Page 13 of Midnight Between Us
She hesitates for a second longer.“He might not remember.”
I look at her across the wreckage of the night, feeling something crack inside me.“Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”
They wheel him into post-op recovery while I move on autopilot, snapping out orders, and locking down the situation.Only three people know he is here, and I make them sign NDAs so quickly that their pens scrape across the forms like warnings.No visitors.No exceptions.If a single word gets out, it will be too late to fix it.
When I finally allow myself to stop, it is not in my office behind a closed door.It is beside him.I lower myself into the hard plastic chair at his bedside, the adrenaline bleeding out of me too fast, leaving me cold and hollow.
Across from me, he lies motionless, a ghost of whatever he used to be.Swallowed by bandages and machines, the only proof he is still fighting lies in the stubborn blip of the monitors.I should be reviewing scans, calling the police, preparing for whatever the hell comes next.Instead, I sit there and watch his chest rise and fall, willing him to hold on.
There will be questions.Accusations.Stories that unravel slower than his battered body can heal.For now, I push them all away because tonight, survival is enough.It has to be enough.
At least he looks cleaner now.His skin is pale, stitched, almost peaceful.Like someone who drifted off during Aunt Norma’s long-winded stories.If a nurse walked in, they’d probably think he’s just waiting for apple juice and a bland sandwich.
But I know better.
Keir Timberbridge isn’t waiting for nourishment.He’s stable—but barely.One bad spike in pressure, one clot, and he’s gone.He could die right now.Or never wake up again.
I just don’t understand how this happened.Wasn’t he some polished CEO of a top-tier company?Untouchable?Always five steps ahead of everyone else?
“Who did you piss off, Timberbridge?”
No answer, of course.
All I know is this: someone stuffed him in the trunk of a car.Duct-taped.Bleeding.Left to die.
And I’m pretty sure he said my name before his heart stopped.
I rest my elbow on the bed rail and press my fingers to my lips, trying to swallow whatever this is.The ache.The rage.The grief I’ve refused to name.
He left.No explanation.No goodbye.Just a silence—louder than any siren.
I tried to reach him, and all he said was, “You can’t believe we had something, Simone.We were just fooling around.Don’t be a fucking child.Get the fuck out of Birchwood Springs when you can and start a new life.Forget everything—forget we ever crossed paths.”
He said Simone, not Sims.
That was the second time he broke my heart.
I survived, though.And yet, here I am.Putting him back together.Stitch by goddamn stitch.
“I should’ve let you go,” I whisper.“Should’ve let the woods keep you.Bury you.”
He doesn’t answer.
Of course, he doesn’t.
He’s unconscious.Suspended between life and whatever comes next.For all I know, he’s already gone.And I’m just sitting here with bones and skin and a history I haven’t healed from.
I study him a second longer—because that’s what I do.I hold on for too long.Even to men who let go first.
Then I rise, slow and stiff, like peeling myself out of the past.My chair scrapes softly against the tile.I pause.Look at him one last time.“You left me once,” I whisper, voice catching on the words.“Don’t you dare do it again.This time, I get to choose when it’s over.Not you.”
And then I pull the door shut behind me, step into the hallway, and tug my phone from my pocket.
This is one of the reasons I’m here, after all: to report suspicious activity.
In this case, John Doe shows up in my clinic half-dead and carrying the ruins of what we used to be.
“It’s too late for late-night calls.If you’re calling to discuss the explosion?—”
