Shelby looks me in the eye. “I was wrong to do that,” she says. “And you were wrong to do what you did.” She takes another deep breath, and I fumble for the right words to apologize.
“But honestly?” she says. “He’s been better than I’ve ever seen him since he met you. I never wrote about it, but he really struggled after his transplant—with a lot of things we didn’t know how to help him with. I wasn’t sure we’d ever get the old Colton back.” She smiles. “But then he met you, and it was like he came alive again. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen my brother as happy as he was when he was with you. So if there’s anything to blame you for, it’s that.”
Hot tears streak down my cheeks—happy and sad and grateful all at once.
Shelby smiles. “You were the first person he asked for when he woke up, and I didn’t want— I didn’t think it was a good idea for him to see you.” She takes my hand in hers and squeezes. “But he’s having a hard time right now, and I think he needs to see you, so it’s good you’re here. I can take you over there.”
I nod, still unable to speak through my tears. I felt like I knew Shelby from following her updates on Colton’s page, and then I thought I knew her better from the few times I met her, but in this moment I can see her for who she truly is: a caring, fiercely protective, kindhearted person who would do anything for her brother, including forgive me.
“Thank you,” I finally manage.
She squeezes my hand again. “Thank you, for finding my brother.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Bring your secrets, bring your scars . . .
Unpack your heart”
—Phillip Phillips, “Unpack Your Heart”
“GO AHEAD,” SHELBY says when I hesitate outside the door of Colton’s hospital room. “He’ll be happy to see you when he wakes up.” She hands me a bag, and the bunches of flowers and signs from the store. “Here. You can bring him these.”
I scoop it all into my arms. Wish I’d brought something of my own to give him.
“I’ll be in the reception room if you need me, okay?”
I nod, my heart in my throat. “Thank you.”
I watch as she walks down the hall, and when she turns the corner, it’s just me outside his door. I glance at the clipboard in the rack with the neon-yellow sticker that says Thomas, Colton, and the attached charts and scribbled notes that I don’t understand. Seeing his name like that makes it real, but that’s nothing compared to the second I step through the doorway and see him there in the hospital bed, so many tubes and monitors hooked up to him. It’s an image I’ve seen before, but it’s so different now that I know him. So much sharper.
I step closer.
His chest rises and falls at a slow, steady pace, and the beeping of the monitors is reassuring. I walk over to the one that looks like a TV, where a constant line spools out across the screen, jumping with each beat, visual proof that his heart is still working. I close my eyes and say a silent thank-you to Trent, and though the circumstances seem strange and incomprehensible, it feels right.
I know Colton wouldn’t like me to see him this way, and I don’t want to disturb him, so I just stand there at first, not knowing what to do. I think of all the things I want to say to him, all the truths I hope he hears, and the things I hope he feels too.
I set the bag on the floor next to the chair and put the vase of flowers on the side table as softly as I can. I watch the monitor. I watch him breathe. His hand hangs, just barely, off the side of the bed, and I want to reach out and take it in mine. Press it to my own heart so he can know what’s really there.
I stand next to the bed for a moment longer, then sit down in the chair to wait. Colton stirs at the sound. His eyes open just a crack, and then all the way when he sees me.
“You’re here,” he says. His voice is hoarse, weak, and I have to fight the urge to wrap my arms around him and kiss a thousand apologies over him.
“Hi,” I whisper, afraid to do anything more. I feel more bare in this moment than I did in the rain with him that afternoon.
He clears his throat and pulls himself up a bit. Winces, then reaches out his hand, and I’m there in a second, taking it in mine, and all the words I’ve been waiting to say come tumbling out, one right on top of another.
“I’m so sorry, for all of this, for everything. I just wanted to see who you were. I wasn’t even going to talk to you. But then you walked in, and everything changed. And when you showed up at my door with that flower, and took me out on the water, and in the cave, and . . . every day, you showed me so much, and it got harder and harder, and I just couldn’t . . .”
I pause, take in a shaky breath, don’t bother to wipe the tears sliding down my cheeks.
“I couldn’t tell you because I never expected to fall in love, but I did. With you. I did, and I am, and I know it was wrong how it happened and that you might not ever forgive me, but I—”
“Quinn, stop,” he says, his voice rough.
My hands fall at my sides, and I take a step back, terrified that none of what I just said matters. He doesn’t look at me. Just keeps his eyes focused on the empty space between us.
We’re silent for a long moment, one that’s made even longer by the beeping of the monitors and the gathering dread in my chest.
Finally, he looks at me, but his eyes are hard to read. “I don’t—” He stops. Takes a deep breath. “None of that matters to me.”
He looks away, and my heart falls.
“Not like you think. It did at first, when you told me. I didn’t know how to handle it, so I didn’t. I just reacted, because I hated that you were the one who wrote that letter.” He looks at me now, eyes full of regret, and I don’t know if I can take what’s coming next.
“But I’ve been lying here in this bed for the last three days, and all I’ve been thinking is how much more I hate it that I was the one you thought didn’t write back.”
“What?” I take a step toward him. “That doesn’t matter to me anymore, that was—”
“It does matter,” Colton says, “because I did write you back.”