10. Nash
NASH
The room they've moved Eve to is quieter than the trauma bay—private, with muted lighting that doesn't assault the eyes and actual windows instead of fluorescent hell.
I've been here for three hours now, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest, the way her fingers occasionally twitch against the white hospital sheets.
She looks too small in the standard-issue hospital gown, her mahogany skin pale against the sterile fabric.
They've braided her hair loosely to keep it out of the bandages, but a few curls have escaped to frame her face.
Without makeup, without the careful composure she always wore like armor, she looks younger.
Vulnerable in a way that makes something protective and possessive coil tight in my chest.
The chair they've given me is marginally more comfortable than the plastic torture devices in the waiting area, but I've been sitting in it long enough that my back aches. I don't care. I'm not leaving.
Not when she's like this. Not when I finally have her back.
Her heart monitor beeps steadily in the background, a rhythm I've memorized over the past few hours. The doctor said her vitals were stable, that the worst of it was over, but brain injuries are unpredictable. She could wake up in an hour or sleep for another day.
I lean forward in the chair, studying her face for any sign of consciousness. Her skin is warm when I brush my fingertips across her cheek, checking for fever out of habit more than medical necessity. The machines would alert me if her temperature spiked.
But I need to touch her. Need the reassurance that she's real, that she's here.
"Come on, sweetheart," I murmur, letting my thumb trace along her jawline. The endearment slips out like it always did when we were kids, when I was too young and stupid to understand what it meant that I couldn't stop needling her. "Time to wake up."
Her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks, and for a moment I think she's going to open her eyes. But she settles back into sleep, her breathing evening out again.
I should call her parents. I know that. It's been hours, and they deserve to know their daughter is hurt.
But the selfish part of me—the part that's been starving for any piece of Eve Turner for seven years—wants these moments alone with her.
Before her real life intrudes. Before she remembers all the reasons she walked away from me.
Besides, they'll need to assess her when she wakes up, and I don't want to worry them without having all the information.
And the fact that no one has even noticed her missing doesn't sit well with me.
Where is her fucking fiance? How does he not know something is wrong? It would take a few calls to find her.
The late afternoon light filtering through the window catches in her hair, picking out the lighter highlights I remember from childhood.
She used to complain that it never did what she wanted, that it was too curly, too wild.
I always thought it was beautiful—thought she was beautiful, even when she was seven years old and glaring at me with more fire than any kid should possess.
Still beautiful. Still fiercer than she gives herself credit for.
I reach out and smooth a loose curl back from her forehead, careful not to disturb the bandages. Her skin is soft under my fingers, exactly like I remember from that night when I was eighteen and foolish enough to think one night could be everything.
"Be a good girl and come back to me, Eve," I whisper, the words rougher than I intend.
The heart monitor spikes suddenly, her pulse jumping from the steady seventy beats per minute to over ninety. I sit back, alarmed, but her breathing stays even and her color doesn't change. No other alarms go off.
A slow smile tugs at the corner of my mouth despite the circumstances. Of course calling her a good girl gets a reaction.
"Good to see you've still got that fight in you," I say quietly, settling back in the chair. "Even unconscious, you're pissed at me for calling you that."
It's exactly what I'd expect from Eve. Even at seven, when she first moved to town and I started my campaign of casual torment, she'd get that particular look—eyes narrowing, chin lifting in defiance—whenever I called her sweetheart with just a little too much condescension.
Like she knew I was trying to get under her skin and refused to give me the satisfaction of a reaction.
Except she always did react. Always rose to the bait, which was exactly what I wanted.
What I've always wanted from her.
Her heart rate settles back to normal after a few minutes, and I find myself missing the spike. Missing the proof that some part of her recognizes my voice, recognizes the old patterns between us.
The afternoon stretches on. Nurses check in periodically—taking vitals, adjusting IV lines, asking if I need anything.
I tell them I'm fine, that I'll call if there's any change.
They seem satisfied with that, probably assuming I'm exactly what I've told them—a family friend keeping vigil until her parents can get here.
None of them ask if I got ahold of the people I haven't called, why my hands shake slightly when I reach for the coffee they bring me. Why I can't seem to tear my eyes away from her face for more than a few seconds at a time.
The sun starts to sink lower in the sky, painting the room in shades of gold and amber. Eve's face looks almost ethereal in the warm light, like something from a dream I've been having for years.
Maybe that's all this is. Maybe I'll wake up in my apartment, alone, and she'll still be a ghost I carry around instead of a real woman breathing six inches away from me.
But then her fingers twitch against the sheets again, more pronounced this time. Her head turns slightly on the pillow, and her breathing changes—becomes less deep, more varied.
My pulse jumps. "Eve?"
Her eyelashes flutter, dark crescents against her cheeks. The heart monitor picks up again, but not with the sharp spike of before. This is different. The gradual acceleration of someone surfacing from deep water.
"That's it," I encourage, leaning forward in the chair. "Come on back, sweetheart."
Her eyes open slowly, unfocused at first. Blinking against the light. I watch her pupils contract and dilate as her brain tries to process consciousness, tries to make sense of where she is.
When her gaze finally settles on my face, I smile.
She's awake. She's okay. For the first time in hours, I can breathe properly.
"Hey there," I say softly, the way you'd talk to a spooked animal. "How are you feeling?"
She blinks at me, confusion clouding her warm brown eyes. Her gaze travels from my face to the hospital room around us, taking in the machines, the IV line in her arm, the bandages I can see reflected in the window.
"Are you..." Her voice comes out as a whisper, rough from being out for so long. She clears her throat and tries again. "Are you my nurse?"
I blink as I try to process that question. I stare at her, searching her face for any sign of recognition, any hint that she's joking or still disoriented from sleep.
But there's nothing. She's looking at me like I'm a stranger.
Like she's never seen me before in her life.
I blink slowly, my brain struggling to process what I'm hearing. "I don't think I've changed that much, sweetheart."
The endearment rolls off my tongue automatically, the same way it has since we were kids. The same way it did that night ten years ago when she was naked in my bed and I was learning every sound she made.
But Eve just looks more confused, her eyebrows drawing together in a small frown. No flash of irritation. No spark of recognition. Nothing.
My chest tightens with something that feels like panic. "You don't remember me, Eve?"
The words come out slower this time, careful. Testing. Hoping I'm wrong.
But the blank look in her eyes tells me everything I need to know.
She doesn't remember me. Doesn't remember us. Doesn't remember any of it—the childhood antagonism, the teenage tension, that one perfect night that's haunted me for seven years.
Eve Turner has lost her memory.
And I'm sitting here next to her hospital bed like a stranger, watching the woman I've loved since I was eight years old look at me with polite, confused concern.
The irony would be funny if it didn't feel like someone had reached into my chest and twisted my heart into knots.
I've spent seven years trying to forget Eve Turner.
Now she's the one who can't remember.