Page 52 of Ever After All

“Wyatt is stable. It was a clean break. No complications. He’s currently sleeping, but you can see him. I think you should officially go off the clock before you do that,” he explained.

“But I’m?—”

“Going to have coverage for supervision for the shift from the lead nurse,” Dr. Jackson interjected. “Go see the man you love.”

A few minutes later, I walked into Wyatt’s room. The hospital was at capacity, so it wasn’t a private room. The man in the other bed was the guy who had a panic attack. He had fallen back asleep since I’d checked on him.

I carefully stepped behind the curtain between the two beds and rounded Wyatt’s bed to stand by the window as I rested my hands on the railing. He was still asleep, likely out from the sedative they had given him to set his broken leg. His skin looked pale under the bright lighting. I lifted a hand to smooth away his mussed hair from his forehead. He must’ve cut his head somehow because I could feel the abraded area on his skin just inside his hairline. It had been cleaned and disinfected.

Emotion rolled up inside, a big, slow wave, catching in a high curl. “I love you,” I whispered.

I smoothed one of his eyebrows with my fingertip just as his eyes blinked open. For a moment, he looked confused.

“Rosie?” he croaked.

“Hey,” I said quietly. “You got hit by a motorcycle. Do you remember anything?”

Wyatt rolled his head from side to side before bringing his attention to me. “I was texting you.” He blinked. “Nothing hurts right now.” His lips curled in a kind of loopy smile.

I didn’t realize a tear had rolled down my cheek until he tried to reach up and wipe it away. His hand landed on my shoulder instead before bouncing to land on his chest. “Don’t cry. I’m fine. Why am I in the hospital?”

“You broke your leg. The motorcyclist got a little bruised up and feels terrible.”

“Oh fuck. I wasn’t paying attention. So what happened?”

“Apparently, you walked into the street, and the motorcyclist hit you. According to witnesses, he wasn’t going very fast, and you just stepped into traffic. Dr. Jackson said it was a clean break. They did a scan, and everything else is good. The only other thing I see is this little scrape on your forehead. I’m sure you’ll have some bruising because you can’t just land on the pavement and not get a little banged up.”

I was trying to keep it together. Really, I was, but I couldn’t seem to manage it. The tears kept rolling down my cheeks. Before I knew it, I was hiccupping when I tried to speak.

Wyatt reached up, curling an arm around my waist and trying to pull me closer. “For fuck’s sake,” he muttered. “Can we get this bed to go up?”

I couldn’t talk, but I could do that and tapped the button to raise it. A moment later, I sobbed into his chest. He kept his arm around my waist and held me close. It was only a minute or so before my burst of tears subsided.

I straightened and looked down at him. “How are you feeling?”

“Physically? Like I’m on a big puffy cloud. I can’t really feel much of anything,” he said.

“Good.” I swallowed. “Sorry about that.”

“For what?”

I could feel the gentle squeeze of his palm where it rested on the side of my waist.

“I overreacted,” I explained.

Because it was Wyatt and he understood me better than myself maybe, he instantly caught up to the fact I wasn’t talking about this particular moment.

“You did not overreact. That was a lot to take in. I didn’t know what to do. When your brother said he wanted an opportunity to tell you, I thought he would tell you in a day or so. I felt stuck because it wasn’t my secret to share.”

“I know, and I understand.” I leaned up, looking into his eyes. “I love you, Wyatt.”

“I love you, and I always will,” he said gruffly.

“You sure about that?” I managed to tease as I trailed my fingertips over the prickly stubble of his beard.

“There are a lot of things I’m not sure about, but I am sure about that. I’d break my leg all over again if that’s what it takes for this.”

“You didn’t need to break your leg,” I protested. “I was going to talk to you anyway.”

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