Chapter 18
The Space Between
ELI
Something vibrated just beyond reach. Not quite sound, not quite silence. More like the world testing itself, remembering how to move again.
A pattern emerged. A rise. A fall. A held breath.
For a while, I mistook it for my own—something internal, something mine—until it pressed in from the outside, surrounding me. Distant. Muffled. Like listening to a song through water, the shape of it is there but just out of grasp.
My chest tightened.
I tried to take a breath, but something fought me. A tube? A weight in my throat? I gagged, panic blooming before I even knew why. My hands wouldn’t move. I tried again, but nothing happened. My body's functions ceased, one limb at a time.
Then—
A sound cut through the fog.
A voice.
“Hey… hey, easy, baby. You’re okay. You’re right here with me.”
Adrian.
The world stuttered. My pulse kicked up hard enough that I felt it against my ribs. If this was another dream, it was the cruelest one yet. I’d stopped letting myself dream about him, about that voice saying my name like it was the most important word in the world.
He was close. I could feel his breath when he spoke again, low and rough and soothing.
“Eli, it’s me. You’re safe. You’ve got a tube helping you breathe, so don’t try to talk, okay? Just… squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
I tried. God, I tried. My fingers twitched, a barely there movement, but the way he gasped—as though I'd dragged him out of hell with me.
“There you go,” he whispered. His voice broke on a laugh that sounded half like a sob. “That’s it. That’s my boy.”
Tears stung behind my eyes, but they didn't fall. Everything inside me was both too much and not enough. The light shone too brightly. The air tasted metallic. But he’s here.
Adrian’s here.
My lashes fluttered. The ceiling above me swam into view—white, tiled, strange. My throat burned around the tube, my body quaking with the effort of remembering how to be alive.
Adrian’s hand held mine, warm and shaking. I focused on that. On him. His voice kept me tethered to the surface when everything else threatened to pull me back under.
“Welcome back,” he murmured. “You scared the shit out of me.”
If I could smile, I would. If I could speak, I’d tell him I heard him. Every word. That I kept following his voice through the dark because it was the only thing that felt like home.
But all I could do was blink. Once. Slow.
And hope he understood.
The room clarified in fragments—shadows moving, voices overlapping.
“Dr. Hawke—he’s responding.”
“Let’s prep for extubation.”
“Watch his O?.”
The words meant nothing and everything at once. I heard them through cotton. My throat spasmed when they touched the tube, and panic seared through me, but Adrian’s hand stayed firm around mine.
“Hey. Hey, look at me.” His tone dropped low, the voice I knew from every fight and every apology. “It’s okay, Eli. Breathe with me. One… two…”
I tried to follow, chest jerking, lungs learning again. The world spun. Air rushed down my dry throat, the ache of it raw and real. A nurse counted. Someone said, “Ready,” and there was pressure, a pull, a burn—then the tube was gone, and I choked on the sudden freedom.
My eyes flew open. The ceiling swam as the light cut sharply across my vision. Adrian’s face filled my view, tear-streaked and desperate, his smile fighting through the wreckage.
I’d never seen anything so beautiful.
“That’s it. You’re okay. You’re breathing on your own.”
The first breath hurt. The second hurt less. The third—
The third was his cologne and the lingering sweetness of coffee on his breath and the sound of him whispering my name like a benediction.
I wanted to tell him I was sorry. For the crash. For the fights. For everything I said and didn’t say. But my throat was flayed, voice barely registering.
“... Adrian.”
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.