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  There’s walking with Ellie hand in hand through the woods in Maine. The smell of falling leaves drenched in November rain. Her fingers were freezing, looking for warmth in mine. Things changed for us that night. Life came at us at full force and tried to knock us off our course. But it didn’t.

  What else do I remember? The way her hair smells of lavender, and hope, and summer. When she smiles at me, I know that nothing bad can ever happen and even if it does, we will be okay, no matter what. Like now? Right? She’s not standing far away from me, but I can’t reach her. She’s crying and she can’t stop. She’s choking on her tears. They’re coming faster and faster. She can barely keep up. I want to touch her. Put my arm around her. Tell her that it’s all going to be okay. But there’s a thick curtain separating us. It’s not real; it’s all in my head. Or maybe it’s not. I don’t really know.

  “Ellie!” I try again. “Ellie!”

  I yell her name over and over until my throat is parched and dry. But she can’t hear me. No one can. I’m all alone. Unreachable.

  Chapter 4 - Ellie

  When everything’s not okay…

  Everything is supposed to be okay. Blake is gone and I’m okay. Badly shaken and somewhat hurt, but not really with any scars that will last too long. And yet, everything is wrong. Aiden is here, alive, but not really. I see him lying in the hospital bed and he’s not really present. He’s breathing. It looks like he’s sleeping, but he is far away from me. The doctors don’t know what’s wrong. They have put him into a medically-induced coma. They are debating as to when they should take him out. The older doctor thinks that the sooner they take him out, the better. The younger ones aren’t so sure. They think his body needs time to rest. Recover. None of them know what he will be like when they eventually take him out. I can see fear in their eyes. They aren’t saying it, but they are huddling around, whispering. They don’t want to tell me the truth. My heart is sinking. I wait and wait and as more and more time passes, the less hope I have.

  “Everything’s going to be okay now, honey,” I whisper with tears running down my face. I’m holding his hand. I can feel him here with me. His body is frail. His face is alabaster white. His long eyelashes and hair have lost their luster. His skin is dry in patches and I apply moisturizer, but it doesn’t do much. The harshness of the hospital lights makes everything worse. More bleak.

  I tell Aiden that everything’s going to be okay over and over again until I believe it myself.

  “Ellie.” Brie comes over and puts her hand on mine. I look up at her.

  “You’ve been sitting here all day. Maybe you should get out. Get some fresh air.”

  I shrug. Maybe, but that’s not exactly what I want to do. I shake my head.

  “No, I can’t. I want to stay here. With him.”

  “I know you do, but he’s…asleep.”

  That’s an unusual turn of phrase. Neither of us wants to say that Aiden is in a coma. It sounds so medical. So surreal. Unreal. Like something that only happens in fictional stories. This is real life. Real people don’t go into comas, right? They aren’t put into comas, right? Wrong. Of course.

  I look at Aiden. He looks tired and worn out and asleep. But then…a movement!

  “Oh my God!” I say, grabbing Brie’s hand. “Oh my God! He’s moving!”

  I press the call button on his bed. “He’s moving, Brie! He’s moving!”

  Brie leans over me. We both watch his face. His eyes are moving under his eyelids. His fingers give mine a squeeze. One squeeze. Then another and another.

  “Aiden, Aiden. Can you hear me?” I whisper, wiping the tears running down the outside of my cheek.

  “You’re going to be okay, honey. I’m here for you.” I press the call button over and over again. “Where’s the nurse? Why isn’t she coming?”

  “I’m going to go find one,” Brie says, running out of the room. When she returns a few minutes later, she brings not only the nurse, but also two students and one of Aiden’s younger doctors. Dr. Briggs.

  I move out of the way as they hover around Aiden’s bed. They take his vitals and check the equipment.

  “What’s happening?” I ask eagerly. My heartbeat is going so fast, it feels like my heart is about to burst out of my chest. I clench my fists in anticipation. The jagged edges of my nails dig into the palms of my hands.

