Grayson
Grayson Coldwell POV
The sound of a hospital heart monitor is a special kind of torture.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
It’s too rhythmic. Too mechanical. A sterile reminder that the only thing keeping the woman I love tethered to this earth is a machine and a prayer.
I haven't left this room in four days. I haven't showered. The plastic hospital chair has molded to my spine, and the coffee coating the back of my throat tastes like battery acid. But I can't move. If I move, I lose my grip on her hand, and right now, holding her hand feels like the only thing keeping her anchor from slipping into the deep.
"Come back to me, Autumn," I whisper, my voice rough and cracked from days of silence and swallowed tears.
I look at her face. Pale. Bruised along the left cheekbone from the impact. There’s a small laceration near her hairline, stitched up neatly by a surgeon whose name I can’t even remember. She looks so small in that massive hospital bed. So fragile.
This is the woman who argues with the navigation system in her car. The woman who refuses to eat the last slice of pizza unless I split it with her evenly down to the millimeter. The woman who, just two months ago, slid a gold band onto my finger and promised me forever.
My thumb brushes over her knuckles, tracing the matching diamond band on her left hand.
Forever is turning out to be a lot harder than we thought.
The accident plays on a loop behind my eyelids every time I try to blink. The blinding headlights. The horrific screech of tearing metal. The sickening crunch of the passenger side—her side—taking the brunt of the SUV that ran the red light. I walked away with a sprained wrist and a few cracked ribs.
Something that doesn't make sense to me..
She hasn't opened her eyes since.
"The swelling in her brain is going down, Mr. Coldwell," the doctor had told me this morning. "Now, we wait. When the sedation fully wears off, she should wake up. We just need to see how she responds."
When she wakes up. Not if. I refuse to think if.
I lean my forehead against the edge of her mattress, closing my eyes. I am so entirely spent. My chest aches with a physical, hollow pain.
Just give me a sign, Autumn. Anything. Please.
As if answering a prayer I've repeated ten thousand times, the fingers wrapped in mine twitch.
My eyes snap open.
I freeze, holding my breath, terrified I imagined it. But then it happens again. A faint, deliberate squeeze.
"Autumn?"
The monitor’s rhythm skips, the beeping speeding up. Her eyelids flutter. She lets out a soft, breathless groan, her head shifting slightly on the pillow.
The breath catches in my throat. The relief that crashes over me is so violent I feel dizzy. She’s alive. She’s coming back to me.
I squeeze her hand back, leaning in close, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
"I'm right here," I choke out, a tear finally slipping down my cheek. "I’ve got you."
Her eyes flutter again, struggling against the heavy pull of sleep, slowly blinking open to meet mine.
