Chapter 39 Emma
EMMA
I’m floating.
Suspended in a vast, endless sea of darkness and weightlessness. Untethered.
Everything is heavy, my limbs sinking, my mind swimming through thick fog.
I try to move, but can’t. My body aches, every inch of me wrapped in exhaustion, like I’ve been put back together piece by piece but not quite right.
There is a dull, persistent pressure in my chest, not painful, just there, an unfamiliar weight pressing down with every breath.
There’s warmth. Something solid and grounding, tethering me to the world I’ve been slipping away from. It’s so familiar I don’t have to open my eyes to know who it is.
Alex.
I’d know him anywhere, in any lifetime, in any world, I would always find him.
His hand is wrapped around mine, thumb moving in slow, steady strokes against my skin. I can feel the heat radiating from his skin and the quiet, unrelenting presence that has never left me. Even in the haze, I hear his voice.
“I love you.”
The words sink into me, wrapping around my ribs, stitching something back together inside my chest. They are a lifeline, pulling me closer to the surface, dragging me out of the darkness.
I want to respond. I want to tell him that I love him, too, that I always have, even when I didn’t want to.
But the words won’t come out. My body won’t cooperate.
I fight against the weight, against the fog pressing down on me, and finally, I manage to drag my eyelids open.
The room is dim, the soft hum of the machines are the only sounds filling the space. It takes a second for my vision to adjust and for the world to come into focus.
He is the first thing I see.
Alex is slouched in the chair beside my bed, elbows on his knees, head bowed in concentration.
His fingers are still wrapped around mine, holding on to keeping me tethered to him.
His hair is a mess, sticking up in every direction, and there’s stubble darkening his jaw.
He looks exhausted, more so than I’ve ever seen him, but still he’s gorgeous.
A sight I want to engrave in my eyelids and keep forever.
I try to speak, but my throat is raw and feels like needles as I try to form words. It takes a couple tries before I finally manage to create more than just moans.
“Told you… I wouldn’t die.” I breathed out, stopping in between words.
His head snaps up so fast I think he might give himself whiplash. His eyes are red and glassy with disbelief as they lock onto mine. He stares into my eyes like he can’t believe that I’m real.
“Em?” It’s a question to confirm whether or not I’m really awake or he just hallucinated it.
I want to say more. I want to tell him how much I missed him, and how I heard him even when I was trapped in the dark, and how I fought my way back because I couldn’t leave him and the life that we have ahead of us. But my eyelids are heavy again, my body already surrendering back to sleep.
I give his fingers a weak squeeze before the exhaustion drags me under again.
Time is strange.
It slips through my fingers like sand, moments blurring into each other in a hazy, dreamlike way.
I wake up, then drift off again. I hear voices, feel hands squeezing mine, catch glimpses of faces hovering above me.
But it all feels distant, like I’m underwater, floating between wakefulness and sleep.
Each time I wake, I stay a little longer. The room comes into sharper focus, the sounds clearer, the pain more real.
My brothers have been in and out, their voices familiar and grounding.
Leo is the first one I remember seeing clearly.
He looked exhausted, like he hadn’t slept in days, but still, he smiled at me in that quiet steady way of his.
“You scared the hell out of us, Em.” He murmured, brushing his fingers over my hair.
“Just keeping you on your toes,” I rasped.
He shook his head, laughing gently as he placed a kiss on my forehead.
Leo, the big brother who’s always held everything together, who carries the weight of our family on his back, looked shattered. I reached for his hand and squeezed it as much as I could.
He stayed a little longer, telling me about Mia and how she was starting to say more words and now points at every dog she sees, yelling “Woof!” like she can speak to them. The way his face softened when he talked about her made me happy.
He deserves that happiness.
Frankie came in later, flopping into the chair beside me. He was quiet for a long moment, just staring at me, then finally muttered, “I don’t like this.”
I raised a weak eyebrow. “Yeah, well, neither do I.”
He huffed out a half-laugh, running a hand through his unruly curls. “You really had to go and make it this dramatic, huh?”
I smirked faintly. “Go big or go home.”
