Chapter 187

Everything hurt.

The hours seemed like wild horses. Dawn broke around Cole. She spent most of the day on the sofa, crying herself out of tears, watching the sky turn tauntingly through shades of silver and gold.

She tried to be brave, to be strong, to be less pathetically embarrassing. But her inner Scarlett O’Hara was AWOL—tomorrow being another day seemed like scant consolation.

And while she sometimes tormented herself with idle fantasies of Aiden coming back, of sweeping her into his arms, full of sorrow and declarations of eternal devotion, she knew it wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t sure she could ever bear pain like this again.

Later… later… later…

Her phone bleeped.

And, like a fool, she scrabbled for it, wrecked with hope and fear and hope.

It was Harper: “I MOVED MY FOOT!!!!!”

****

She slept and didn’t sleep, and the hours sped and sluggished by.

And finally, she rang home.

Hazel picked up. “What’s wrong?” she said before Cole even had a chance to speak.