Page 158 of Of Heartbreak and Harmony
“Callie?”
I turn my head toward the sound.
“Glory?”
“Oh my god, Callie.”
She rushes to me with her arms outstretched like she’s going to hug me, but she stops just before she reaches me and drops her arms back to her sides. The tears streaming down her face fill me with immediate fear.
“Is Mom okay?”
My anxiety is punctuated by a beeping. It grows faster as my panic rises.
“Callie, no. She’s...she’s...”
Glory’s face contorts with pain, tears falling faster, and my only thought is my mother. Something happened to her. She’s hurt. She’s dead. I open my mouth to ask for answers, but then someone looms over me and everything goes dark and silent.
It’s late when I wake up.
I can tell because there’s no light filtering through the curtains on the window. I look around slowly, seeking out the beeping, and find it coming from a machine beside my bed. I squint at it. Listen again to the steady beeping...
Vitals.
The machine is monitoring my vitals.
The realization appears as though out of a fog, slowly taking shape around the edges. I’m hooked to a machine that is monitoring my vitals. I don’t recognize this room. I don’t recognize this bed...
I’m in a hospital.
I look around again. It’s dark except for the light seeping in from the hallway, but I can still make out some furniture. A chair. A couch. And...
I reach out and run my fingers lightly through Torren’s curls. They’re longer than I remember, and they stand out starkly against the shock white of my hospital blanket. I trail my fingers over his sharp cheekbone, to his jaw, then over his lips. They’re chapped and rough on my fingertips.
“Callie.”
Hot breath ghosts over my hand as his lips move with the whisper of my name. Then slowly, as if scared he’ll spook me, he lifts his head. His eyes land on mine, leaving only briefly to scan my face before they grow glassy with tears.
“Is this real?”
The child-like fear in his voice makes my heart break, and I nod as tears of my own fall.
“It’s real.”
Softly, his hands frame my face, green eyes jumping from feature to feature like he doesn’t trust me. Like he needs to make certain himself.
“It’s real,” I say again. “I promise.”
He kisses me, lips tasting like tears, and I kiss him back.
“I missed you. I missed you so fucking much.”
I nod, but I don’t speak. I don’t know if I missed him. I don’t know how long I’ve been in this bed hooked to a machine monitoring my vitals while he slept in my lap. I don’t know how much of what I’m remembering is just my imagination. I don’t know anything except...
“I love you.”
Torren whimpers. I feel his fingers trembling in my hair. He’s hovering, barely touching me, but I wish he would. I wish he would kiss me harder. I wish he would hold me.
“I love you,” I say again, louder this time, and it hurts. My voice sounds ragged and raw.