  “I’m sorry, Ellie,” Dr. Briggs says after a moment with a sullen expression on her face. She’s not meeting my gaze, casting her eyes at the floor instead. “What you saw there is something that is pretty common in coma patients. They look like they’re waking up, but in fact it’s just an involuntary reaction. They are alive and their neurons are just firing, making them have these movements.”

  “No, no, no.” I shake my head. More tears flow down my face, only these are tears of anger and sadness instead of hope. Brie wraps her arms around me. Dr. Briggs continues to talk, to explain more and more about Aiden’s condition. But she’s not so much talking to me as to the nurse and the students. I can’t bear to listen. I bury my head in Brie’s arms and cry.

  When I finally come up for air, everyone is gone. It’s just Brie, Aiden, and me once again.

  “I’m going to get some coffee,” she says. “Are you going to be okay?”

  I nod and ask her to bring me a cup of hot tea.

  “I love you, Aiden,” I say when we are all alone. “I’m going to be here no matter what. Until you come out of this coma.”

  His eyelids move again, giving me only a glimmer of hope. At least, he’s still alive. At least, he’s still there.

  “Come back to me, Aiden,” I whisper. “Come back to me.”

  Hours pass and darkness falls. I don’t even bother looking at the time anymore. Brie goes home, but I stay. I pull the chair closer to Aiden’s bed and recline. It technically unfolds into something resembling a couch, but I don’t have the energy to deal with it. Instead, I curl up and watch something stupid on my phone. When my eyes grow tired, I put on an audiobook. Outlander. The narrator’s soothing voice with the beautiful English accent lulls me into a state of serenity. The faraway land with all of its foreign conventions and old fashioned traditions allows me to drift away, escape from reality.

  I see him. His cocky grin. His unforgiving eyes. He’s trying to grab for my knife. He’s overpowering me. He’s stronger than I am; I feel my life slipping away. Everything flashes before my eyes. My parents playing with me in a baby pool. Walking down the aisle at my mom’s wedding. Visiting my dad at his house and watching game shows silently in the dark. Standing before everyone at the auction. Feeling Aiden’s gaze on me. Feeling his warm body next to mine. Watching him reach the heights of ecstasy as he plunges deep inside of me. Then, there’s Blake again. He’s on top of me, overpowering me. I kick his gun away. He slams my hand onto the counter. Shooting pains run up and down my arm. And then, he wraps his strong hands around my neck. Choking me. I can’t breathe. My arms flail around, looking for a way out. Darkness is descending and all I see is Aiden before me, asking me to marry him.

  No, no, no, I hear myself yelling. Light is disappearing around me, but I have to fight on. I have to prevail. My breaths are becoming more arduous. I keep trying to inhale but no air gets in. I’m wheezing as Blake’s hands get a firmer grip around my throat. My eyes start to feel like they’re about to bulge out of my head. Everything starts to feel fuzzy and far away. My life is slowly draining out of me. But my fingers continue their search. There has to be a way out of this. Finally, I stumble upon a possibility. Something smooth, but hard, also long. I wrap the fingers of my right hand firmly around the object and, with one swift motion, bring it up to his face. I plunge it into his neck. Warm blood rushes out, covering my face. And finally, his strong grip around my neck relaxes. But I don’t give up. I don’t have another chance. I wrap my fingers even tighter around the object. It’s slippery now and I feel like I’m about to lose it. This time around, I plunge it even deeper. Blood splatters everywhere and he f
alls to the floor. Gasping for breath, I wake up.

  Chapter 5 - Ellie

  When she shows up…

  Two days later, nothing much is different. The doctors come around, check on his progress, note that he’s not really making any, and leave. Nurses and nursing assistants come around to check on his vitals and write down what the printouts from all the beeping monitors say. Brie stays with me until she gets bored and then wanders around the hallways looking for something to do. But I stay put. I don’t really know what else to do. I don’t want to go home. It’s still a crime scene. And I’m afraid of being there. I can’t go to my mom’s house. It’s too far and too sad. So, instead, I park myself in his room and wait. And wait. And then I wait some more.

