Page 87 of Unbroken

In a few quick strides, I was at her closet, bracing my hands against the doorframe and staring down at the woman curled up on the floor. Her hands were tucked beneath her head, and she was curled on her side.

Large noise-canceling headphones were covering her ears.

She was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, and I tried not to think about what that meant when I dropped to the ground. Her chest was subtly moving, and a small part of me was relieved to see that, at least.

I kneeled next to her, yet she still didn’t stir. Her hair was a tangled mess around her face, and I brushed back a piece that had fallen over her eyes. They popped open a second later when my fingers grazed her cheek.

Alarmed, gray eyes met mine, and it took several long seconds for her to register my face. But even as I watched her grasp who was sitting in front of her, her trepidation didn’t wane. She forced herself up into a sitting position and glanced around the closet with a deep furrow between her brows.

She tugged her headphones off and set them on the floor next to her.

“Blakely, baby,” I whispered, tentatively reaching out and rubbing a hand down her arm. I gave her enough time to pull away, but she barely registered me. “Blake,” I said again.

Slowly, she dragged her eyes to meet mine. But they were empty.

She didn’t even blink when I cupped her cheek. “Blakely, what’s going on?”

The seconds that passed felt like hours, especially when my favorite person in the entire world was sitting there unresponsive on the floor in front of me. Her eyes bore a distant calm. It was uncanny and unsettling. Like there was nothing behind that far-off look.

It was such a difference from the woman I’d left at the lake. Something had happened, and I was scrambling to catch up.

Finally, she shook her head, and there was an oddly forced smile that attempted to cross her face. It was wrong, it was all wrong.

“I was cleaning, and I must have fallen asleep on the floor.” She said it like it wasn’t strange at all that she’d fallen asleep on her closet floor. If that was how it had really happened.

“Do you know how long you’ve been asleep?”

“What time is it now?”

I glanced down at my watch. “Not even seven.”

“P.M.?”

“A.M.,” I confirmed, and her eyes widened.

With a shaking hand, she pushed her hair out of her face and brushed her fingers over her lips. “I need to get up then. I have clients and?—”

“Wait.” I stopped her from standing with a hand around her wrist. Her movements paused, but she looked terrified. “Please, tell me what’s going on, B. Let me help.”

“Nothing’s going on,” she said automatically, robotically. “I promise, I’m fine. This weekend just took a lot out of me. You should go, though. Don’t you have meetings today or something?”

She tugged her arm free and stood. I followed her lead. “They can wait. I’m more worried about you. You weren’t answering your phone, and I just found you lying on your closet floor, unresponsive.”

She walked into her bedroom, and if she saw the broken glass door, she didn’t comment on it. Instead, she picked up where it looked like she left off, grabbing a stack of towels and dropping them in her bathroom.

Walking in and out of the room, she said, “I was asleep, not unresponsive, but I’m sorry I worried you. I promise, I’m fine. So, you should go.”

Then she retrieved a stack of T-shirts and headed back into her closet.

“Sweetheart, I can’t leave until I know you’re okay. Telling me is one thing, but your actions are a different story.”

I waited several seconds for her to come back into her bedroom and continue buzzing around and acting like everything was normal when that was so far from the truth. But she didn’t come back.

In two quick steps, I was in the closet. Blakely was standing in the middle of the small, dark space, the stack of T-shirts still in her hands as she stared blankly at the clothes hanging across from her.

“Baby,” I said, and when she didn’t answer, I tried again. “Sweetheart?”

She blinked once, twice, then turned her head to look at me. She forced a halfhearted smile that barely tilted her lips. It was wrong, everything was wrong.

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