Page 20 of Through the Snow Globe
She clutched her chest, struggling to pull in a full breath. “Did you . . . did you wake up last night? Did they discharge you?”
Linus’s dark brown hair was sticking up in various directions, overgrown and in need of a cut. The elf ears she’d put on him last night were gone. He must have taken them off when he’d climbed out of bed. How was he standing? Walking? He hadn’t used those muscles in weeks. She’d made sure he was getting stretched, but there was no way that being on his feet for so long wouldn’t be pushing the outer limits of his endurance. “You need to get back in bed. What if you fall and hit your head a second time?” She could lose him all over again.
“A second time? Why are you acting like this? Did you have a bad dream or something?”
The last three weeks had felt like one big nightmare. But it had all been real. “Didn’t they tell you? Linus, you were in a coma.” She stepped toward him. “Why didn’t New Hope call and let me know you were awake? Do your parents know? Are you feeling okay?” Her questions came in quick succession.
“A coma?” Linus chuckled wryly. He was still looking at her like she was talking gibberish. “Wow, that must have been some dream you were having. Maybe you dreamed about something happening to me because I kind of agreed with your patient about you being an Elsa last night.”
“An Elsa?”
Linus cringed. “Please forgive me?”
“Forgive you?”
“Why are you repeating everything I say?” He shook his head. It was surreal to even see him move, to hear his voice. “I’m a bit worried about you. Perhapsyou’rethe one who hit your head?” He stepped closer, his eyes searching hers. It’d been three weeks since she’d looked into those blue-gray eyes, the color of the ocean in a thunderstorm.
Diana reached for him, bracing his body between both of her hands. “No. You hit your head. In the accident. You fell off your bike.” Her gaze jumped to the side of his head where there should have been a nasty scar. It wasn’t there. Instead, the skin was smooth and perfect.
One corner of Linus’s mouth hooked up. He looked slightly amused. “I haven’t taken a spill from my bike since I was six. Last night, I came home and we had a bit of a squabble,” he said, calmly. Patiently. “I mean, there’s no real fighting with you, is there? You just shut down and go to bed. Maybe if you’d taken a moment to yell at me, you would have had a more restful sleep.”
Diana knew the night he was referring to. How could she forget? She’d been replaying it in her mind and making herself miserable, ever since. “You suggested we get married this Christmas,” she said quietly.
Linus nodded. “It was just a thought. I’m not trying to force things along. I’m just excited about marrying you, that’s all. I wish you were as excited as me.”
Guilt swirled at the center of her chest. “That discussion was . . . weeks ago. Is this some kind of Christmas miracle?” she asked, still looking for an answer. None of any of this made sense.
“A bit early for Christmas miracles, wouldn’t you say?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the big day is still weeks away.”
Linus had been unconscious for the last three weeks. It was no wonder he didn’t know what day it was. “Today is December twenty-fifth.”
Linus gave her a strange look. Then he stepped past her and walked over to the nightstand nearest his side of the bed.
How is he walking with such balance after lying motionless for nearly a month?
He grabbed his cell phone and walked it over, flashing the home screen in her direction. The screen’s wallpaper behind the date and time was a picture of her. “See there? It’s December fourth.”
Diana straightened. “What? It can’t be December fourth.” Time had passed since then. Weeks had passed. She’d been dragging through recent days, numb and clinging to quickly draining hope that Linus would get better. “December fourth” she said again. “That’s the day . . .”
“The day that what?” he asked, starting to get restless.
“The day you were hit by a delivery truck.”
Linus laughed out loud. “Geesh, Diana. I know you’re upset at me, but dreaming I got hit by a truck?”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t a dream.”
“Want me to call Rochelle?” he asked.
Diana stared at her fiancé, who shouldn’t be here right now. He was supposed to be at New Hope Long-Term Care. In his bed. In his coma that he was never going to wake from. It wasn’t a dream.Thiswas the dream. It had to be. That was the only explanation. Unless . . .
Diana clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh.”
“What?” he asked, the skin between his eyes pinching deeply.
