Burned(72)

There’s no way McDaniels is still alive.
Maybe they were wrong. Maybe the drugs they gave me were playing with my mind and I misheard them. It can’t be true.
With a shaking hand, I reach up and move the oxygen mask away from my face as the nurse sticks a needle into my I.V. and pushes the syringe down, the pain medicine quickly making its way through the tube and spreading into my veins.
“Collin, where’s Collin?” I ask her with a raspy voice.
She looks at me in confusion as she pulls the blankets up around my body and tucks me back in. I remember the paramedics saying something about a fall. I remember hearing him scream my name and I know that wasn’t a dream. He was in the house. He came to save me.
“The man who was in the house with me. Is he here?”
I watch the confusion leave her face, quickly replaced with sadness that she’s unable to hide. “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry. He didn’t make it out.”
She moves the oxygen mask back over my face and starts talking about my injuries and how long it will take me to recover. I don’t even hear her words. The pain in my chest hurts greater than the throbbing of my scorched flesh. Ignoring my bandaged legs and stomach and the I.V. attached to my arm, I roll over onto my side and curl up in a ball. I never thought my heart could possibly break a second time for Collin, but it does. It shatters into a thousand little pieces when I think of his smile and his touch and how he saved me, in more ways than one. I’ll never recover from this pain. I’ll never be able to put my heart back together again. I squeeze my eyes closed and wish that I had died in the fire right along with him.

Chapter 24—Things We Lost in the Fire

“OPEN YOUR EYES, Lee.”
I hear his voice in my dream and I refuse to open my eyes. I want to stay right here in the haze of pain medication so I can hear him say my name over and over. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep and I don’t care. I’m not ready for reality, but I know as soon as I open my eyes it will come crashing down around me. I feel a hand rubbing up and down my arm and I want to scream at the nurse to stop touching me. There’s only one person who can ease my pain and he’s gone.
I curl my body into a tighter ball and try to will the tears away, but there’s no use. They stream down my face and soak the pillow under my cheek.
“Don’t cry, baby. Please don’t cry.”
The sound of his voice is so real and so full of anguish that I have no choice but to crack open my eyes. When I see Collin’s crystal blue eyes filled with tears just inches from my face, I can’t stop the sob that flies past my lips. I jerk my body upright, shouting in pain when my bandaged legs brush roughly against the bed. I immediately push the pain away, launching myself forward and into his arms. They wrap tightly around my back as he leans into me, pulling me as close to his body as possible. It’s not close enough. It will never be close enough. The tears fall faster down my cheeks as I press my face into the crook of his neck and breathe him in through my sobs.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he whispers brokenly as he moves his arms from around me and cups my face in his palms, pulling me away from his neck so he can stare into my eyes.
“Oh, God, am I dreaming? Please don’t let this be a dream. They told me you were dead. They told me you didn’t make it,” I whimper, crying so hard now that I’m close to hyperventilating.
“Shhh, it’s okay. You’re killing me, Lee, please don’t cry. I’m okay. I’m right here and I’m okay,” he reassures me, wiping away each tear that falls with his thumbs.
I try to calm down and slow my breathing as I run my hands over every inch of him that I can reach, making sure that he’s real and safe and alive. I slide my hands up his arms, over his shoulders, run them across his face and then back down his arms again, feeling the warm, hard muscles and sighing in relief.