Chapter 29
Lee
There’s a soft beeping when I wake, the sound coming from far away. An uncomfortable surface beneath me. And…the unmistakable antiseptic smell of a hospital.
I blink open my eyes, my heart rate spiking. A blanket is pulled up under my arms, an IV leading from me to an automatic fluids station. The lights in the room are set low, a small mercy. But I’d recognize this place even in the pitch black, being a frequent flyer as I am.
I press the call button at the side of my bed and try to remain calm as I wait for a nurse to arrive. I remember hiking. I remember…a man. With short dark hair and wide, sad eyes. He told me…
My hand flies to my chest, and I register the ache there. As well as the bandage beneath my thin hospital gown.
“Ah, someone is awake,” the nurse says, bustling through the door with a smile on her face.
“What, uh…” I clear my throat, the dry and scratchy feel of it unwelcome but not unexpected. “What happened? ”
“Well,” she says calmly, reading the machines next to my bed, “you went into cardiac arrest.”
A beat of silence passes. “I died.”
“For only a minute or so. Not long at all, all things considered.” She offers me another smile, tapping something on her touch screen. “You were incredibly fortunate you had someone with you.”
Caspian .
His name comes to me in a burst, blue eyes, tumultuous and bright, entering my mind.
“My pacemaker?” I ask roughly.
The nurse winces some, her eyes flicking to mine as she comes over to the bed. She checks the IV line and straightens out my blanket. “It malfunctioned. They’re still investigating why, but you’ve been given a new one. Just a little ahead of schedule, hm?”
Right. I rub my chest lightly, the bandage small, covering an incision I know from experience will be less than an inch wide.
“I’ll have the doctor in shortly to talk to you,” she says, stepping back to her screen. “In the meantime, how’s the pain?”
“Oh, uh…” I take a second to think it over. “Not bad.”
“Good. You’re due for another dose of pain meds in about a half hour, but let me know if it gets worse before then. Would you like some juice? Grape? Apple?”
“Grape, please,” I say, feeling a little numb.
She nods, giving me another soft smile. “I’ll be right back then.”
As she exits the room, I catch part of a conversation happening in the hall.
I recognize one of the voices, even though I only heard it for a few minutes.
Caspian sounds as if he’s recounting what happened at the park.
Talking to the police, perhaps? The door hits the jamb and stops short of shutting fully, allowing me to hear the exchange.
“And you had the defibrillator in your bag?” the unknown person asks.
Caspian’s gentle voice follows. “I did.”
“Why? Seems like an odd item to carry while hiking.”
“Well…” There’s a pause before Caspian says, “I know Lee has a heart condition. So I wanted to be prepared.”
Said heart beats like a drum.
The other person makes a short sound of acknowledgement. “And how do you know Lee Donovan?”
Another brief pause. “We’re friends.”
He lied. Why did he lie?
“Can you tell me what happened after you used the defibrillator?”
Caspian goes on to explain that as soon as I had a pulse, he called emergency services.
He talks about staying with me in the time it took for the paramedics to arrive at our spot four miles up the trails.
He mentions walking back with them as I was carried away on a stretcher. I wasn’t awake for any of it.
The nurse walks back through the door as Caspian recounts the ambulance ride. The door shuts fully this time, blocking any more of his story from my ears.
“Your juice,” the nurse says, setting a cup on the table beside my bed. “Is there anything else I can do while you’re waiting for the doctor?”
“No,” I tell her, my voice sounding as if it’s being dragged along sandpaper. “Thank you.”
She nods before leaving the room, the soft beeps I heard earlier still echoing through the walls from somewhere unseen. I take a sip of the grape juice, the cold soothing on my throat and the sugar a welcome hit that has my eyes slipping shut.
My pacemaker failed. It malfunctioned when it shouldn’t have.
How did he know?
A soft knock precedes the door opening again. Caspian peeks his head inside, an almost shy smile on his face. “Hi. Can I come in?”
