Page 42 of Chaos
I follow him back to the room where Jace lies unmoving on the bed, tubes and wires connecting him to various machines. The ventilator makes a rhythmic whooshing sound as it forces air into his lungs. His skin is ashen, and there are dark circles beneath his closed eyes.
I approach cautiously, as if afraid to wake him, though I know the sedation will keep him under. My fingers trace the tattoo on his forearm, then follow the line of his jaw, now slack.
“Keep fighting,” I repeat the words Grams always said to me. “As long as you keep fighting, hope remains.”
I press a gentle kiss to his forehead, lingering there, breathing him in.
"I'll be right here,” I promise. "I'm not going anywhere."
And I don’t.
The first night is the hardest. Every slight change in the monitors sends me scrambling. But I refuse to leave his side.
Doc, somewhat reluctantly, teaches me how to monitor vitals, check a chest tube, and recognize warning signs.
On the second day, Doc removes the ventilator, letting Jace breathe on his own. His color improves slightly, though he remains unconscious.
Club members drift in and out, paying their respects to their fallen president, offering awkward words of support to me. Mama Pat forces me to eat, standing over me until I swallow enough to satisfy her.
"Talk to him," Doc suggests when he catches me staring silently at Jace's face. "He might hear you even if he can't respond."
So I talk. I tell him about my childhood, about Grams, about my dreams of becoming a pharmacist. I read aloud from my textbooks, explaining pharmaceutical concepts I'm not even sure I understand myself. I read motorcycle magazines left by the brothers.
And in the quiet hours of night, when it's just the two of us, I whisper my fears. How terrified I am of losing him. How completely he's changed my life in just over a week. How desperately I need him to wake up. How much I love him.
On the third night, delirious from exhaustion, I’m curled up in the chair beside his bed, my hand resting on his arm, when a touch on my hair wakes me. Gentle fingers stroking, tentative and weak.
My eyes fly open.
Jace stares back at me, his gaze hazy with pain but unmistakably aware. Conscious.
"Jace?" I breathe, afraid I'm hallucinating.
His lips move, forming words without sound. I lean closer.
"Sweet...heart." His voice is a raspy whisper, damaged from the intubation.
Joy explodes through me so forcefully that I can barely breathe. "You're awake. Oh my god, you're awake."
I reach for the call button, but his hand weakly catches mine.
"Wait," he croaks. "Just...a minute."
I freeze, torn between the need to summon Doc and the desire to savor this moment alone with him.
"You..." he swallows painfully. "You said...you love me."
Heat floods my cheeks. "You heard that?"
A ghost of his usual cocky grin touches his lips. "Say it...again."
Tears blur my vision as I lean forward, pressing my forehead gently to his. "I love you, Jace Harlow. I love you so much it terrifies me."
His hand, weak but determined, cups the back of my neck. "Love…you...too. More than...anything."
Those words, rasped out through damaged vocal cords, are the most beautiful words I've ever heard.
Epilogue: Rowan
