Jaxen was also in a room by himself, looking like the most beautiful sleeping prince and my heart stopped at just the sight of him.
Lack of breath followed.
He didn’t look like me, bruised and bandaged up. He appeared like himself, hauntingly lovely and breathtakingly gorgeous. His tawny brown curls lay wavy and messy, a more than five o’clock shadow on his face that made him look rugged, but not unkempt. He had been here for a little while, currently sleeping with a sheet over his waist and his hands positioned at his sides. His large chest rose and fell as Dr. Fieldhouse’s team wheeled my bed next to his.
They left little space, pushing us right up against each other. I found that curious until Dr. Fieldhouse looked at me.
“We’ll be back in a few to move you over to the other bed,” she said, pointing to the one on the other side of the room. She winked. “But I figured you may want a few moments. You two seem close.”
I didn’t know what we were.
But I wasn’t complaining since Jaxen was close enough to touch.
Which he was, right next to me. Sleeping soundly, he hadn’t moved through all this, and I hadn’t been surprised. He’d been a solid sleeper when we’d been together.
“Let us know if you need anything,” Dr. Fieldhouse said, watching as a nurse set my call button on my bed. I nodded, then they all went away.
We were alone.
I was alone with him, and God, if I couldn’t stop looking at him. It was like he was some kind of anomaly and hadn’t existed until that
moment. I’d felt that way since my parents had been so tight-lipped about him. Whenever I’d asked, they had kind of passed the question off. Jaxen was tired or resting.
But they hadn’t said he was perfect.
Not a flaw to him, not even a flush to his skin. The way Mom and Dad hadn’t said anything about him, I would have thought something was wrong, but he appeared completely normal.
I reached out, my fingers curling to touch him, but something made me hesitate and return my hand to my bed.
Instead, I fingered the ring I’d been told he wanted me to have.
“Why did you give this to me?” I asked, slipping it off. I studied the teeth of the ape and forced my nail between the grooves. I touched this thing enough to know how every space of it felt. I gazed up at Jaxen. “Was it for good luck? Just to get me through this?”
He said nothing, of course, his eyes still closed in slumber, and sighing, I breathed deeply. I placed the ring on his bed, by his thigh.
“They told me what you did,” I said, my fingers so close to his leg. “What you did for me. Why did you do that?”
Mom said they could have waited for a donor. My need was urgent, yes, but Jaxen hadn’t even allowed consideration of the process after he’d been tested. He’d just donated, no more talk or debate once he’d been cleared.
“You could have died,” I said, knowing that people did donate every day, but also died every day too. If something had gone wrong, if I had lost him… I swallowed. “You would have been gone, and I wouldn’t have been able to…”
Fingers laced with mine, fingers on his bed when he lifted and inserted our digits together.
I gazed up to find crystal green eyes staring at me, so sleepy.
I must have woken him up.
Jaxen uttered no words, just staring at me, and I wondered for how long.
“How long have you been looking at me?” I asked, feeling shy now. I mean, I didn’t look great. The swelling on my face had gone down a little, but I still appeared bruised.
I started to turn away until Jaxen lifted our fingers. He ran a digit down my cheek, and I swear I healed in that moment.
That was all it took.
My insides and every physical ache ceased to throb, a different sensation, a warmer one stirring my insides now. It was hard to see past it.
It was hard to see beyond him.