Chapter 9 #2
Part of why.
Because Dylan had wanted me and still chosen restraint. Because he had seen me broken and not mistaken my vulnerability for an opening. Because he had walked away when staying might have been easier for him and worse for me.
Or maybe not.
Maybe Regan was right.
Maybe everyone had been so busy protecting me that they forgot to ask what losing him would do.
“I tried to move on,” I said.
My voice sounded raw now.
No more nurse.
No more polished woman who knew better.
Just me.
“I really did. I went to class. Made friends. Drank matcha because apparently I became that person. Fed a feral cat named Cupcake with Lily. Went to concerts. Passed exams. Fell asleep on textbooks. Learned how to put people back together. I dated nice boys. Safe boys. Boys with clean hands and plans and parents who didn’t look like they could hide bodies before breakfast.”
I wiped my cheek with my shoulder because I did not want to let go of his hand.
“Daniel was good,” I whispered. “He was. He loved me the best way he knew how. And I tried to love him the way he deserved. But then he met my family and saw too much truth around the edges. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t see bikers as in-laws. He couldn’t see the ugly pieces and stay.”
My throat closed.
“You did.”
The room blurred.
“You saw me worse than anyone. You saw blood and fire and grief and grave paint. You saw me when I didn’t know if I was ruined or cursed or just becoming another version of every story people told about my mother. And you called me Beautiful.”
His hand did not move.
Still, I held it like it could anchor me.
Or maybe I was trying to anchor him.
“I hated you for that sometimes,” I confessed. “Not really. But a little. Because you made me believe I could be seen like that. Fully. Ugly pieces and all. And then you left.”
The words landed between us.
Finally.
“You left, Dylan.”
My voice cracked.
“You left me with blank pages and a bracelet and a nickname no one else could say without making me want to cry. You left and decided it was noble. You decided it was better for me. You decided you were the fire and I needed clean air.”
I leaned closer.
“You arrogant, beautiful, stupid man.”
The ventilator kept breathing for him.
“I got the clean air,” I whispered. “I got the life. The school. The friends. The future. I got everything you thought you were giving me by staying away.”
My fingers brushed his knuckles.
“And you know what? You were right. I needed it. I needed to become someone who wasn’t waiting for rescue. I needed to know I could stand on my own. I needed Lily. I needed nursing. I needed to be Destiny Rourke without a biker shadow stretched over every decision.”
I swallowed.
“But I didn’t need you gone forever.”
That truth left me shaking.
I lowered my forehead to the edge of the bed beside his hand.
Not on him.
Beside him.
Close enough to feel the heat of his skin through the space between us.
“I never stopped loving you,” I whispered.
There.
The words existed now.
In a hospital room.
Beside machines.
Beside the chair that belonged to another woman.
“I tried. I tried so hard. I told myself it was a crush. Trauma. First rescue. First kiss. First man who made me feel safe when I had no reason to trust my own body anymore. I told myself I was young and foolish and dramatic. I told myself love was supposed to be practical and kind and involve men like Daniel Ducati with family brunches and med school and hands that never had blood under the nails.”
A sob shook me.
“But it was you.”
I lifted my head and looked at his face.
“It was always you.”
For one desperate, selfish second, I wanted to press my mouth to his.
I wanted to kiss him back to life like fairy tales had not been written by people with no respect for hospital policy, fiancées, or the mess real love left behind.
I did not.
I couldn’t.
Georgia’s ring flashed in my mind.
Mandy’s name followed it.
I pulled back.
“No,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. “I’m not doing that.”
Instead, I lifted his hand and pressed my lips to his knuckles.
Once.
Soft.
Almost reverent.
A kiss no one could accuse of theft unless they understood everything beneath it.
“I’m not going to be the villain,” I said against his skin.
“I’m not going to take what isn’t mine. But I need you to know.
Just once. Even if you never hear it. Even if you wake up and choose her.
Even if I have to smile and be professional and tell your fiancée how to watch for signs of infection. ”
My voice broke again.
“I need you to know I loved you.”
The monitor beeped.
Steady.
Steady.
Steady.
“I love you,” I corrected.
There it was.
Present tense.
The most dangerous tense.
I held his hand against my mouth and closed my eyes.
“So you have to stay,” I whispered. “Not for me. I know I don’t get to ask that.
Not anymore. Maybe not ever. Stay for Georgia.
Stay for Nate. Stay for Callum. Stay for whatever you’ve been building in San Diego.
Stay because you fought too hard to become more than the boy who thought the world was locked doors.
