing out of her.
If she knows she doesn’t expose me, the weight of the lie the final nail in my self-built coffin.
I remain silent, holding onto our secret and when the doctors come to take her away for her tests, I slip out the door and I walk away.
And I don’t look back, because this is what is best for her, my heart be damned. She’ll never know she owns it, that her fist is wrapped around it and her name is stamped onto it. I’ll always remember, always be hers but she isn’t mine anymore.
That’s for the best.
She deserves more than I can give her. She deserves the whole fucking world and I’m not the man to give it to her.