“I...get...home.”
I brush her hair back as blood and water plaster it to her face. “We will get you home, I promise.” She tries to close her eyes but I pat her cheek; lightly at first, then with a little more force. “You need to keep your eyes open. I don’t know much, but I know that.”
“So...” Her pause here is so long, I’m afraid she’s stopped breathing, stopped living in front of me. “Tired,” she finishes, the word more a sigh than actual speech. Her eyes linger on mine, desperately looking for something. She’s fighting to keep her eyes open, but each blink is getting longer and longer.
“Well, it’s three in the morning, I would expect nothing less.”
She tries to laugh, but it turns into a groan of pain and I panic. What if she has internal bleeding that I’m making worse? The ambulance sirens are closer now, so much closer I can see the lights as they turn the corner. The vehicle comes to a screeching halt before us along with a cop car, there to collect statements.
The paramedics throw questions at me, demanding answers about what happened. I tell them what I can, what I remember. This woman, El, slips away again, closing her eyes, but the paramedics are monitoring her vitals. While they put the C-collar on her, straightening her leg and arm, I turn to the driver.
“Give me my phone and bag,” I order, using my work voice. The driver jumps into action, glad to have something to do other than talk to the police. He hands it to me as the paramedics are transferring the woman onto a backboard and then the stretcher. I reach under the car, salvaging her purse, which is pinned in the front basket. It's not a habit of mine to rummage around ladies' purses, but I check to make sure that I have her wallet. Her phone is wedged under the tire of the car, unlikely to see another day.
The paramedics are efficient at their job and are already preparing to load her into the cab of the ambulance and I follow them.
“I’m sorry, sir, you can’t come,” a tall, lanky kid who can’t be over twenty-one says.
The longer we stand in the rain arguing, the more annoyed I get. “I appreciate that, but I have to object. Please, she needs someone there when she wakes up.”
The two paramedics exchange a look and the female finally nods, if for no other reason than to get El to the hospital more quickly. I climb into the back, beside the kid, who continues to work on El. I thumb through her purse, pulling out her wallet.
“Her name is Elia Daniels,” I say, looking at the license photo. No one takes a good picture, but she looks particularly unhappy. I run my hand over my mouth, glancing at this woman who is unresponsive on the bed.
There is a hellish weight that settles over my shoulders knowing that it was my decision-making that put her there. If I had listened, if I had left earlier, if I had taken the subway instead... Any number of decisions I could have done differently to spare her this painful fate. If she survives, I know I’ll do anything to fix this.
Now I know her name. Now, I can try to make things right.
Chapter 1
Elia - One Week Later
Thebrightskyiswhat wakes me up from my dream. The dream isn’t particularly memorable. It’s the kind of dream that seems fantastical while your eyes are closed, but once you open them and let your consciousness through the dream door, it starts to fade away a little at a time, then more quickly the harder you try to hold onto it. Sort of like trying to hold water in your hands, slowly slipping away until you have just a little there, just a concept, until even that is gone.
I’m usually good about keeping my blinds closed, not because of the sun, but because my bedroom window faces another building, and I’ve seen a little too much of my neighbor’s dick to keep them open. The sound of beeping is unusual, so maybe it was my alarm that woke me. Or maybe I’m not even in my own place? My eyes fly open at the thought, wondering if I went home with someone last night, but I can’t even really hold on to what I did last night. Was I out with Vivian?
Opening my eyes clues me in immediately. I’m not in my bed or a stranger’s. I’m in a hospital room. Folded uncomfortably in one of those wooden chairs is a handsome man I don’t recognize. I take a minute to study him in his own slumber. He has sandy blond hair that’s straight and hangs like a curtain over his eyes. There is a trail of hair along his jaw, not a maintained beard, more like the beginning of one, less intentional, more from a lack of shaving. He has full lips that are lightly parted. It looks like it’s a restless sleep, from the way he fidgets, and I don’t blame him. I’ve sat in those chairs before, during college. It’s not the place to get a goodnight’s sleep.
Other than the strange man, I’m alone in the room and the door is slightly ajar. Now that I’m really taking stock of the room and myself, the pain I’m in settles in, resonating from my leg up, and I gasp, wanting it to stop. I look down and see that my left leg is elevated by a sling that holds my casted appendage. My right wrist is also tightly wrapped in a hard cast.
The computer resting on the table in front of the man chimes and his eyes open. They go to me first before checking the laptop. His warm brown eyes brighten with surprise when he sees me.
“Hello?” I rasp, my voice sounding sore from disuse.
The man jumps to his feet, sending the table sliding across the floor.
“You’re awake.” His voice is smooth, quiet, trying to not startle me. I cough and look around for water. The man walks toward me, quickly, but reaches around me, pressing a button.
“Water?” I croak since my mouth is parched. My tongue feels heavy and keeps sticking to my mouth. I can’t question him properly without something to drink.
“Of course.” He chuckles to himself, pouring water from a bottle on the table into a small pink cup. My unencumbered arm feels weak as I lift it to take the cup from him, but he doesn’t let it go, helping me tip it toward my mouth.
“We were worried about you,” he says, his voice still quiet. His face is so perfectly chiseled but with deep lines around his eyes.
I hate that I can’t figure out who he is because for him to be here with me must mean I matter to him.
Suddenly, footsteps echo throughout the room. “Ah, Miss Daniels. Lovely to see some life in your eyes,” a doctor says. He’s older, probably in his fifties; whereas, the water boy who was folded in the corner of my room looks to be in his late twenties or early thirties.
“What happened?” I ask, more than a little confused.