I find myself nodding, and he steps fully into the room, fidgeting with the band around his wrist. I noticed it before.
Back in the woods. Was that earlier today?
Yesterday? The wristband looks like some sort of medical alert bracelet.
I can just make out the word “seizures” on the side now that I’m looking.
Caspian seems unable to tear his eyes off me as he stops near the bed, even as he looks guilty for staring. He opens his mouth once and then twice. “Feeling okay?”
I clear my throat. “I feel like I got hit in the chest by a truck.”
He nods, wincing some. “Right. Uh…”
“I would have died,” I cut in. Caspian’s eyes snap back to mine. “I did die. I would have…stayed dead. If you weren’t there.”
He licks his lips once, nodding slowly. He appears nervous, his gaze skittering around now, even though it never leaves me entirely.
“You said you’d explain.”
He pulls in a short breath before looking off to the side of the room. Heading that way, he grabs a chair and returns, setting it close. He sits on his knees atop it, keeping him level with the height of my bed. He’s a slight man, but he must be at least mid-twenties .
“I’m sorry I was so blunt.” He seems far more chagrined than when he was telling me my pacemaker would fail. “It’s just… I knew we didn’t have much time, and I didn’t want you to be afraid.”
“Yeah, well… You telling me I was about to go into cardiac arrest wasn’t exactly comforting.”
His face pinches. “I know. And I’m sorry. It just…it had to happen that way. I don’t think I could have changed it even if I tried.”
My pulse beats heavily. Caspian seems to notice my unease because he sighs before opening his mouth again.
“I saw it happen, okay? I’ve seen it countless times over the past however many years. Not all of it. I never caught your name. Some of it was blurry, or I’d get bits and pieces at a time. But I knew your heart would fail because I saw it happen. Again and again and again.”
I reach for my juice. The liquid goes down in a lump, and I cough around it, working to clear my throat. Caspian reaches for me like he wants to help, but I hold up a hand.
“You saw it,” I repeat. “As in…you had, what, a vision?”
After a moment, Caspian shrugs.
“Jesus,” I mutter.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t believe me.” He sounds so very small when he adds, “No one ever does.”
I let out a slow breath, setting my juice aside and closing my eyes for a minute so I can think. “You had a defibrillator with you. I heard you say that to someone outside.”
“Yes.”
“Because you knew I’d need it?”
A slight pause. “Yes.”
“Because you knew my pacemaker would fail and my heart would stop. ”
“Yes.”
“Because you saw it happen. In a vision.”
A longer pause this time. “Yes.”
I crack open my eyes, finding Caspian watching me with a wary blue gaze. “I don’t… not believe you.”
He looks close to laughing, but there’s definite relief on his face. “Well that’s leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else in my life.”
His words cause a pang in my chest, something akin to sympathy flaring. But I don’t know this man. I’m not sure I can even trust him.
And yet… He’s single-handedly responsible for saving my life, isn’t he?
How couldn’t I believe what he’s saying, at least in part? No other explanation makes sense. Him being there wasn’t a coincidence. He was waiting for me. Waiting to save my life.
I swallow around the lump in my throat. “I, uh, guess I should thank you?”
His smile is almost sad, but that relief remains. “You don’t have to thank me, Lee. You’ve saved my life so many times. The least I could do was repay the favor.”
His words have me stilling, but before I can say anything more, the door opens. Caspian and I turn as one.
“Well,” my doctor says, breezing into the room, “I was hoping I wouldn’t see you back here so soon, Lee. I hear we ran into some trouble while hiking?”
Caspian slides out of the way as the doctor checks me over, taking my vitals and explaining briefly the surgery he did to replace my pacemaker. It’s not the first time, considering my congenital heart defect.
“Do you have someone who can help you get home?” he asks, finishing his examination. “I’m clearing you to leave, but you’ll want to take it easy for a few days. Especially considering the extra stress you were put under.”
The stress, I assume, being my temporary death.
