Page 3 of Was I Ever Here

But this time I knew speaking his name was pointless. He was gone. Swallowed up by the water.

And I had done nothing but watch him die.

“Byzantine?”

My eyes shutter open, peering over to the voice coming from the corner of the room. The man sitting in the chair scoots to the edge, relief written all over his face. His straight black hair hangs disheveled over the shaved sides, his tattooed hand swiping over his tight square jaw, black eyes creased with worry despite the relief.

I blink once. And then again. I know him. His presence is familiar but my brain is slow in coughing up the important pieces of his identity.

Instead, my thoughts are full of Gabriel. His name still a whisper on my parched tongue. The memory of his death still so fresh at the edge of my mind.

What the fuck is going on?

These recollections feel like prayers, spoken in tongues only my soul can recognize. Faces from long ago—lifetimes even—flash in my head in quick succession. So many faces. So many names. But somehow…they all belong to the same soul.

Why is this so confusing?

What the hell am I doing back here?

I was far away from here only moments ago. At least that’s how it feels. But now, nothing is making sense.

I squeeze my eyelids shut, my chest hurting, while I try to sort out my current reality. All these memories are baffling but theyfeelreal. As real as the face staring down at me when I find his gaze again.

He paces near the foot of the hospital bed, then stops, fingers curled in tight fists, staring at me. “Can you hear me, brother? It’s me, Connor.”

Connor? I latch on to the sound of his voice. It anchors me while everything else in my head is making me feel fucking crazy. His name brings back hazy impressions of our friendship and years spent working side by side.

I steady my breath and realize in sudden clarity how much it burns to fill up my lungs. I try to swallow through the pain and nearly choke on the agony. My lips part to speak, but Connor cuts me off. “The doctors say you shouldn’t try speaking, your wound is too fresh. You’ve been out for a few days…”

Wound? I lick my chapped lips, hardly able to swivel my head towards him. I cough but it comes out more like a throaty whine. I pull my trembling hand up to my neck, feeling the thick gauze tight around my throat. Questions lodged in my unsteady gaze.

“Your throat was slit,” Connor explains, turning away from the bed, looking ready to punch through the hospital wall, his body wound tight. “It was Davis. The piece of shit ran with the money from the job, leaving you to die…you were near unconscious when I found you. You bled out in my hands Byzantine…” Connor trails off, glaring down like he can still see my blood painting his palms red. I hear the fear in the lilt of his words although he tries to hide it. All the while, I struggle to process what the hell happened to me. “You fuckingdiedin my arms,” he adds, his icy stare holding back the pain he seems unwilling to speak out loud.

I’m trying to keep my expression blank but his words are digging into me like a shovel into soft dirt. They’re threatening to uncover a memory I’m not prepared to face.

Of how I looked death in the face and saidshow me.

Show me what I have forgotten. Show me what I’ve unknowingly been searching for all these years.

“I don’t know how you survived. The doctors had to jumpstart your heart. You were fuckinggone.”

I’m overwhelmed. I can’t make out one thing from the other, his voice grating at my senses. Like a tidal wave, memories, faces and places continue to pound over me and I can’t catch my breath.

I fucking died?

Chapter 1

Sunny

Five years later

Iwakeupcrying.Gasping. Hand to my neck, my throat convulsing like I was suffocating only moments before. My body’s drenched in sweat, wavy hair matted down my back, the loose shirt I wore to bed sticking to my rising chest. The sheets are tangled around my legs, and I wrestle with them in haste, kicking them off my heated body. I sit up, still heaving, my head resting heavily in my palms.

That damn dream again.

I was near the roaring sea. On the edge of a cliff so high I could hardly see the water below. I remember the wind whipping into my eyes, angry and cold.

But oddly, it also felt very still. A dream on mute.

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