Temp

Our last conversation occupies my mind. A full-bodied echo.

The truth is, Matthew, you haven’t been a good man. If my father is right and you’ve been bleeding people dry and forcing them to sell, maybe you deserved to have your business dismantled.

You’re right, Kaylee Hale. And you deserve far better than me.

“I’m here because the security guards said he was calling for you,” Randall says, breaking into my storm cloud of thoughts. “Before he attempted to jump.”

Sound and light wink out. Back in and out. I sway, sick, broken. He was trying to make everything right, wasn’t he? For me? He…when he said he would die without me, I didn’t take it literally, but I should have. Oh Jesus, obviously I should have.

A cry of denial rips from the deepest recesses of my body. I trip forward, catching myself on the arm of the suited man. “Bring me to him. Please. Now.”

The drive to the hospital is a blur.

All I can do is focus on the beats of my heart. One after the other.

Deep breaths.

I’m disoriented when we arrive. Voices sound like they’re coming from a carnival funhouse and walls swell in and out as I run down the hospital corridor. I was brought to the correct floor by Randall, but ran from him as soon as the doors opened, directed by some internal compass that knows where he is. Knows where to find Matthew.

I’m unprepared for the sight that greets me when I skid into his room, realizing vaguely that I’m barefoot and wearing a nightshirt and robe. Matthew is restrained in a bed. A nurse is shining a small flashlight into his eyes, but he’s staring straight ahead into the light without blinking or responding to her questions. His gaze is hollow, as are his cheeks, his hair matted.

When I make a broken sound, however, a jolt passes through him and his head turns toward the door, his eyes showing a sign of life. And that life roars back in when he sees me, his arms jerking at the restraints.

“Kaylee.” Alarm transforms his features. “Kaylee!”

Until he bellows my name at the top of his lungs, I don’t realize I’m collapsing. Sideways against the door and down, down, the dizziness finally gaining enough strength to knock me over, my legs giving out entirely. Medical personnel rush to aid me, but I can’t look away from Matthew. He’s frantic, shouting, ripping at the restraints with all of his might—and when one of them finally breaks, he pulls his wrist free of the second, hurtling through the gathering crowd to pick me up into his arms, rocking me while shouting hoarsely for help.

I wake up warm, unlike the last three mornings when I woke up feeling as if I’d slept on the floor of a crypt, ice permeating my bones. Not now. No, my face is pressed into something warm with a pulse. When I inhale and snuggle closer, arms wrap around me tightly and the pulse beneath my nose begins to hammer faster. Faster.

“She’s awake,” chokes Matthew, kissing my face, my hair. “You’re awake. You’re awake.”

I crack an eyelid open, noticing in between kisses that I’m in a hospital room. A bed. None of that really matters, though, because I’m with Matthew. I’m home. I’m in the right place no matter where we’re located.

“You were starved and dehydrated, baby.” He buries my face in his neck and I take comfort in the beat of his heart. It matches my own. It always does. Same tempo, same everything. “Why? Why did you do this to yourself?”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be apart,” I whisper, sounding dazed.

“You don’t think?” He crushes me closer. “I barely made it seventy-two hours. If I’d known you were in the same shape, nothing would have kept me away. Oh God, Kaylee. Don’t ever do this to me again. Please. Don’t ever neglect yourself like this again. I can’t fucking breathe knowing you were in pain.”

Moisture overflows my eyes. “You tried to jump off a roof.”

He’s already nodding. “Next time, I’ll make sure you’re all right first.”

“Next time?” I pull back from his embrace enough to look at him. To study the deep grooves of strain around his mouth, the purple bruises beneath his eyes. “If there is a next time, I’ll end up right back here. Don’t you see?”

His blue eyes are turbulent. “I see nothing but you leaving me. Over and over again.”

I take the sides of his face and press our foreheads together. “I’m back now. I was wrong to think we could live apart. We can’t. Once our hearts met, that was it. They’re on strike unless we’re together, Matthew. Don’t you ever do this to me again.”

“You’re back?” he croaks, his eyes searching mine with a growing fire. “You’re coming back to me after what I did, Kaylee? After the monster I’ve been?”