When I finally pushed open the door to his room, the sound felt too loud.
Ryan lay in the hospital bed, unnaturally still, his skin almost translucent against the stark white sheets. Tubes and wires threaded from his body, looping and blinking in ways I couldn’t decipher, as if they were writing a language I didn’t know how to read. His chest rose and fell in a measured rhythm, and for one terrible second I just stood in the doorway, watching it, afraid that if I moved—if I breathed too loudly—it would falter and disappear.
As I watched, his eyes fluttered open, focusing slowly. When they landed on me, they filled immediately.
“Oh—” His voice broke. “Eden.”
I crossed the room and took his hand, trying not to grip it as hard as I wanted to. “Why?” I asked. The word tore out of me. “Why,