Stay because you got a degree, and I’m so proud of you, even though I’m furious I had to hear about your life in pieces instead of from you. ”
I laughed softly through tears.
“Stay because Lily will never forgive you if Nate dies or you die after making her learn your entire tragic backstory by proximity.”
Nothing.
Still nothing.
I reached up again and smoothed his hair back from his forehead.
This time, I let my hand rest there.
He felt warm.
Too warm and not warm enough.
“I don’t know what happens when you wake up,” I said. “Maybe nothing. Maybe I walk out of this room and hand your life back to the woman wearing your ring. Maybe that is the right thing. Maybe right things are supposed to feel like being cut open.”
I bent and pressed a kiss to his forehead.
Not his mouth.
Not the line I could not uncross.
His forehead.
A blessing.
A plea.
A goodbye I refused to let become final.
“But tonight,” I whispered against his skin, “you are not allowed to die.”
The door behind me made the softest sound.
I froze.
Every part of me went cold.
I turned slowly.
Georgia stood in the doorway.
She wore the same cardigan. Same frightened eyes. Same ring. Her blonde hair had been pulled back now, messily, as if someone had tried to help her and given up halfway through because grief did not care about neatness.
Her gaze moved from my face to Dylan’s hand in mine.
Then to the chair.
Her chair.
Then back to me.
For one suspended second, no one spoke.
The machines did.
The ventilator.
The monitor.
The IV pumps.
All of them announcing that Dylan was still alive while everything else in the room quietly began to bleed.
Georgia’s face changed.
Not into rage.
That would have been easier.
Rage I could have met. Rage I could have taken. Rage would have let me cast myself as wrong and her as wounded and the whole thing as simple.
But Georgia did not rage.
Her eyes filled.
Her mouth trembled once.
And then she asked, very softly, “How long have you loved him?”
I let go of Dylan’s hand.
Not fast, like I had been caught doing something dirty.
Slowly.
Like surrender.
I stood, the chair scraping faintly behind me.
My face was wet. My hands empty. My heart nowhere near protected.
Georgia waited.
She deserved a lie.
No.
She deserved the truth.
I looked at Dylan first.
Then at her.
“Since I was eighteen,” I whispered.
Georgia closed her eyes.
The answer landed exactly where she already knew it would.
When she opened them again, tears slid down her cheeks.
“He said your name,” she said.
It was not a question.
My breath caught.
She looked past me to Dylan.
Then down at the ring on her finger.
“I knew there was someone,” she whispered. “I just didn’t know she was real.”
Something inside me cracked.
“I’m sorry.”
Georgia laughed once.
Small.
Broken.
“Me too.”
I stepped away from the bed.
Away from Dylan.
Away from the chair that belonged to her in every official way and to me in none.
“He’s critical,” I said because nurse words were the only safe ones I had left. “The next twenty-four hours matter. Talk to him. Even if he doesn’t wake up. Familiar voices can help. He may hear you.”
Georgia looked at me.
“Did he hear you?”
The question went through me clean.
“I don’t know.”
But I hoped.
God help me, I hoped.
Georgia nodded.
Then she walked to the chair.
Her chair.
I moved toward the door.
At the threshold, I stopped.
I did not look back at Dylan.
I couldn’t.
But I heard Georgia sit beside him. Heard the soft hitch of her breath. Heard her take his hand the way I had taken it moments before.
“Dylan,” she whispered.
Her voice was tender.
Terrified.
Real.
I stepped into the hallway before the sound could finish breaking me.
Lily was there.
Of course she was.
Leaning against the opposite wall with two terrible coffees in her hands and eyes that knew too much.
I took one from her.
My fingers shook so badly the lid rattled.
Lily looked past me toward the room.
“Georgia?”
I nodded.
She winced. “How bad?”
“She asked how long I loved him.”
“Oh, Des.”
“I told her.”
Lily’s face softened into pain.
“She knew,” I whispered. “Before I answered, she knew.”
“Women usually do.”
“That’s what everyone keeps saying.”
“Because it’s annoyingly true.”
I took a sip of coffee and burned my tongue.
Good.
Pain I could understand.
I looked through the glass wall into Dylan’s room. Georgia sat beside him now, exactly where she was supposed to be, both hands wrapped around his.
The ring shone under the ICU lights.
Mandy’s diamonds burned in my ears.
And somewhere between the two, I stood with nothing but the truth.
Dylan was alive.
Georgia loved him.
I loved him.
And the next time he opened his eyes, one of us was going to lose him all over again.