Page 117 of Free to Breathe
“Now open your eyes. There you are…”
* * *
“Corinna,baby. Please open your eyes. Bryan said you can. I need to see those beautiful eyes to know you’re okay. I need to know you’re with me.”
I can hear Colby through the soupy haze. I’m not sure what I’m on, but it’s like swimming in a foggy swamp to get to him.
But he’s doing what I knew only he could do.
He’s pulling me back from the abyss.
I try. I struggle to beat back the feeling of wooziness every time I get too close to the edge of reality. My brain is screaming at me to relax, but he’s asking for something so small in comparison to what I put him through today.
I manage to slit my eyes and part my lips.
It’s enough.
I’m finally enough.
He lets out a gush of air that I feel across my face. It’s quickly followed by dampness. I hope it isn’t an IV bag leaking.
“There you are.”
62
Epilogue
Corinna - one year later
There are three things in this life I love with a strength I would never have believed existed inside of me.
The dark, because it represents the closure of another day I’m here, blessed to be surrounded by the people I love who love me best.
The scar that bisects my hairline is a permanent reminder I’m standing here. Alive. Whole. Healthy. A year after my surgery, I hardly notice it unless I brush too hard. A minimal price to pay for the rest of my life.
And the thing I love the most with all my heart and soul is Colby Hunt. The man who never gave up on me, despite all the perceived roadblocks. He fought for me. For us.
Recovery wasn’t easy. I was an emotional yo-yo between purging the anesthesia from my system and my physical weakness. I was so out of it at the hospital, I didn’t remember any of my discharge instructions. Especially the ones about getting confused and distressed easily.
Thank God, Colby did.
The first night we were home, I panicked because I couldn’t remember where I put an old UConn hoodie he’d given me. It took a call to Ali to remember I’d packed it away long ago. The pain that settled in my heart when Ali told me was devastating to my befuddled mind. I gave myself a brutal headache from crying. It hurt so badly that I thought I might have to go back to the ER until the meds kicked in.
Colby held me through that first storm, reassuring me with soft words, all while he had someone run to his apartment to get one of his sweatshirts that smelled like him to slip over my heaving body.
Through the weeks that followed, Colby centered me. When I began to get restless halfway through my recovery, Colby carefully carried me into the field of wildflowers behind my house for a surprise picnic amid the fall foliage.
Colby arranged for me to call Brendan—something I’d forgotten to do prior to the surgery. I felt so bad that I’d forgotten all about Joey’s cupcakes. I figured Brendan would be pissed. He was, but for a completely different reason. “All this damned time, you were fightin’ for everyone else but yourself?” His fury was a living thing over the line.
“B, it wasn’t intentional. I just ran out of time,” I whispered helplessly. Colby rubbed my shoulders as I sat on FaceTime. Through the camera I saw Dani doing the same to Brendan.
Brendan ran his hands through his hair, visibly agitated, before freezing. “Wait. If you haven’t been working, who’s been sending the cupcakes?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Cori, they’ve been coming in every week like clockwork. Granted, Joey said they’re not as done up as usual, but I figured that was due to them just gettin’ dinged in the mail or something.”
Colby crouched down beside me so he could peer into the camera. “She was never supposed to know, Brendan.”
