Page 65 of I Wish I Would've Warned You

If only you knew…

22

EMILY

Istare at Cole as he lies in the hospital bed for another night.

I have a feeling this was more thanjust a seizure, but the nurses never leave his charts in the room.

Swallowing, I move closer and slide my hand into his.

“I wish I’d gotten to you sooner,” I whisper. “I think their wedding is my fault…”

He remains still, only breathing.

“I feel like we were just starting to?—”

Tears prick at my eyes, and I can’t even finish the sentence.

I kiss his lips and leave before Matt or his father returns.

22A

COLE

Not really sure how much time has passed…

The oxygen tube feels like a leash, pinning me here beneath the weight of scratchy sheets and the stale tang of disinfectant. That smell hits first—bleach, latex, something sour beneath it all. Hospitals always smell like they’re trying too hard to scrub away the truth.

My eyes stay fixed on the ceiling. Pale gray. Cracked near the vent. The kind of detail I never used to notice until the last time I woke up in a place like this—slumped in a hospital bed after the DUI, my jaw bruised and hands trembling from what I hadn’t yet admitted.

He was there that night too. Same overpriced cologne, same tight-lipped expression that made him look like a disappointed father instead of one who was proud of him. He sat beside me with this calm, quiet grief, the kind that only appears when there’s an audience.

Now there’s no audience. Just him and me, and the hum of machines that won't stop.

He leans forward, elbows on his knees like we’re about to have a heart-to-heart.

“You gave us a scare, son,” he says, and the wordsonmakes something in me twist.

“You’re probably the last to know, but—” he says. “Heather and I are pushing up the wedding.”

My jaw tightens, useless against the tape and tubing.

“It’s going to be this summer at the estate, because life’s too short to wait.”

He says it like it’s noble. Like he’s just been through something tragic and come out enlightened. Like my seizure washisseizure.

I turn my head—slow, deliberate—until I’m staring directly at him.

His eyes light up like he thinks it’s affection.

“I knew you’d understand.”

Understand?I try to glare at him, but it hurts too much.

I want to tear the IV out of my arm and rip the mask off just to tell him how wrong he is. To tell him to get the hell out and send in Emily.

I want to feel her hand in mine. I want to hear her voice, the one that doesn’t change for a microphone.

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