“How is she today?” he asked while I signed, and looking up, I noticed the woman’s expression change, her eyes a little sad.
“Always the same, sweetie,” she said, folding her hands. “But you’re welcome to see her as always. I’m sure it’d help to hear your voice.”
His… voice.
Knight said nothing, nodding at her before stepping away from me. The woman smiled super wide at me after that, and so confused about everything, I just smiled back since she was being kind. I truly had no idea what was going on here, but Knight definitely seemed to know this place. A few people acknowledged him along the way, both hospital staff and not. Patients knew him too, ones playing chess and others being wheeled around. These people knew him, and though he wasn’t much for words he knew them too, always passing them a few words in greeting before going about his way.
I kept up. “Knight…”
He turned as he pressed an elevator button, the frown hard on his face. “For once, can you not with yourself today?” The elevator door pinged open, and we both stepped inside. He tapped a button with his fist, then scrubbed in his dark hair. “Just not here. Not today.”
His gaze parted from mine, and I was truly left without words, the elevator ride as quick as it started. It pinged open again, and I followed his heavy strides down a hall not as active as downstairs, medicinal tones in the air. Downstairs definitely felt more like a nursing home with all the patients, but up here, a hospital through and through. I kept up as best I could, and when we got outside of the door, Knight stopped.
His eyes narrowed. “I just ask that you don’t be rude, okay?”
Why would I be rude? And who did he know here? He opened a door, and the sunlight from the room flooded in, a huge bed with a woman in the center of it.
I came inside and I saw her, raven-black hair down to her shoulders and with her eyes shut. They had her hooked up to all kinds of IVs, machines that pinged and beeped like she was some kind of science experiment. I followed Knight over to her bedside, and completely in her space, I was awed.
She was strikingly beautiful, like something in catalogs or on the silver screen. Her skin pale and features soft, the light in the room only brought out more of her beauty, and when I truly looked at her, she looked so familiar to me it wasn’t even funny. I’d seen her before.
Or at least her face.
It was so similar to Knight’s, soft where he was hard edged. This was especially noticeable when he came around the bed, hovered above her. He touched her face, his knuckles brushing her cheek.
“Knight?” I questioned, watching him watch her. The woman didn’t even move at being touched, no shift or jump or anything. She merely lay there, and when Knight sat down at her beside, the same. His eyes came up to meet mine, his expression hard and completely cold.
“This is my mother,” he said, and the gasp left my throat. “And as you can see she’s in a coma.”
Chapter Twelve
Greer
A coma… no way, but not only was Knight serious, but dead serious. He stared upon the woman, his hand cupping her shoulder. His touch swallowed her whole shoulder, that’s how small she was and big he was in comparison.
I shrunk slowly to a seat beside the bed, not wanting to make too much noise. I thought, illogically, that any sudden movements might shatter something. I dampened my lips. “What happened?”
He had… a mom? I mean, of course he had a mom. We all had one, but I never knew of his. When my mom and me had been living at his grandpa’s, it’d been just him and Knight, no one else. I assumed, as a child, I’d guessed something had happened to them, but I’d been so young I never bothered asking.
Knight’s knuckles brushed his mom’s shoulder this time, the breath easing heavy from his lungs. “She was in a car accident.” He sat back, his eyebrows narrowing. “Happened when I was real young. Before you and your mom came to live with Grandfather and me.”
That was well over ten years ago. I lowered my bag to the floor. “How long has she been in a coma?”
Dark lashes shifted left. “Twelve years.”
Holy fuck.
That was like half his life. My God, and looking up, I swallowed. “You were nine?”
“Yeah, the whole thing was not long after my dad died. He was in a riding accident mere months before it happened. It was fucked.”
Jesus. I faced the woman, her appearance nothing but a pleasant sleep. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t know, and Knight, he didn’t even look sad, more so used to all this. And maybe he was.
Half his life….
“It was a traumatic brain injury that put her in the coma,” he said, looking over at me. “Sound familiar with your class stuff?”
It did, one of my psych terms because of its connection to mental impairments. I wet my lips. “Do they think she’ll ever come out of it?”
I felt stupid the moment I said it, like putting that reality out there might make things worse for him instead of helping, and now, I knew why he told me not to be rude outside the room. This was a sensitive issue here, all this very sensitive and extremely personal. For whatever reason, he shared that with me and I didn’t understand.
He crossed his legs at the knee, mighty hands resting on his boot. “I used to wish for a long time she would.” He shook his head. “Wished it with all I had.”
