“Elliot,” I said. “None of this feels real to me. I can’t be married to that man. I don’t even know him.”
Everyone stood back while nurses entered the room and cleaned up the mess I made from vomiting. I apologised over and over, but they assured me it wasn’t a big deal. Elliot took the empty seat to my right when everything was cleaned away, his eyes on the hand I had grabbed without thinking. With his free hand he was rubbing his fingertips over my knuckles, an action he did whenever he felt anxious. It made my heart clench.
His touch on my knuckles felt more intimate than ever, and it seemed touching me still helped to relax him. It comforted me to know that this hadn’t changed for Elliot even though we were no longer together and I was married to another man.
I found myself wondering if Elliot’s life had changed just as mine had.
“Elliot, why is another man saying he’s my husband? Why aren’t you my husband? I really don’t understand any of this. What happened to us?”
Before I got the last word out, the terrible ache spread across my head once again. I moaned and leaned back, covering my forehead with my free hand.
“Noah? Look at me, green eyes.”
I opened my eyes as my hand fell away from my face.
“Ye have a lot of questions, you’re scared and nothin’ is makin’ any sense to ye. I know, and I wish I could make it all better for you, but I can’t. Ye need to relax and stop puttin’ your brain through its paces. It’s workin’ overtime right now and ye need to give it a minute to get back into the swing of things.”
I sniffled as my eyes filled with tears.
“No.” Elliot swallowed as he brought his face to mine and wiped away the tears on my cheeks. I smelled whiskey on his breath. “I’m here. Don’t be scared, I’m right here.”
His closeness made my breath hitch.
“Don’t leave me,” I pleaded as I put a hand on the back of his neck. “Please, I need you so much.”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere, Nono. Go ahead and rest. I’ll be right here when ye wake up.”
“We’ll all be here, love,” Dad said, his tone firm.
“Promise, Dad?”
“Promise.”
The mention of rest had my eyelids suddenly feeling heavy and impossible to hold open. I tried my hardest to fight the seductive lure of sleep, but I was no match for it. Every bit of strength I had was drained from me. I let my eyes flutter shut with Elliot’s words falling with me into darkness.
“I’m never leavin’ ye again, green eyes. I don’t care what the hell happens. I’ve been apart from ye long enough, you’re my person. I’ll be fuckin’ damned if I let ye slip through me fingers again.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
ELLIOT
This was real.
I was sitting next to Noah Ainsley – Riley – and holding her soft, supple hand in mine as she slept with the morning sunlight shining on her beautiful face. She’d been asleep for almost ten hours and I couldn’t stop looking at her for fear that she’d suddenly up and disappear into thin air. I’d had dreams like this, ones that felt so vivid and lifelike that I wanted to sleep forever to stay in the moment where it was just me and her, like old times. This wasn’t a dream though – somehow it was my reality. I couldn’t stop staring at her. I noticed things that I remembered about her and things that I didn’t.
Her golden-blonde hair was cut up to her shoulders and no longer hung in waves down the length of her back. It was buzzed on the left side of her head, close to her ear to allow her wound to be cleaned and stitched closed. Her thick, fair eyebrows were as I had always known them, but a small, straight scar cut through the right one leaving a tiny gap between the hairs. I wondered how she’d got that scar.
She had a dusting of red and pink little dots and lines on her face. I remembered her having cuts on her face that night in the car; they had since scabbed over and healed, leaving behind little reminders that would eventually fade to white.
Her fair skin looked dull, and I wasn’t sure if it had looked like that before her accident or because of the accident. The main thing I noticed about her was that she had gained weight. Noah had always been tiny to me; she stood at five foot ten but had always been slim. I often teased her that the only curves she had were when she bent over. I hadn’t seen her in person in years, so I wasn’t sure when her body had made this change. I’d spotted her now and again for fleeting moments – when I was in Tesco, or driving down the motorway as I passed her and her husband’s car – but never close like this.
“Are you okay, Elliot?”
I looked up at Mr Ainsley and my stomach clenched.
I’d known him over a decade and to see him at the place he was at in life hurt me. I visited them often because not long after I’d lost Noah, they lost her too. Anderson Riley was Noah’s husband, and though I had no proof, I knew he was the reason she’d turned her back on her family after they got together. That miserable bastard took my heart from me and I hated him for it, but I knew what I hated most was the fact that I’d pushed her into his open arms.
I forced him from my mind.
“Honestly, sir, no,” I answered on a sigh. “I’m hurtin’ for her, she’s so scared and confused. I honestly don’t know what I can do for her and I’m worried about it.”
“For now,
