He sucked in his breath and slowly released it. “Well, it was you and me. We um, we did stuff. Like, we did all this stuff-”
“We did stuff?” She giggled. “You are so adorable, Nick.”
“I think I’m just on really confusing drugs.”
She smiled again as she rubbed his chest. “You are. You can tell me about your dream later if you can remember it.”
“I don’t think I’d be able to forget it,” he admitted.
“Good because I want to hear all about the stuff we did,” she teased. “I hope it was better stuff than what we were actually doing in the canyon.”
He groaned quietly. “I’msosorry, Sammie. If I’d had any idea—”
“It’s fine,” she cut in. “It’s over now and we’re safe.”
He kissed the top of her head and squeezed her again. “Yeah.”
She turned her chin upward to look at his face, and he took the opportunity to kiss her lips.
“Sammie, I really need to tell you-”
“Shh,” she shushed him. “Enough of the apologizing. Try to sleep.”
The corners of his mouth tugged upward. “Yes, ma’am.”
And he did as he was told so she closed her eyes, too, focusing on the steady rhythm of his pulsing heart. Just like the terrifying night, only nothing was terrifying anymore.
It felt oddly right; curiously natural. So much like a strange, newly familiar home, that it only took mere moments for her to drift off as well.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nick
Nick was in and out. For a confusing, undetermined amount of time, it was a string of consciousness and unconsciousness.
During the consciousness—at least, he was pretty convinced at this point that it was consciousness—there were nurses, doctors, someone he had decided was the surgeon, and Sammie. The medical team spoke to him, asked him questions, poked and prodded him. He tried to pay attention and answer them. He’d mostly squint in confusion and then glance at Sammie, who’d respond on his behalf. Whatever they were discussing, he was sure she could handle it. After all, they’d spent a lifetime together.
Only they hadn’t. And that was one more thing he had to constantly remind himself of. That, combined with the heavy medication, was what caused him to drift back into unconsciousness.
During the unconsciousness, he went back to the alternate reality of his life with her. He’d go back to the good moments. The early days of dating; their time as newlyweds; her pregnancy; their long stretch as happy, empty-nesters.
It was the fact that he kept going back to these moments that cemented in his mind that none of it had actually happened, which resulted in a semi-depressing, loose grip on reality.
But not entirely depressing because he’d remind himself that in reality, they were still at the beginning. He still had the chance to live all of it with her. A second chance at life. So when he was rudely shaken away from his dream by a doctor or a nurse, he’d remind himself of that.
Until he realized he didn’t have a second chance yet. Reality remained that only days before, he’d been the worst person imaginable to her. Reality was that he’d lied to her from the moment he’d opened his mouth to speak to her the first time. Reality was that he’d hooked up with some other woman mere hours before picking up Sammie to take her somewhere for the sole purpose of fucking her and never calling her again afterward. Reality was that his selfish intentions had put her life in danger and nearly cost him his own.
And though he’d dreamed that he fessed up, he had a feeling when he did so in real life, it wouldn’t go over as well. Because, after all, in his dream she hadn’t been traumatized by spending a night alone in the wilds of a remote desert, without water, without food, without knowing when or if anyone would find them while believing she was going to die.
He wasn’t exactly in a good mental state to attempt to have the inevitable conversation, and that seemed to make it worse. As time continued to drag along in his fuzzy, drugged up haze, he realized she was taking on responsibilities and assuming the role of a seriously committed partner. Like a girlfriend; like a wife. Which would have been awesome, except for the unsavory pretense of his involvement with her that she still knew nothing about. And the longer he waited to fess up, the worse it made everything. Because in the midst of the drugs, the dull, aching pain of his injuries, and everything else he was experiencing, he felt like every word he managed to speak to her that didn’t include a confession was just one more lie.
He’d tell her eventually. He’d have to because he realized—despite the fact that their whole life together was just a dream—he needed her. He wanted that dream to be a reality. He didn’t want to be the person he was merely a week prior. He wanted to be different, and he wanted to be different with her. And that meant he had to come clean in a painfully honest fashion, even though it could potentially cost him everything he wanted so badly.
* * *
At some point, he spoke to his parents. His mom freaked out as he’d expected, and after another foggy stretch of consciousness and unconsciousness, he woke up to find her and his dad sitting in the room chatting with Sammie.
“Hey,” Nick mumbled, causing the three of them to turn their heads toward him. “When did you guys get here?”
