Three days blur together in an endless cycle of sitting in this chair, watching monitors, counting beeps, and holding a hand that never squeezes back.
I haven't left the hospital except to shower, surviving on food that Cole and Derek bring that I barely touch, coffee I drink by the gallon, and clean clothes I change into in the bathroom down the hall.
On the third morning, it finally happens.
I'm staring at Ryan's face when his fingers twitch against the blanket—a small movement, almost nothing, but I've been watching so intently that I catch it instantly.
"Ryan?"
His brow furrows, a crease forming between his eyebrows.
"Ryan, can you hear me?"
His eyelids flutter once, then twice, then slowly and painfully they open. Confusion floods his face first as his gaze drifts around the room. I can see him struggling to piece together where he is, what happened.
Then his eyes find me and recognition floods through him.
"Grace..."
I break completely, the sob tearing out of me before I can stop it as I throw myself against him. He smells like antiseptics, but he's warm and breathing and he came back.
"I thought I lost you..." I whisper against his chest between sobs. "I thought you were gone..."
Ryan's hand lifts weakly, trembling as his fingers find my hair and hold me there with what little strength he has.
"I'm here," he rasps. "I'm okay."
"You scared me... God, Ryan, you scared me so much!"
"I know. I'm sorry."
For one brief moment, we are okay—then the door opens, and everything changes.
A man in a white coat enters—gray hair, kind eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, carrying a clipboard and wearing an expression I've learned to dread over the past three days.
"Mr. Mitchell. Good to see you awake." He nods at me with professional courtesy. "Mrs. Mitchell. I'm Dr. Patterson. I've been overseeing your husband's care."
Ryan tries to sit up, winces at the pain, and settles back against the pillows with obvious frustration.
"What happened to me?"
"You were in a serious car accident. Do you remember any of it?"
Ryan's brow furrows again as he searches his memory. "The deer. I remember the deer. And then..."
"The car rolled. You sustained significant trauma." Dr. Patterson moves closer, his demeanor shifting to something more serious. "I need to discuss your injuries with you both. May I?"
I take Ryan's hand and he lets me, though his grip feels different somehow—tentative, uncertain.
"Tell me," Ryan says.
Dr. Patterson's voice becomes calm and clinical, the voice of a man who has delivered bad news hundreds of times.
"The impact was concentrated on your lower body. There was internal damage—bleeding that required emergency surgery. We were able to repair most of it."
"Most of it?"
"Your legs will heal. Physical therapy will be necessary, but you'll walk again. In time, you'll regain full mobility."
Relief washes through me like warm water—he'll walk, he'll recover, we can handle physical therapy.
"There's more," I say quietly, reading the doctor's face. "Isn't there?"
Dr. Patterson hesitates for just a fraction of a second, but it's enough to make my stomach drop.
"Mr. Mitchell, as part of your recovery assessment, we ran comprehensive tests." The doctor pauses, glancing at his clipboard. "The fertility tests show that you have a condition called azoospermia. No viable sperm production."
Ryan's grip on my hand tightens painfully. "What does that mean?"
"It means..." The doctor chooses his words with obvious care. "This isn't from the accident. This is a pre-existing condition. The accident didn't cause your infertility—you were already infertile."
The silence that follows is deafening, crushing in its weight. Eighteen months of trying, eighteen months of me thinking it might be my fault, wondering if I was the broken one.
Ryan's face drains of all color as he pulls his hand from mine—not dramatically or with anger, just slides it away and places it on his stomach, creating distance.
"Ryan?" I reach for him with my other hand, desperate to maintain connection. "Ryan, look at me."
He pulls away further, turning his face toward the window.
"Ryan, please..."
"When can I go home?" His voice is flat and hollow, a stranger's voice coming from my husband's mouth.
I flinch like he's slapped me.
Dr. Patterson shifts uncomfortably at the sudden tension in the room. "We'd like to keep you for observation. Another few days at minimum. Your body has been through significant trauma."
"Tomorrow."
"Mr. Mitchell, I really would recommend—"
"Is it possible? Can I leave tomorrow?"
The doctor sighs deeply. "Technically, yes. But it's risky. You need monitoring. Proper recovery takes time."
"Tomorrow," Ryan repeats, not a question but a decision already made.
I try again, touching his arm and forcing him to acknowledge me. "Ryan, we don't have to figure everything out right now. We just need to focus on getting you healthy."
He stares at the ceiling like it holds answers I can't see, refusing to meet my eyes.
"The children thing... we have options. There are many ways to build a family that don't require..." I trail off, the words feeling clumsy and wrong in my mouth. "We'll figure it out. Together."
Nothing—he keeps staring at that ceiling with desperate intensity.
"Ryan, please talk to me. Tell me what you're thinking."
"I want to go home." His voice is barely a whisper. "That's all I want. I just want to go home."
Something inside me cracks audibly.
This isn't him—this isn't the man who left for that fishing trip three days ago, the man who had our entire future mapped out in his head down to the smallest detail.
That man is gone, and the person lying in this hospital bed is someone else entirely—someone broken in a way that has nothing to do with his body.
Dr. Patterson clears his throat awkwardly. "I'll give you two some privacy. We can discuss discharge tomorrow morning."
He leaves, and the door clicks shut behind him with terrible finality.
I sit in silence beside my husband, the man I've loved for six years, the man I built my life around, and watch as he refuses to look at me.
I reach for his hand again, and this time he doesn't pull away, but he doesn't hold on either. His fingers lie limp in mine like dead things.
"I love you," I whisper into the awful silence. "No matter what. That doesn't change."
Ryan closes his eyes.
"I'm tired," he says. "I need to sleep."
I want to scream, want to shake him, want to force him to look at me and see that I'm still here, that we're still us, that this doesn't have to destroy everything we've built. But I don't do any of those things.
I sit in my chair and hold his lifeless hand, watching him pretend to sleep while something inside my husband dies.
And I don't know how to bring it back.