  A detective comes to speak to me about what happened with Blake. He listens, scribbles notes down in his little book, then comes back later that day with more questions. The neighbors corroborate my story. So far, they are not interested in pressing charges. But they will be doing more investigating.

  “You can go back home,” he says when he’s about to leave. “It’s no longer an active crime scene.”

  I nod as if any of that makes sense. My home - an active crime scene. I don’t want to go back, so Brie goes alone. She comes back with my laptop, a notebook, and some clothes. I look through the stuff she had brought. There’s a pair of jeans, but that seems to be too ambitious of an undertaking. Luckily, there are also two pairs of yoga pants and some loose-fitting t-shirts and a hoodie. Perfect. I won’t need anything else. Except maybe some makeup so I don’t look like I’m half-dead. That’s a bad joke to make in a hospital. I know that. So, I keep it to myself.

  When Brie goes out to the movies, I sit down next to Aiden and open my laptop. I need to write. When I have no energy at all, I listen to audiobooks to escape. When I have some energy, but not enough to sustain myself entirely, I read to escape. But right now, I feel a ball forming in the pit of my stomach. It’s an energy that needs to be expelled, one way or another. The best way to get rid of it is to write. I open a blank document and start typing. It starts with an emotion. I describe how much I hate Blake and how much I love Aiden. But these words quickly morph into a story. I type until my fingers start to ache and my wrists develop a dull shooting pain going back to my elbows. I’ve always been susceptible to carpal tunnel, but typically it takes longer than just a few thousand words for it to feel this bad.

  I shake my head as I close my laptop. It’s Blake’s fault. Yet another thing that he has caused. Fuck him!

  “Excuse me,” an unfamiliar female voice says. I look up and see a woman with dark hair, which is cut bluntly at the shoulders. She has high cheekbones and tired eyes. I’ve never met her before, but the resemblance is uncanny.

  “Oh, Aiden.” She runs over and grabs his hand. I get out of my chair to make room. Tears run down her cheeks as she kisses his hand over and over again. Suddenly, I start to feel queasy again. The nausea is far from gone, even though the medication is helping. But anytime I feel at all upset, or over-stimulated, I start to feel nauseated again. I move over to the sofa and sit down.

  “I’m so sorry,” she mumbles, half looking over at me, but mostly touching Aiden as if she’s making sure that he’s real.

  It takes her a few minutes to fully gather herself. When she finally does, she looks over at me. Her cheeks are still wet and her lips are puffy from the avalanche of tears.

  “Hi, I’m Ellie,” I whisper, extending my hand. She pulls me close to her, giving me a big warm hug. I exhale deeply, letting myself relax into her.

  “Hi, sweetie,” she says. “I’m Arlene Black, Aiden’s mother.”

  The last bit isn’t necessary. Anyone who knows Aiden would know that she’s his mother immediately. They have the same far-off stare, the same large eyes, and chiseled jaw. That’s not to imply that she is at all manly. No, she’s actually quite feminine.

  “I’m so sorry that we have to meet under these circumstances,” she says, sitting down next to me. I don’t know what I was expecting, but Arlene Black is quite ordinary. She’s average weight and height and she’s dressed in a casual pair of black pants, boots, and a white blouse. I try to remember what Aiden said she did for a living, but nothing comes to mind.

  “Did you talk to the doctors, Mrs. Black?” I ask.

  “Oh, please, call me Arlene,” she says. “Yes, I did. Do you think they know what they’re doing?”

  I shrug. “I have no idea.”

  “I’m going to look into this a little more once I get a hold of myself a bit. I just found out.”

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t call you. It’s just that…I didn’t know any of your information.”

  The truth is that it hadn’t really occurred to me to call her. Aiden mentioned her only once to me. But I also would have no clue as to how to go about trying to find her. I was too wrapped up in my own grief to give calling his relatives and letting them know about this any thought.

