“The truth is I gave my heart away a long time ago, my whole heart, and I never really got it back.”
—Sweet Home Alabama
Wes
I clenched my jaw and closed my eyes, trying my damnedest to function without breathing, because every time I took a breath, it felt like I was being kicked in the chest. The nurse gave me something for the pain before leaving to get my transfer paperwork going, but so far it wasn’t doing a thing.
And I needed to use the facilities.
Now, I knew if I hit the call button for help as per my nurse’s instructions, not only would that lady be holding my hand for the hallway stroll, but she’d also be joining me in the men’s room for the entire urinal visit. Yes, it was her job, but I just wasn’t in the mood for that kind of up-close-and-personal.
So I gritted my teeth and sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
I literally saw stars as the pain in my chest burned, and I put my hand on the spot in an attempt to absorb the pressure when I kept going, forcing my body into a standing position.
“Oh, holy shit,” I bit out, leaning down and putting both hands over the spot
as pain stabbed at me like a hot knife. I was still shocked the hit hadn’t shattered each and every one of my ribs, because it felt like that ball had been shot out of a cannon.
For a solid thirty seconds after I’d fallen down, I was terri1ed I was going into cardiac arrest because it’d been that hard to breathe. Thank God Ross had been there to talk me through it.
I was careful to be quiet as I slipped out of my room (hunched over and shuAing like a one-hundred-year-old man) and ducked into the restroom just across the hall. Everything hurt when I stood, but it was worse when I leaned down to wash my hands.
And then I thought about Liz, which made my heart ache, in addition to my chest.
Does she know? Does she care?
It was totally emo for me to think of that at this moment, but I couldn’t help it. It seemed I was destined to spend the rest of my life thinking about the girl who wasn’t sure if she wanted to think about me at all.
So when I came out and crossed the hall, I couldn’t quite believe my ears. It was her.
“—so just keep resting while I talk, okay?”
What the fuck? I thought as I heard her voice. Am I dead?
Because that sure as hell sounded like Libby.
I stepped into the doorway of my room, narrowed my eyes to a squint, and holy balls, yes, that was de1nitely Liz’s hair. Either I was dead and heaven was a hospital room, or she was standing there, talking to the privacy curtain that was pulled closed around my bed.
“I can’t wait another second to say this, Wes, so if you’re asleep, I’ll just repeat it all after you wake up.”
She thinks I’m in there. I knew I should tell her I wasn’t, that I was wide
awake and listening to her every word, but I didn’t want to interrupt.
I put a hand on the doorframe for support, suddenly able to ignore the pain in my chest.
“Last night, after we got picked up by the cop, I thought I was conAicted over
my feelings. This morning, too, I thought I was confused about everything. But I was such an idiot, Wes,” she said, and her voice was thick, like she was emotional. “Because when I saw you get hit and you were lying on the 1eld—”
Her voice cracked and she stopped, like she was trying to keep it together, which made me struggle to keep my shit together because fuck. Liz was here, in my hospital room, and it sure sounded like she hadn’t enjoyed me taking a line drive to the chest. That was a pretty low bar, I had to admit, but I held my breath and waited for more.
She’s here.
“When I saw you get hit, I realized there isn’t anything confusing about it at all. I love you. Of course I love you; you’re Wes. You are the only boy I’ve ever loved in my entire life. I think I’ve loved you—without stopping—since you set me on the trunk of my car after prom and kissed me at 12:13.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but this time it had nothing to do with baseballs slamming into my ribs. I put my 1st over my mouth to keep myself from speaking as I listened to her say what I’d daydreamed about her saying for nearly two years.
Hell, what I’d daydreamed about her saying for forever.
You are the only boy I’ve ever loved in my entire life.
It was killing me not to be able to see her face, but I was terri1ed that a word from me would make her—and this moment—disappear.
And I’d do anything to keep this moment from disappearing.
“So I don’t want to waste any more time trying to figure things out with us because they’re already 1gured out, right?” She took in a shaky breath and said, “There will never be anyone else for me—hard stop—so let’s get on with us. I want us to start immediately. Like, zero-to-sixty, let’s get to the good part where we’re back in a continuous text conversation about something stupid like raccoon memes.”
I opened my mouth to respond, because I desperately needed to look into those emerald eyes while her perfect mouth spoke those perfect words, but then I took a deep breath—shit shit shit that hurts—making it impossible to speak.
I put my hands over my ribs and clenched my teeth to keep from making a noise. But how could my chest hurt so much when my heart was 1nally fucking healed?
“And it’s incredibly ironic, by the way, that you used the lyrics from ‘Illicit APairs’ on me because I actually banished that song from my life, Wes. I did. I
deleted it after we broke up because two speci1c lines—the very two that you quoted—were so painfully perfect for us that they broke me every time I heard them.”
I tried swallowing, but my throat was too tight.
Of course I randomly quoted to her a pair of lyrics that she’d already associated with us.
The universe was in on it, the mastermind, I swear to God.
“Because I never stopped loving you, either,” she said, and I needed to cut her oP and force her to repeat that sentence. A hundred times, and then a thousand more.
I never stopped loving you.
She made a little laugh sound in the back of her throat and said, “Although technically, for the record, it probably started the day you 1xed my bloody nose with your shirt, not prom night, but we can 1gure that out later.”
That was it; I couldn’t stay silent another second.
Liz was here, Liz was mine, and one second more was one second too many.
My pulse was hammering, pounding in my ears as I said, “That’s total bullshit and you know it.”
