Chapter 24 Between Relief and Resentment
Between Relief and Resentment
ELI
The first thing I noticed was the smell.
Coffee. Real coffee. Not the watered-down stuff from a hospital machine or the instant crap my mom favored when she came to visit, but Adrian’s coffee, dark roasted and burned at the edges because he always forgot to turn the pot off.
For a second, I thought I was dreaming again.
The bedroom was still dim, curtains half-drawn, sunlight bleeding through the edges.
The ache in my chest reminded me I wasn’t in the hospital anymore, though my body didn’t believe it yet.
Every breath came with a tug of pain, sharp and raw, as if my ribs and lungs were still arguing with the idea of healing.
I rolled onto my side carefully and saw the emptiness beside me. The pillow still held the faint indentation of his head. He’d stayed the night.
I pushed myself upright, breath catching halfway there, and waited out the wave of dizziness. The smell of toast joined the coffee. Then the sound of him muttering softly to himself, a rhythm I knew too well.
He was home.
He was here.
And I didn’t know what to do with that.
“Adrian?”
My voice came out hoarse, scraping on the way up. I cleared my throat and tried again.
“Adrian.”
Footsteps padded quickly up the stairs and down the hall. A second later, he appeared in the doorway, hair a mess, sleeves pushed up, the kind of half-dressed that meant he’d been awake for hours but hadn’t quite faced the day yet.
“You okay?” His voice was calm, doctor-smooth, but his eyes were already scanning, assessing, calculating. Always the professional, even now.
“Bathroom,” I croaked, my throat raw and dry as gravel.
“You need help getting up?”
I nodded. Talking hurt. Everything hurt.
He crossed the room in three long strides and kneeled beside the bed. His hand slipped beneath my arm, careful not to press too hard against the bruised side of my ribs.
“Slow,” he murmured. “Don’t twist your torso. Let me take most of the weight.”
I nodded, jaw clenched, and let him guide me upright.
My chest pulled tight with each inch I gained.
When I finally made it to sitting, I had to rest, breathing through the throb while his hand stayed braced at my back.
The room tilted for a second as the walls quivered.
He steadied me until the world stopped swimming.
“Better?”
I nodded again, too winded to speak. Sweat slicked my temples. Adrian reached for the glass of water on the nightstand and held it out, fingertips brushing mine as I took a sip.
“I was going to come check on you in a minute,” he said softly. “I didn’t want to wake you if you were finally sleeping.”
“Wasn’t sleeping,” I managed. “Just lying here pretending I could do this on my own.”
His lips formed a half-smile that was brief and almost fond. “You will. Eventually.”
“Maybe next week.”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “Hold on,” he said, reaching for the nightstand. When he turned back, he was holding a plastic urinal jug.
I stared at it. Then at him.
“Not on your life,” I rasped.
His mouth twitched, not quite a smile, but close enough. “Didn’t think so.”
“Good instinct,” I muttered.
“Bathroom it is, then.”
He helped me to my feet, one arm cinched firmly around my waist as I leaned on the crutches.
The floor felt farther away than I remembered.
The stitches in my thigh pulled every time I shifted, a tight, burning reminder that my body wasn’t ready to keep up with what I wanted from it.
Every step tugged on my bruised muscles, but the quiet patience in his voice kept me moving—that murmur he used in the hospital meant to soothe the scared or the hurting.
By the time we made it across the room, I was sweating. My breath came short and sharp, my chest burning as if I’d swallowed a live coal.
Adrian reached for the light switch, casting the small room in soft yellow. “Take your time.” He turned away to give me privacy.
“Like I’ve got anywhere to be,” I muttered.
His chuckle was low, the sound half relief, half exhaustion.
I braced both hands on the counter when he closed the door behind me.
The tiles were cold under my feet, the air faintly smelling of shower gel and floral air freshener.
For a second, I just stood there, catching my breath, trying to remember how something as simple as standing could feel like running a marathon.
When I finally looked up, the mirror almost knocked the air out of me.
Jesus. I looked like hell. Pale. Gaunt. The bruising on my temple had gone yellow and green, fading into the sallow exhaustion under my eyes. My hair stuck up in a way that made me look half feral, and the hospital band still clung stubbornly to my wrist.
“I look like shit,” I muttered.
The door creaked. “You don’t,” Adrian said softly from outside.
I huffed out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“Maybe,” he said, pushing the door open. He leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. “But I’ve seen you worse. Remember that week you didn’t sleep before your firm’s big trial?”
That earned him a weak smile. “That’s a low bar.”
“Still counts.”
He didn’t move closer, didn’t try to touch me, just stood there, a quiet shadow in the doorway, watching me as if he was unsure whether he should cross the space between us.
I turned back to the mirror, tracing the line of tape across my chest. “Guess this is the new me.”
His reflection met mine in the glass. “It’s the same you. Just… healing.”
I didn’t answer. Because for all his calm certainty, I didn’t know if that was true.
I studied him in the mirror: the scruff on his jaw, the lines at the corners of his eyes that hadn’t been there a year ago.
“You don’t look much better,” I said quietly.
He huffed a small laugh. “Guess we’re a matched set.”
That unsettled me a little, not the joke, but the softness in it. The reminder that there’d been a time when “matched set” had meant us, choosing the same couch, the same coffee mugs, the same damn future.
