Page 19 of Finally Forever
I nod. Duh. I’m all out of sorts.
“Now…about dinner,” he prompts. “I can bring you food or I can stay here while you go to the cafeteria.”
“I don’t want to leave him,” I blurt.
He makes a small grin. “I figured. What can I bring you?”
I shrug. “Soup, salad, a cheese crepe? I don’t know what they have in French hospitals. Whatever you think I’ll like, I guess.”
He nods and leaves the room.
I sink back onto the chair and sigh, my hand going right to Sebastian’s. “I’m so sorry you’re here and this has happened to you. I’m so sorry. I love you so much. I want you to get better so we can spend the rest of our lives together.”
My gaze locks on my ring and the memory of when he asked me to marry him resurfaces. I smile, even as tears burn my eyes, and pray for him to be healed.
8
Sebastian
Distant voices fill my head. Someone keeps calling my name, her tone desperate and filled with emotions. The sweet yet raspy sounding voice is unfamiliar. None of the voices are recognizable.
For the fifth—sixth?—time I try to open my eyes, but my lids are as heavy as rocks, and my muscles are uncooperative.
Collective gasps sound. That sweet voice says, “Look at his eyelids. They’re fluttering.”
A warm hand touches mine. “Sebastian? Can you hear me? Open your eyes for me. You can do it. I know you can.”
By the tone of her voice, I can tell she’s emotionally invested in this—in me waking up.
I try again to open my eyes just to see the face attached to this sweet-sounding woman.
The act feels as if I’m buried under bags of sand and trying to push them off every inch of my body.
Gentle lips kiss my forehead and then the top of my hand. “Come on, Sebastian. Come back to me.”
Finally, my eyelids cooperate. I squint against the light that seems unusually bright. Everything is blurry. It takes several blinks for my vision to clear. The whole time, this sweet voice chants, “That’s right. You can do it. Keep doing it.”
As unfamiliar as this voice is, I feel an attachment to it, as if this person has been with me through whatever this is.
I want to open my eyes for her, knowing it will make all the difference, which makes no sense.
Slowly, I force my lids open. It takes several blinks for my blurry vision to clear. Four people surround me. A nurse and doctor, evident by their clothing. A petite young woman with a mass of blonde wavy hair and the biggest green eyes I’ve ever seen. And a tall black man who could rival Dwayne Johnson.
The blonde beauty exhales and tears spill from those light green eyes. “Oh, thank God. Thank God.” She glances to the ceiling and hugs the black man, his size dwarfing her.
He hugs her back, although it’s not in a romantic way. These two are friends, nothing more, it seems. The doctor introduces himself and asks me basic questions.
How many fingers am I holding up?
How do I feel?
Does any part of me hurt?
I answer as best as I can, my voice scratchy and unfamiliar to me. My throat aches when I speak, and I’m dying for water. Apart from that, a slight feeling of disconnect to my body, and a stabbing ache in the back of my head, I feel fine.
“Your throat is sore and dry from the ventilator. It’s a normal side effect and will subside quickly,” the doctor says with a French accent. “We can give you some medication to help and the nurse will start you with ice chips to relieve your discomfort. Later today, you can sip water. By tomorrow, you will be much improved.”
They raise the head of my bed and test my reflexes.
