Chapter 5

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IRIS

When we get to the hospital, my thoughts tumble like a box of toys down the stairs: Why a hospital if Edward is dead? Is he dead? Maybe he's just in a coma?

But I know the truth, even if a doctor hasn't actually spoken the words to me. I saw his eyes after his father turned him over, saw them wide open staring at the sky, blue and blank; I saw the blood seeping from his head, blood that's now all over my dress, my hands.

It's odd how everything happens far too quickly and also not nearly quickly enough. Hands guide me through doors that I don’t remember appearing in front of me. Someone asks me basic questions that I have no clue how to answer – my name (have I taken Edward's name even though I haven't officially changed my own?), the date (how can Edward's wedding day also be his death day?) – and when I hesitate, when my voice stutters on words that feel suddenly unreal, a nurse’s expression tightens with something like pity.

A widow less than ten minutes into her marriage, she's probably thinking. Clearly cursed, also destined to be alone forever.

I sit on a narrow chair that feels designed for punishment, my knees pressed together, my hands folded tightly in my lap because I don't know what else to do with them. I keep expecting Edward to appear, to clear his throat, to apologize for the inconvenience of collapsing on the church steps. My body feels hollow, as though something essential has been removed without my consent.

I don’t know what to do.

That thought utterly terrifies me. Despite the chaos and trauma in my life, I've somehow always known what to do... how to endure, how to move forward even when forward felt like a narrowing corridor. Now there's nothing. No instruction, no next step. I'm alone, abandoned, in a world that I don't understand at all, because it's Edward's world, and it doesn't play by the same rules as mine. 

Then Thomas is here.

I don’t see him arrive, I feel him. The shift in the room is immediate, like pressure equalizing, and his presence settles against me with undeniable weight. 

He sits close to me – close enough that I can feel the warmth of him, smell the faint, clean scent of citrus soap and expensive wool – and he places a hand at my back, firm and deliberate, not tentative, not seeking permission. The contact is shocking in its simplicity, and I feel its effect immediately, a grounding weight that stops the spiral of my thoughts mid-turn.

My body reacts before I have time to even think. My shoulders lower, my breath slows, my spine straightens as though responding to a command that I didn't hear spoken, and I lean into him without realizing it.

My surrender is instinctive, and it warms me, calms me. Suddenly, I feel painfully young, overwhelmed by the simple fact that someone else seems to know what's happening, and what the hell to do, when I so obviously don't.

“It’s all right, baby girl,” he says quietly, his voice low and firm, pitched only for me. “I’ve got you.”

The words utterly undo me. No one has ever said that to me and meant it, not once. I nod because it's easier than speaking, because if I open my mouth I'm afraid something small and humiliating will break free.

When the police appear, Thomas steps forward without hesitation. He answers questions meant for me, and he asks others that I wouldn’t know to ask. He positions himself between me and the waiting room, between me and the looks that slide too easily toward my crumpled, blood-stained dress.

And I just sit there, just let him take over. The relief in doing so is dizzying.

Watching him with the police, the doctors, the wedding guests, I see how calm he is, how controlled. I'm aware of his age and his size in this moment with aching clarity – the breadth of his chest, the solidity of his stance, the grey in his thick, dark hair, the sense that he belongs to a world where things make sense because he makes them make sense.

I realize then, with a shock that borders on shame, how desperately I want to be told what to do now. I want Thomas to tell me.

The thought settles low in my body, warm and dangerous. We've never been alone before, and we're not alone now... and yet the room recedes until it's just me, just him. Nothing at all has ever happened between us... and yet something is happening now. 

Not desire, but awareness sharpened to the point of ache. I feel the pull of his attention, the gravity of it, and I don't know how to step out from under it. I don't even know if I want to.

When I finally look up at him, our eyes meet, and the moment stretches, unprotected. There's no hunger in his expression, and no entitlement. Only a careful intensity, as though he, too, is aware of how easily this could tip into something neither of us has named.

He holds my gaze, but he doesn't move closer. He doesn't move away. He just stays.

And that, somehow, is everything.