His face crumpled for a second before clearing his throat and looking away. “I–I don’t know what I would’ve done if…” He trailed off.
I reached for his hand, managing to brush my fingers over his. “I’m here, Frank.”
He squeezed my fingers lightly. “Don’t call me that.”
I winked back at him before slipping off to sleep.
Cam visited often, but it was when he came in one evening that something in me clicked.
“Alex hasn’t left the hospital in two weeks.” He said suddenly.
I blinked at him in confusion. “What?”
“He refused to go home. He’s been here, every second, waiting for you to wake up. I don’t think you understand, Em. He loves you. Like, the kind of love that doesn’t make sense to most people. The kind that makes a man stay awake at your bedside for weeks just to make sure you’re still breathing.”
My heart was hammering in my chest. A heart that wasn’t even mine, but still, it felt like it was when I thought about Alex.
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t wrap my head around a love like that, a love that is so constant and all-consuming. That was Alex. He had always shown me love in ways I had never been loved before. Even when I didn’t realize it.
Cam squeezed my leg before leaving, and I laid there, letting the weight of his words settle in my chest.
I don’t know how many days it’s been, but I wake up to chaos.
The door swings open as Liv and Sophia tumble in, whisper-yelling at each other like two kids caught sneaking out past curfew.
Liv staggers forward, arms full of what looks like half a bakery’s worth of pastries, while Sophia flails behind her, trying to keep her from dropping everything.
“You’re going to get us kicked out!” Sophia hisses.
“Me?” Liv whisper-shouts back. “You’re the one who thought smuggling croissants into the cardiac ICU was a good idea!”
My brain is still catching up, still sluggish, but I can’t stop the small, scratchy laugh that escapes me. “Are you two always this chaotic, or is it only for me?”
Their heads whip toward me in a blink.
“Oh my God, Emma!” Sophia squeaks, abandoning all pretense of stealth and rushing to my bedside. Liv follows, nearly tripping over their own feet in the process.
“You’re awake!” Liv gasps, throwing the bag of contraband pastries onto the bedside table before grabbing my face with both hands and examining it like she needs proof. “Like, really awake. Not just floating in and out, mumbling weird things.”
I frown. “I was mumbling weird things?”
Sophia and Liv exchange a look.
“Uhh…” Sophia hesitates.
“Define weird?” Liv says at the same time.
Dread curls in my stomach. “What did I say?”
Liv grins, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Something about Alex having really nice arms and you not being able to die before getting a proper feel.”
I groan, closing my eyes. “Nope. That didn’t happen. You’re lying.”
Sophia giggles. “She’s actually not.”
Liv nudges me lightly. “Don’t worry, I’m sure he was flattered.”
I open one eye, glaring weakly. “I hate you both.”
“You love us,” Liv counters. “And we love you. Seriously, Em, we were so scared.”
The humor in her voice wavers, and Sophia sniffles quietly beside her, blinking rapidly.
“Hey,” I murmur, squeezing both their hands. “I’m still here.”
“Yeah, well, don’t do that again.” Liv sniffs dramatically, swiping at her eyes before pointing a finger at me. “You owe me for the emotional trauma. Do you know how much stress eating I’ve been doing while waiting for you to wake up?”
I smile, exhaustion tugging at me again. “How much?”
She crosses her arms. “A lot.”
I chuckle, weak but real.
Sophia continues to sniffle. “God, I hate crying. It makes my face all blotchy.
“You still look gorgeous,” I assure her, my eyelids growing heavier.
Liv snorts. “Of course she does. She’s one of those people who still looks cute after an ugly cry. I, on the other hand, resemble a swollen tomato.”
Sophia smacks her lightly. “That’s not true.”
Liv gasps. “So you’re saying I look like a normal tomato?”
I sigh, letting their ridiculous banter wrap around me like a warm blanket.
I’m not alone. I am still here.
And despite the weight of the scar I haven’t had the courage to fully look at yet, the grief for the person whose heart now beats inside of me, I feel… okay. Or at least now I know I will be.
Alex walks in a few minutes after they leave, eyes lighting up with relief as he sees me awake, and I realize something: I’m not just alive, I am loved.