The pounding drags me from sleep with violent urgency, fists against wood creating a rhythm that speaks of disaster.
"Grace! Grace, open the door!" Cole's voice cuts through my drowsiness. For a second I even think I’m still dreaming.
I sit up in bed with my heart already slamming against my ribs as the clock on the nightstand glows 6:47 AM—Sunday morning. They weren't supposed to be back until tonight.
The pounding continues, relentless and terrifying.
I stumble out of bed on legs that feel disconnected from my body, wearing Ryan's old college t-shirt and shorts, taking the stairs too fast and nearly tripping on the last step.
Cole's voice grows more desperate with each passing second, nothing like the confident charm I'm used to. "Grace, please!"
My hands shake as I fumble with the lock. Finally I wrench the door open, my breath catching hard in my throat at the sight before me.
Cole's face is wrecked beyond recognition. A gash splits his eyebrow in an angry jagged line, dried blood crusted down his cheek and trailing into the stubble along his jaw.
Purple bruising blooms across the left side of his face, his lip is swollen, cracked down the middle.
My hands rise instinctively to cup his face, but I stop inches away, afraid I'll hurt him more than he already is.
"Cole, what happened? Are you—"
"Ryan's in the hospital."
The words hit me like ice water dumped over my head, everything else falling away until there's nothing but those four words echoing in my skull.
"There was an accident." Cole's voice cracks. "Last night. We were driving back from the lake when a deer came out of nowhere, right in the middle of the road."
His blue eyes, usually so confident, are hollow with shock. "Ryan swerved to miss it and the car flipped."
My stomach drops to the floor as I grab the doorframe for support. "Flipped?"
"It rolled twice before we hit a tree."
My knees threaten to buckle beneath me entirely. "But he's okay, right? Tell me he's okay."
Cole doesn't answer right away, and that silence terrifies me more than any words could. "He's in a coma, Grace. Since last night."
"A coma?" The word feels foreign in my mouth.
"The doctors are doing everything they can. They said the next forty-eight hours are critical."
"No..." I shake my head violently. "No, that's not... he was fine. He texted me yesterday morning. He said he'd be home for dinner. He promised..."
"Ryan took the worst of it." Cole's jaw tightens with guilt or anger or both. "He was driving, and the impact hit his side because he turned the wheel so we wouldn't take the hit."
His eyes glisten with unshed tears. "He saved us, Grace. He protected us."
I can't breathe, can't think, can't process any of this.
I asked him to stay, stood in our kitchen and begged him not to leave, and he kissed my forehead and told me to stop worrying. But he didn't listen, and I was too soft to insist.
"I need to see him." My voice sounds foreign and distant. "Right now. I need to go right now."
"That's why I'm here." Cole reaches for my arm, steadying me when I sway dangerously. "Let's go. I'll drive."
I don't bother changing out of my pajamas or finding real shoes. Nothing matters except getting to my husband.
Cole guides me to his truck with a hand on my lower back, gentle but firm.
The passenger door is already open, and Derek sits in the back seat, his face pale beneath his own collection of cuts and bruises, a bandage wrapped around his forearm.
"Grace." Derek's voice is soft and broken in a way I've never heard from him. "I'm sorry... I'm so damn sorry."
I can't respond because the words won't come, so I climb into the truck and stare straight ahead as Cole closes my door gently and circles around to the driver's side.
The streets blur past the window—houses and trees and stop signs that don't register as real.
"He's strong," Cole says quietly into the silence. "He'll pull through this."
I don't answer, because I can't.
"The doctors said comas can be unpredictable. Some people wake up in hours."
The hospital appears on the horizon like a gray concrete mountain, a building full of people hovering between life and death.
Cole parks near the emergency entrance and we move through the automatic doors together. A nurse meets us at the front desk, her gaze moving over Cole's injuries with professional concern.
"Sir, you need to be examined—"
"I'm fine," Cole cuts her off sharply. "We're here for Ryan Mitchell. He was brought in last night. Car accident."
"Are you family?"
"I'm his wife." The words feel strange and heavy in my mouth, carrying new meaning. "Please. I need to see him."
The nurse's expression softens immediately as she nods once. "Follow me."
We walk down a corridor that smells like antiseptic and dread, then we stop at Room 412, the nurse opens the door slowly.
There he is, and the sight of him steals whatever breath I had left.
Ryan lies motionless in the hospital bed while machines beep in steady rhythm around him. Tubes snake from his arms, connecting him to bags of fluid and monitors covered in numbers I don't understand.
His face is pale and slack and wrong—this isn't my husband but a shell, a body waiting for a soul to return.
I cross the room slowly with each step feeling like miles, my voice breaking as I whisper, "Ryan? Ryan, can you hear me?"
Nothing—no response, no flutter of eyelids, no twitch of fingers reaching for mine.
I take his hand and find it warm but limp, completely lifeless. "Baby, I'm here. I'm right here."
The machines beep their steady answer while he doesn't move, doesn't respond, doesn't give any sign that he knows I exist.
I sink into the chair beside his bed, still holding his hand and pressing it against my cheek.
The tears come without warning—silent at first, just wetness on my cheeks, then my shoulders start to shake, then sobs tear through my chest with devastating force.
I asked him to stay, and he smiled and promised he'd be home by dinner. He's always been so confident that everything will work out, that his plans will unfold exactly as designed, that nothing bad can touch us.
He was wrong.
Behind me, Cole's hand settles on my shoulder—gentle and warm, stroking my back slowly, offering comfort while keeping appropriate distance, present but not intruding.
"Please," I whisper against Ryan's hand, bargaining with the universe. "Please come back to me."
The machines beep, the fluorescent lights hum, but Ryan doesn't move.
I close my eyes and pray to a god I'm not sure I believe in, making promises I may not be able to keep.
Come back. Please come back.