A doctor met me at the triage desk. He looked exhausted, the kind of tired that seeps into your bones. He glanced at his clipboard, then at me, with a look of pity that made my stomach turn.
“Mrs. Turner,” he said softly. “Before we go back there, I need you to prepare yourself. Your husband has sustained some cracked ribs and significant bruising. He’s on pain management.”
“Is he awake?” I asked.
“He is. But… the situation is delicate.”
He led me down the corridor, past moaning patients and beeping machines. We stopped at Bay 4. The doctor hesitated—just for a fraction of a second—before sliding the curtain back.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I simply dropped to my knees.
The air left my lungs as if I’d been punched. Ethan was there, pale and hooked up to monitors. His shirt had been cut open, revealing a map of purple and black bruises blooming across his torso.
But I wasn’t looking at his wounds. I was looking at his hand.
His hand was tightly interlaced with the fingers of a woman sitting in the chair beside his bed.
She was young. Maybe twenty-eight. Her blonde hair was matted with rain or sweat, and her mascara was smeared beneath wide, terrified eyes. She was wearing a torn blouse, and she was looking at my husband with an intensity—a familiarity—that stripped me bare.
When she saw me, she gasped and ripped her hand away as if she had been burned.
