Page 158 of Only After We Met

Always betraying my efforts to forget.

“Is he okay?”

“He’s stable.”

“I’ll come as soon as I can.”

Part 7

Hope. Life. Promises.

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”

The Little Prince

100

Ginger

I don’t know how I managed to get to his room. I was trembling. I couldn’t even hear anything over my heartbeat. I took a few steps nervously. I had a knot in my throat.

I saw him. He was lying in bed. Awake. His eyes turned away from the window and toward me. He hadn’t been expecting me. His jaw tensed. His shoulders turned rigid. His chest rose as he took a breath. And then…then…it was as if the two years apart had vanished in the blink of an eye. I dropped my purse on the ground, ran toward him, and hugged him in tears. We said nothing. We just held each other. I let his scent envelop me, the scent that was still familiar, the warm skin of his neck against my cheek.

“I can’t believe you’re here…”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know… I really don’t…”

“They called me,” I told him.

I stood back to look at him. He was confused. His brow was furrowed, his lips dry, his face thinner since the last time we’d seen each other. I ran a hand over his forehead, pushing aside a few locksof hair. He stared at me, uncertain, trying to tell himself I really was there, that this was real, that I had taken the first flight out for him.

“Ginger…” He grabbed my wrist.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath.

“I can’t stay for too long though. I left Leon in reception. The nurse told me the doctor will be by soon, and they’ll let you go. And I’ll be waiting for you downstairs.”

“Leon?” he asked in barely a whisper.

“My son, Rhys.”

“Leon…” He slowly savored the name.

I stroked his hair again, hoping he wouldn’t notice how I was trembling. All I could think of as I looked at him was that there were emotions more powerful than a loaded weapon.

“Rhys, do you get it?”

He nodded, but he wasn’t sure and seemed a little disconcerted. I bent over, kissed his cheek, and walked out. Only then did I close my eyes. I sat down for a few seconds in one of the chairs further down the hall, near the elevators. I was exhausted. Seeing him had been almost too much to take. All those feelings I’d kept dormant, covered in dust, in the back of a drawer, had exploded into the air. I could feel them all returning as his eyes stared through me. And yet I wasn’t sure what they were. Joy? Bitterness? Insecurity? In that hospital bed, Rhys seemed like the same man as always, serene, his looks unchanged, but I wasn’t sure if he really was the same person who had written me for years, who had been my best friend, the guy I fell in and out of love with, who made everything shine brighter and then decided to destroy everything. The guy who, despite allthat, had meant enough to me that I hadn’t hesitated to catch a flight to Ibiza with a one-year-old child, even with everything it had involved. I hadn’t needed a second to decide. Nothing.

And that was scary too.

101

Rhys

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