Page 10 of Every Chance After

His words mesh with Mom’s, and my internal light blinks before going dark.

CHAPTERTHREE

Grady

The nurse stopsme from entering through the wide double doors leading to the surgical department. Marina’s hand slips from mine like warm water.

“Are you family?” the nurse asks, drawing my eyes away from the glass slits in the doors as Marina’s red hair vanishes around a corner. The nurse wears a headband with extended springing hearts—an annoying nod to Valentine’s Day.

“Yes,” I lie, knowing how this works.

The petite brunette reaches out in a consoling gesture, but seeing my dirty, blood-covered arm, rethinks it. “Come with me. You should clean up and start her paperwork.”

She leads me through nondescript corridors and stations, all typical of hospital decor, bland and sterile. But flashes of red from Valentine’s gifts catch my attention everywhere. Roses. Carnations. Balloons. It’s weird, mixing celebratory tokens with sick and injured people. But itisa workplace.

It reminds me of how awkward it feels to lead clients into the clinic’s cheery waiting room after losing a pet. But Aunt Elena always smiles and offers consoling words for them, a kind distraction.

The nurse pushes me into a unisex bathroom. “You’ll want to look presentable when she wakes up,” she says, closing the door.

I hold my bloody hands out in front of me. They’re shaking… fucking shaking as adrenaline pulses through me. I move in front of the mirror and turn the water on. Running my hands and arms through the stream makes pink swirls in the drain.Herblood.

As it washes off me, tears run down my cheeks that I caused this, that I hurt her. Dealing with life’s inevitable agonies is one thing.Sometimes nothing can be done.ButIdid this. She could die because of me. Two other times in my life, I’ve felt this scared about losing someone, but I’ve never felt this overwhelming misery over what I’ve done.

God, please let her be okay.

Please, save her. I’ll do anything.

Marina, please be okay.

I’ve only prayed a handful of times—I don’t know what good it does. But I have to do something. The last time I prayed was a week after I returned home when I found my father having a heart attack in the barn. He survived, barely.

That was bad. This is worse.

With Marina on a stainless steel table, undergoing surgery, it’s like my heart’s being ripped from my chest. I’m open, exposed, gutted. I don’t even know this woman. And yet, her life suddenly matters more to me than anything.

I can’t lose her. Not because of my Godzilla-sized guilt, wreaking its havoc over my mental city—that’ll exist regardless. But simply because she doesn’t deserve to be lost. Not to my stupidity. Not to some twist of fate or unconscionable bad luck. And certainly not on a day when all her dreams were meant to come true.

Goddamnit!

Hot steam rising and dancing across the mirror, I lean against the porcelain sink, staring at my reflection. I look like shit. My eyes are shaded from lack of sleep, cheeks drawn in, like old, weather-beaten skin stretched tightly over my skull with nothing in between. Grime from horse stalls wedges under my fingernails, and dark blood stains my coveralls, mostly hers. My forehead and neck are smeared with muck, and my hair looks darker from embedded field dust.

With trembling hands, I wash my face, neck, head, everything. The nurse with the ridiculous headgear is right—I don’t want her to see me like this when she wakes.

If she wakes.

If she wants to see me.

If I’ll have the courage to see her.

All these ifs.

A stern knock breaks my thoughts. “Occupied,” I bark.

“I have some clean clothes, if you want them.”

A glance at my grungy, blood-stained coveralls confirms this is a good idea. Though ideal for tending to livestock on a farm, my dark blue and thick, mechanics-style work garb doesn’t fit here, and the smell radiates from me in this small room—a pungent mix of horse sweat, hay, and manure.

I open the door and accept her generous offering with a calmer “Thanks.”

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