Chapter 28 Reconnecting #2
By the time I carried the takeout inside, Eli sat curled on the couch, the blanket over his lap. He’d prepared a spot for me beside him. I set the ramen cups down on the coffee table.
“You realize we used to live off this stuff?”
“We were broke,” he said.
“We were happy.”
His eyes flicked to mine, and for a heartbeat, I saw the life we used to have. Easy laughter, shared space, stolen kisses between classes and shifts. We’d built something once, brick by brick. Then I’d let the walls crumble.
Was it possible to build it back stronger this time?
We ate in silence for a while, the kind that didn’t hurt. The movie started—something familiar, one we’d watched too many times to count—and about halfway through, Eli said quietly, “I dreamed of this.”
His serious expression said he didn’t mean last night. We were talking about the accident. The brief but cataclysmic minutes he’d walked the other side of life.
I muted the TV, though neither of us had been paying attention to it anyway.
“What do you remember?” My voice came out rough because talking about his brief death always rattled me to the core.
Eli traced the rim of his bowl with a finger, eyes distant.
“It wasn’t a dream, exactly. It was… snapshots.
Like a reel of all the best parts of us.
When you taught me to drive your truck. That stupid hike where we got caught in the rain.
The time you burned the pancakes but still made me eat them. ”
He set his cup down and leaned into the couch, shifting ever-so-slightly toward me.
“I saw us in the café the day we met. Your smile, your laugh. Our first date at that Italian place. We talked all night about I don’t even know what, but I couldn’t stop listening and watching your mouth move. Just staring at your face was enough to make me smile.”
Heat flashed in my gut. These were his core memories, the things about me that stuck with him. Even in his last moments, he’d chosen me. A rush of tears pooled in my eyes, and I blinked them away, leaning into him. Listening.
“What else?”
Eli licked his lips and swallowed. “This, the ramen, my dorm room. The first night we—”
His words died off, but I knew what he wanted to say. That night was a memory I’d carry with me in my final moments as well.
I tried for levity. “I was that memorable?”
His blush was intoxicating. I had no idea I could still make him flustered.
“It was my first time,” he admitted.
The look we shared was magnetic. It took all my willpower not to reach for him.
He looked down, smiling as if embarrassed by his own honesty. “I remember how nervous I was. I didn’t know what I was doing, but you made it easy to forget that.”
“Good,” I said softly. “You never had anything to prove.”
Eli’s gaze met mine again, and I swear I could feel the air shift. The room itself was holding its breath. Every line of him, every scar, every trace of vulnerability was all a map of where we’d been and what we’d survived.
He smiled warmly. “I saw the house on Decatur. It was a bit of a shithole, but God, I loved it. Loved us.”
I struggled to swallow. If only we could go back and do it all again. I’d get it right this time. I’d remember he was my priority.
Instead, I said quietly, “I loved that house too. The leaky faucet, the draft in winter—it didn’t matter. We had everything we needed.”
Eli looked at me with glassy eyes. “I remember the mornings. You always made coffee before you showered. You’d kiss my forehead on your way out the door, even when we were mad at each other.”
I laughed under my breath. “That was self-preservation. You’re scary when you wake up.”
He smirked faintly, then his voice softened again. “And the nights… I saw those too. The movie marathons, the rainstorms, that ridiculous blue blanket we fought over.”
He paused, blinking fast. “All the best parts of my life were with you, Adrian.”
The words hit like a fist and a balm all at once. I wanted to tell him he didn’t have to remember just the good, that he was allowed to be angry, that I was still sorry—so sorry—but what came out instead was, “You’re my best seven minutes, too.”
Eli stilled. “What?”
“Every highlight, every memory I’d want to relive,” I said, the words tumbling out. “You’re in all of them. Every single one.”
For a moment, neither of us breathed. Then he reached out, his fingers curling gently around my wrist, tugging me closer. The TV screen darkened with a screensaver. The ramen cooled on the table.
I leaned in. His breath mingled with mine.
And when our lips met, it wasn’t desperate or unsure.
It was familiar. Remembered. A bridge between what we’d lost and what we might still find.
He stroked his tongue along mine as if making love to it.
I swallowed his soft sigh. It shot straight to my dick, but I pushed the thought away.
When we pulled apart, he whispered, “You kept saying, ‘Don’t go.’ I could hear it as if you were right there.”
My heart squeezed. “I was.”
He nodded. “I know. I felt you pulling me back. I thought it would hurt to remember,” he murmured, “but it doesn’t. It feels… warm. Like it’s still happening somewhere.”
My chest ached. “Maybe it is.”
We sat there, quiet again. Finally, he whispered, “Tell me what it was like. From your side.”
I swallowed hard. “The accident?”
He nodded. “After, when they brought me in. When I—when you lost me.”
The words shredded through my heart like shrapnel. I hadn’t let myself go back there. Not really. I’d built walls of charts and schedules and pill bottles to keep it out. But now, with him looking at me like that—so brave and open—I couldn’t hide behind anything.
“I remember rushing into the bay and then freezing,” I said quietly. “The world just… tilted. Everything slowed down, but somehow I was moving too fast. It was your shoes I recognized first, then your face.”
Eli’s eyes glistened. I forced myself to keep going.
“I could hear them calling codes. I knew what it meant. I knew every step they were taking, and I couldn’t do a damn thing but stand there.” I clenched my hands together. “It was like being on the outside of my own nightmare. Watching through the glass.”
He shifted closer, his hand ghosting against my arm. I almost stopped, almost swallowed the words back down where I’d been keeping them buried, but it was too late. They were already spilling out.
“It was… chaos. There was so much blood, Eli. I kept shouting at them, at you. They tried to stop. They were calling it—your time of death—and I just…” My voice broke, sharp and ugly, as hot tears blinded me.
“I went fucking ballistic. I yelled at you not to leave me. All I remember was feeling like I was having a heart attack, the sound of blood pounding in my ears, and that monitor when it flatlined.”
I dragged in a breath, but it didn’t help. The memory was too vivid, burned into the back of my eyelids.
“I’ve heard that sound a thousand times,” I went on, voice low and shaking. “But it never affected me like that. Your flatline, though…” I gave a weak, broken laugh. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop hearing it. Like tinnitus or something.”
He blinked, tears slipping silently down his cheeks. “You brought me back,” he whispered thickly.
“I didn’t,” I said. “They did. The team—”
“You did,” he insisted, reaching out and pressing his hand against my chest. “You never stopped calling me back.”
I looked down at his hand on me, warm, alive, and I let myself believe it. Maybe I had called him back. Maybe some part of him had heard me.
“Guess I was too damn stubborn to listen when you told me to rest,” he murmured, trying for a smile through the tears.
I huffed a shaky laugh, swiping at my own eyes. “You always were terrible at following orders.”
He leaned his head against my shoulder. It was the simplest contact in the world, and somehow, the bravest.
I let my hand rest over his, anchoring both of us there in that small, impossible moment where the world was quiet, and he was breathing.
“Maybe this is what the eighth minute feels like,” Eli murmured.
I smiled, brushing my thumb over his cheek. “Then let’s make it last.”