Page 48 of Rescuing Erin

It had almost been an hour since I’d seen him, and, from his still wet hair and new clothes, I’d say he’d had a shower. Now that all the blood had been washed away, it was easy to see the green and purple marks on his face.

“I have a concussion.”

I was hoping he wouldn’t press and ask the severity but Colin being Colin wanted all the facts.

“How bad?”

“A bad one. Tell me about your ribs.”

“They’re broken.” He didn’t elaborate further; instead, he wanted to know more about me. “How bad, Erin? Did they do a CT scan? An MRI?”

“Yes, I had a CT scan. I need to stay here overnight. I’ll have an MRI in the morning.”

“Where’s the doctor? I want to talk to him.”

“Colin, wait.” I stopped him before he could go for the door. “I’m fine.”

“The goose egg on your forehead, the cut over your eye, and the concussion say otherwise.”

“And . . . how are you?”

“I’m fine.” He waved away my concern.

“Right. So the broken ribs and black eyes you have make you fine. But a bump on my head makes me not?”

“It’s not a bump, Erin. I heard your head bounce off the floor. Heard it. You were so dazed you couldn’t move. Baby, that’s not a bump, that’s a fucking brain injury. And let’s not forget everything that happened before that.”

“Believe me, Colin, I can’t forget—any of it. Not the house exploding, the gunfire, men jumping out of helicopters, watching you get shot, then beat to a bloody pulp. I remember it all. Crystal clear.”

I hadn’t meant to snap at him, but I wasn’t stupid. The last thing I wanted to do was die here in the hospital of a TBI after all we’d survived.

“Erin—” His tone softened, and he cupped my cheek with his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t want to talk about my head right now. I just need you.”

The scrape of the chair on the linoleum floor made me wince and as much as I’d hoped Colin missed it, he hadn’t. He picked it up and carried it the rest of the way to the side of my bed. With his lips pinched together in a hard line, he sat but didn’t mention it.

“I’m not going anywhere.” His hands were warm when he picked up mine and inspected the bandage. “What happened here?”

“I guess the piece of plastic cut my palm when I used it to . . . you know.” He brought my gauze-covered hand to his mouth and gently kissed it. “I didn’t need stiches. A band-aid probably would’ve sufficed.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Kinda. I mean, I don’t, but I do. Shit, I don’t know what I’m saying. I think I just want to get it over with. Does that make sense?”

“It does. We can talk about anything you want. For however long you want to.”

I sat, trying to gather my thoughts. But the longer I remained quiet, the harder it was to get the words out. I wanted to spew everything out at once and never have to think about it again. It felt like I had a demon in my belly, and the longer it sat in there, the more venom seeped into my soul. I needed to exorcise it but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know if talking about it would make it better or worse.

Colin didn’t seem to be as tongue-tied. “I was so fucking terrified when the first explosion went off. All I could think about was we were out there all alone with no backup. If something happened to me, you’d be on your own.” His gaze zeroed in on mine. “That by itself gutted me. But knowing how scared you’d be if you were taken was worse. When I was hit, and darkness was pulling me under, all I could think about was how I’d failed the one person I wanted more than anything to protect.”

“You didn’t fail me. You jumped on top of me and covered my body with yours. You were willing to die for me. And I thought you were . . . I thought you were dead.” I almost choked on my words. When his body had gone limp, I thought for sure he was gone. I laid there under his heavy weight and wished I could follow. I didn’t want to live the rest of my life knowing Colin had died because of me. “Then I woke up in that room and you were chained up. I thought they’d hung you.”

“Did they hurt you while I was passed out?”

“No. I tried to fight, but one of them injected me with something and it was lights out. I’m not sure how I got the cut on my forehead, but I don’t think they hit me.”

“I’m so fucking sorry, Erin.” My chest tightened at the rawness in his voice.