“I can help.” Caspian’s offer is soft but hopeful.
The doctor raises an eyebrow my way, and I nod slowly. “That’s fine,” I tell him.
With that settled, Caspian and I are left alone once more with the promise that a nurse will be in shortly to assist with my discharge. Caspian stands near the window, fidgeting with his wristband again.
“You have seizures?” I ask.
His head whips my way, hand dropping from the band, as if he hadn’t realized he’d been touching it. “Um. So they say.”
“So they say… Who?”
“My doctors. Do you live alone?”
“I have a cat,” I answer slowly.
He nods, giving me the ghost of a smile.
It isn’t long before my nurse returns, and Caspian and I are heading out of the hospital. When he opens the back door of an ordered ride, I raise an eyebrow.
He shrugs. “I can’t drive.”
Well, then. I ease inside without too much difficulty. My chest is still sore, but the pain isn’t terrible. Once I have a nice meal in me, I’m sure I’ll feel good as new.
Maybe I should put more consideration into allowing this stranger I barely know into my life and home. But… If Caspian was any danger to me, he wouldn’t be here, would he? He would have simply…let me die.
I brush the thought away, my mortality not something I want to examine too closely right now. Closing my eyes, I wait for the driver to bring us… me home .
It’s a relief to step inside my house, as if I’ve been gone weeks and not a mere day.
Shelly yowls from somewhere upstairs, her tiny paws padding heavily down the stairs before she’s streaking my way.
Caspian makes a sound of surprise as my cat vaults herself up my chest and onto my shoulder.
I cough a breath, wincing at the dig over my incision, but Shelly’s purr quickly drowns out everything else, my cat rubbing herself on my cheeks and head like a feline possessed.
Caspian watches us curiously. “Is that…normal?”
“Pretty normal,” I assure him, dropping the hospital bag with my possessions near the couch. Caspian sets his own backpack down before following me into the kitchen, standing just inside the doorway as I open the fridge. “Hungry?”
“You’re planning on feeding me?”
By Caspian’s amused tone, I’m fairly sure he recognizes the absolute ridiculousness of this situation. For whatever odd reason, it helps to settle me.
“I’m planning on feeding myself. And, since you’re here, it would be rude of me not to offer.”
His lips twist into a smile. “I can help.”
“Or you can sit,” I say, grabbing eggs and bacon before heading to the pantry for a loaf of bread. “And you can explain.”
“Thought I already did.”
Shelly hops down as I grab her food. She weaves through my legs several times, waiting for her half-full bowl to be full-full before digging in. I set the container back in the pantry and eye Caspian. “Explain more.”
He huffs a small laugh. “What’s her name?”
“Shelly,” I tell him, gingerly reaching for a pan from the rack before turning on the stovetop.
“Because she’s a tortoiseshell?”
“I never said I was inventive. ”
“I never said you weren’t.”
I raise an eyebrow, but Caspian simply smiles. “Explain,” I repeat. “Who you are. Where you came from. More about…how the fuck you knew about me. And…hold up. You don’t drive. Is that because of the seizures?”
Caspian lets out a slow breath as I grab a ripe tomato for the breakfast sandwiches I’m planning. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“The beginning.”
His eyes hold mine, serious and calm. “That was a very long time ago.”
“Start somewhere ,” I urge.
He nods, placing his hands on the table. “My name is Caspian Wilder. I’m twenty-five. Yes, I don’t drive because of the seizures. I bike instead. A mechanical bike, not electric. I used to live pretty far away from here but came because I had to. And I know you because I saw you.”
“Many times,” I say slowly.
He nods again.
A thought occurs to me. “More than the heart failure?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
“Caspian…”
“I’m trying to ease you into this.”
“Ease me into what ?” I ask, our meal all but forgotten.
He blows out a breath. “Who I am to you.”
My bruised heart thumps, and Caspian’s eyes meet mine again, holding.
“Do you believe in fate, Lee?”