Chapter 30 Adela
Maeve is already outside when I pull up.
She's standing near the entrance of Evergreen Hospital with two coffees, her coat pulled tight against the morning cold, and when she sees my car, she lifts one of the cups in greeting. I sit in the parking lot for a moment before I get out, watching her breath cloud in the air.
She doesn't know.
I need to remember that walking in.
I get out of the car.
"You look terrible," she says, handing me the coffee. Not unkind. Just Maeve.
"Thanks."
"I mean it in a loving way." She pulls me into a hug with her free arm, brief and tight. "How are you feeling?"
"I don't know yet."
She nods like that makes complete sense, and loops her arm through mine, and we walk toward the entrance together, and I focus on the warmth of the cup in my hand, the way the automatic doors sound when they open, and anything that is not the inside of my own head.
Evergreen is one of those hospitals that tries.
The lobby has natural light, real plants, and a coffee cart near the reception desk.
It smells like cleaning solution underneath something they're piping through the vents to cover it — something neutral and faintly floral.
The floors are pale stone. Everything is designed to feel less like what it is.
It doesn't work.
We find seats near the window and wait. I watch the elevator doors and try to figure out what I'm actually afraid of.
He woke up.
That should be the end of the fear, shouldn't it? He's alive. He's stable. The worst didn't happen.
But sitting here with the coffee going warm in my hands, I realize the fear has just changed shape. Because before he was unconscious, there was nothing he could say. No version of events he could offer. No look on his face when he saw mine.
Now there is.
And I don't know what he remembers.
That's the thing I keep coming back to. Does he remember the night? Does he remember who was there? Does he remember anything that happened before, or did he wake up a blank page? If he remembers me, he must remember all that he’s done before.
I grit my teeth because I don't want to protect him.
And I also don’t want to uncover who did this to him. I realize now that I would be okay without knowing.
Whatever Cody did — whoever he hurt, whatever he was doing that put him in this bed — he should have to answer for it. Not me. Not his father managing the narrative from a hospital corridor. Him.
I want him to be responsible for what he did.
The elevator opens, and Judge Ravenshaw steps out.
He's in a suit at eight in the morning, and he moves through the lobby with a confidence he didn’t have when Cody was in a coma. His eyes find me first, then move to Maeve beside me, and something in his expression recalibrates almost imperceptibly.
"Adela." He extends his hand.
I stand and shake it. His grip is firm, dry, and practiced. "Judge Ravenshaw."
"Thank you for coming." His eyes move to Maeve again, waiting.
“Judge Ravenshaw,” she says, shaking his hand too.
He gestures toward the elevator. "Should we?"
We walk together, and in the elevator, I look at the numbers changing above the door and decide this is the moment.
"Judge Ravenshaw," I say, my voice even. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Why haven’t you told me where Cody was transferred?"
The elevator hums.
He doesn't answer immediately, which is its own kind of answer. When I glance at him, his expression is composed.
"The transfer was a medical decision," he says finally. "The team felt—"
"I'm his girlfriend," I say. "I went to the hospital every single day, and then he got transferred, and I was shunned out of…everything. You didn’t bother to tell me, and I don’t understand why. Why call me now?"
He looks at me.
I look back.
Beside me, I feel Maeve go very still.
"You're right," he says finally. Two words, flat and final, that are neither an apology nor an explanation. Just an acknowledgment that costs him nothing.
The elevator opens on the fifth floor.
He steps out first, and we follow.
In the hallway, he slows slightly, dropping his voice. "He doesn't have full recall yet. The doctors say that's consistent with the injury — some gaps, some confusion. He's going to need time."
"What does he remember?" I ask.
"Fragments. The party. Some of the night." A pause. "Not everything."
I nod.
"He needs stability right now," he continues, stopping outside room 512. "No stress. No complications." His eyes move between Maeve and me. "He believes everything is the way it was. I need it to stay that way while he recovers."
The way it was.
I think about the videos. About the ceramic ballerina on my bathroom shelf. About the file Gary opened in that dim room while Julian stood beside me, and the world I thought I lived in collapsed into something I didn't recognize.
The way it was.
"Of course," I say.
He looks at me for a moment longer than feels comfortable, like he's reading something in my face and deciding whether he believes what he finds there.
Then he opens the door.
Cody looks smaller than I remember.
That's the first thing. He's propped up against the pillows, an IV in his arm, a bandage at his temple, and he looks like someone turned the volume down on him. Pale. Thin. The particular fragility of a body that has been through something it didn't choose.
Then he sees me.
And his face does something that I was not prepared for.
Pure relief. Uncomplicated and immediate, like a breath he's been holding for weeks, finally released.
"Adela."
My chest does something complicated and painful that I don't have a name for.
He reaches for my hand, and I cross the room and take it because his father is in the doorway and Maeve is behind me, and there is no version of this moment where I don't.
His fingers are warm. His grip is weak.
"Cody," I mutter, feeling the tears prick my eyes. It waters my entire vision.
"Hi." He smiles. Tired and genuine. "You're here."
"I'm here."
He looks at me the way he always used to, like I'm something he's relieved to have. And I stand there holding his hand and look at his face and feel the cruelty of knowing what I know while he looks at me like that.
"You look different," he says.
"I do?"
"I don't know." He searches my face. "Something's different."
I squeeze his hand gently. "You've been asleep for a while. Everyone probably looks different."
He laughs weakly. "Fair."
His thumb traces small circles on the back of my hand.
"We're okay, right?" he asks quietly.
The room holds completely still.
His eyes are on mine — open, uncertain, needing something — and his father is in the doorway.
Maeve is somewhere behind me, and the machines are beeping their steady, indifferent rhythm, and I am standing here holding the hand of a man who filmed me without my knowledge and kept it, and I have to say something.
He’s asking that because he knows. He knows we wouldn’t be okay if I knew. I swallow down my pride. I don’t want to be a suspect, especially now that he’s awake. Maeve is my alibi, but it doesn’t mean anything if his father’s a judge.
"Of course," I say.
His shoulders drop with relief.
"Good," he whispers. "I was worried."
He closes his eyes.
Worried.
I feel sick to my stomach.
But I’m still holding his hand.
He brings my hand up and kisses me softly.
I let the tears drop as I lean in and rest my head on his shoulder.
What the fuck am I doing?