He adjusted the hem of my T-shirt gently, as if the cotton might bruise me.
“I’ll get your toothbrush. Then you can sit and eat breakfast.”
I nodded, staring at our reflections. Him standing strong behind me, and me propped up on borrowed strength. And for the first time since waking in that hospital bed, I wondered if maybe healing wasn’t just about bones and stitches.
Maybe it was about this, about learning how to stand again, even if I had to lean on him to do it.
“Maybe later we can take a shower,” Adrian said softly, adjusting his grip on my arm. “Get some of that tape residue off your skin.”
My head tilted toward him. “We?”
His lips twitched, caught between a smile and an apology. “Old habits,” he said, but his voice came out rough.
“Right.” I swallowed, feeling the weight of that single word. We. It used to mean something. It used to mean us.
He cleared his throat, pretending to fuss with the towel on the counter. “I just meant I’ll help you get the water running. Make sure you don’t pass out.”
“Sure.”
The lie sat between us, thin and fragile, but neither of us touched it.
He looked away first, giving me a moment to breathe.
I can’t even remember the last time we showered together.
Not because it hadn’t mattered, but because somewhere along the way, the warmth had bled out of things so slowly I hadn’t noticed until it was gone.
He was still standing there, waiting for me to steady myself, the same man who used to press me against fogged glass and laugh into my shoulder as if we had forever. The same man who once proposed to me in the shower.
Adrian’s gaze met mine in the mirror. “Are you okay?”
“Define okay.”
He stepped forward and brushed a curl from my forehead. “You’ll get stronger every day,” he murmured. “You just have to let yourself.”
The tenderness in his voice nearly broke me. I nodded, because anything more might’ve cracked something open I couldn’t put back.
I finished brushing and relieved myself, not even caring that he was hovering.
He slipped an arm around my waist. “Come on. Let’s get you back to bed before you decide to redecorate the tile with your face.”
“Tempting,” I muttered, but I let him take my weight. My knees nearly buckled. His hand steadied me, the same hand that signed my discharge, the hand wearing a silver band identical to mine.
The distance between us shrank to the space of a shared breath.
The shuffle back to bed was more difficult than the last one.
I was weak now from exertion and in dire need of a painkiller.
I stumbled once, and he caught me without a word, pressing a hand to my back, murmuring, “I’ve got you.
” Just like that, the weight in my legs eased, replaced by the familiar warmth of his presence.
We reached the bed, and I sank onto the edge, breathing shallow. Adrian kneeled beside me, sliding the crutches out of the way, eyes scanning every line of worry on my face.
“Are you ready?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
He guided me carefully, supporting my weight, until I settled into the pillows, the room dim and quiet around us. I could feel the slow rise and fall of his chest against mine as he leaned in, murmuring, “I’m not going anywhere.”
And in that quiet, the tremor of fear and doubt in my chest softened, replaced by the certainty that he was here. That he hadn’t left. Not now, maybe not ever.
I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the relief wash over me, even as my body reminded me of how much I’d been through. And when I opened them again, he was still there, waiting, his hand brushing mine in the small gesture of someone who wouldn’t let go.
For the first time in what felt like forever, I let myself breathe, let myself hope, just a little, that we could find our way back.
The aroma of coffee and burned toast drifted up the stairs, the scent of normal life trying to force its way back in.
“Coffee’s ready,” he said. “You want some?”
I took in the gentle slump of his shoulders, the exhaustion under his eyes, the weight he carried like penance, and my heart bled for him.
“Yeah. Please.”
He gave a small nod, almost relieved to have something he could fix, and disappeared back down the hall.
Adrian set up a breakfast tray on the bedside table and then crossed over to sit on the bed beside me, tablet in hand, scrolling through emails and news. Every so often, his eyes flicked up to check on me.
The silence stretched and thickened, the only sound the scrape of my fork against the plate and my molars grinding the toast to dust, magnified in my own ears. It made me restless, made my stomach twist with unease. Finally, I couldn’t hold it in.
“When are you going back to work?” I blurted out in a voice sharper than I had intended.
He didn’t flinch. “I took a leave of absence.”
“How long?” I asked, swallowing hard. My words came out desperate, grasping at something I wasn’t ready to admit.
“As long as necessary,” he said softly. “Until you’re feeling better.”
I hesitated, chewing as my mind frayed. “But… what about making department head? That was important to you.” My voice was quieter now, almost pleading.
He finally looked at me, eyes tired but patient, lips pressing together.
“Was,” he stressed, the word heavy, deliberate.
“I got so caught up in my job, saving everyone else, that I forgot about us. About you.” He reached over, brushing a stray hair from my forehead.
“Making department head will never be more important than you. Not now, not ever. Right now, I’m only focused on your recovery. Nothing else.”
I felt a lump rise in my throat, my chest tightening. Was it relief? Resentment? I couldn’t tell which. All the awards, the promotions, the late nights chasing department head was all for nothing, because here he was, choosing me, staying for me.
Part of me wanted to be grateful. God, I wanted to be grateful.
But another part of me simmered with bitterness at the cost. All those years he’d clawed toward his ambitions, and now he was discarding them so easily for us.
And here I was, caught between admiration and anger, wondering if our marriage could survive the burden of all that sacrifice.