  “The police reached out to me. They said that Blake attacked him.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve always had a bad feeling about him. Even when they were first getting friendly at Yale,” Arlene says, shaking her head.

  I doubt that it was that obvious, but we all have to say things to ourselves to make us feel better.

  “He attacked you as well?”

  I nod. That word, attacked, sends shivers through my body. Suddenly, a flashback. I see Blake’s face before me. I try to breathe but choke up.

  “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to…” her voice trails off as she hands me a cup of water. As soon as an ice cube touches the tip of my tongue, the memory of Blake vanishes and I find myself back in the hospital room.

  “No, I’m sorry. It’s all very…fresh, still.”

  She nods and sits back down next to Aiden. I make myself comfortable next to her. Neither of us speak for some time. The silence is comforting actually. I let my thoughts drift and, for a while, I hear nothing but the beeping of the machines.

  “So, how did you two meet?”

  Chapter 6 - Ellie

  When we get to know each other…

  With that one question, Arlene shatters the quiet and brings me back to reality. How did we meet? Well, actually, I auctioned myself off to the highest bidder at a private auction that your son hosted on his yacht. He ended up paying the highest price and then he did bad things to me. Really bad things that I really loved. This is not exactly the kind of truth that a mother wants to hear. I want to lie. But I can’t. What if she knows the truth? Our relationship hasn’t exactly been kept out of the gossip papers.

  “We met on his yacht,” I say. It’s not a lie, but it’s not exactly the whole truth either.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Arlene asks. I nod and smile.

  “It’s still hard to believe that my son can afford something like that. He didn’t exactly grow up in the lap of luxury.”

  “Very few people are as wealthy as he is,” I say after a moment. “You must be very proud.”

  She shrugs. “I always wanted him to pursue his passion, but I never cared much about money. He gets that from his father.”

  “What does his father do?” I ask.

  “He’s a sanitation worker. Garbage man.”

  “Oh, okay.” I nod.

  Sensing that I’m somewhat confused by her statements, she explains. “Dean, my husband, was…is…a dreamer. He worked in sanitation all of his life but that didn’t stop him from thinking up a million different ways to make money. When he isn’t drinking, he’s scheming. There’s always that perfect business idea just around the corner.”

  I don’t really know how to respond to this except to nod along.

  “Aiden is a lot like Dean. When he was a kid, he was always starting businesses. A lemonade stand. A snow removal business, even though he didn’t even own a shovel. He borrowed ours, broke it, and then got a loan from one of his customers to buy another one. The difference between
Aiden and his father is that he has dedication and follow through. And a good, very good, work ethic.”

  “Yeah, Aiden is a hard worker.”

  “Dean and I are going through a divorce. I don’t know if Aiden told you. We have been separated for years.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  In fact, come to think of it, Aiden has told me very little about his family. Up until this moment, I didn’t even know what his mom’s name was.

  “I’m sorry about that,” I add.

  “Don’t be. Dean and I have had a very complicated relationship for many years. He’s an alcoholic, you know.”

  I nod. No, I didn’t know. And I don’t really know how to respond to this statement either. I have never met Aiden’s dad and have nothing really to contribute to the conversation except for more questions.

  “So, Aiden said he grew up in Boston?”

  “Yep, Waltham. It’s not too far from there.”

  “So, what did you do for a living?” I ask. Oh, shit. That’s a loaded question. What if she was a homemaker? I didn’t mean to make her feel bad.

  “Did? I still do. I’m a nurse.”

  “Oh, okay.” I let out a sigh of relief. “I just thought since Aiden is so…wealthy that you wouldn’t have to work anymore.”

  “I don’t, but I enjoy what I do. I worked as a nurse for many years. I no longer work at a hospital, but I can’t very well just sit around all day like Dean drinking myself to death. I teach nursing now.”

  “Oh, that’s interesting.”

  Brie can’t come back soon enough. I’m growing exhausted talking to her and I still feel quite queasy. Suddenly, I feel so sick to my stomach that I have to excuse myself and run to the bathroom.