The hospital reeked of an ammonia/bleach mixture that stung my nostrils as the double doors slid open, wafting the cooler outside air in with the frigid air conditioning of the sterile building.

Nurses scurried by in multiple different colored scrubs, some on their phones on break and others eating their lunches on the tables that I breezed by so quickly that I almost knocked one woman's drink completely off of her table.

Ignoring her confrontational remarks asking what my problem was, I didn't give a single thought to my extravagant outfit and hair and makeup, my feet pulsing with the need to find Eli's room and figure out what exactly I was going to say to him when I saw him again.

I'm sorry? I want to be with you? Was that nearly enough for the litany of emotions coursing through my veins, desperate to be let out?

Finally, the front desk came into view and though they were all on their land lines speaking to other patients, upon my emergence in front of them, both women glanced up slack jawed and locked their eyes on me.

"Please hold for Dr. Richardson," the first nurse stated and pressed a button on the phone and gave her full attention to me.

"What can I help you with ma'am?"

"I need to see Eli Shepherd. Can you tell me what his room number is?"

My voice must've been shaking because pity befell her sharp age weathered eyes.

Straightening her red scrubs, she looked to her co-worker and sighed before setting a placating smile upon her face.

"I'm sorry ma'am but unless you are family, I can't-"

"We are. Family, I mean. Look, here's a picture of us together," I said, immediately pulling out my phone and brandishing an old selfie of the two of us from when we were happy, in that short fleeting time period when things weren't so completely and totally fucked up. At least we'd had each other.

"Oh. So...are you his sister, or...?"

"Yes. Sister. We have different fathers."

The lie slipped easily from my lips and seeing as the two women obviously hadn't been keeping up with the local and popular gossip I was almost home free.

"Alright, well let me look him up and check his chart and see if he is able to have visitors. Is Eli short for Elijah? Date of birth? And how do you spell his last name?"

I gave her the appropriate information she needed and finally she found him in the system, still in a triage room in the emergency room, and I dashed in the correct direction once the woman pointed me the correct way.

Halfway to the emergency department, I spotted a familiar face at a coffee vending machine.

"Matthew?"

His eyes grew big, and I noticed a small laceration on his left eyebrow, but other than that he had no outward injuries.

"Virginia? What are you doing here? Weren't you supposed to be singing the anthem tonight?"

I rushed towards him, but before the words could come out of my mouth, they grew stuck there, almost like I was terrified to ask the question.

All the questions, actually.

Was he hurt, fatally? Would he survive? Would he ever play basketball again? Brain trauma, surgery?

It all surrounded me until I felt as if I were nothing more than a tiny fish floating in an ocean full of sharks swimming below the surface, ready to swipe up from the bottom and gobble me up, eating me whole.

"Is he..."

I choked on the words like salt water in my lungs, suffocating me from the inside out as the sharks circled the water, smelling my blood from internal injuries miles away.

Matthew dipped his head down low, sniffing before wiping his arm underneath his nose and then shook his head as if he felt he shouldn't have been close to tears, like it was beneath him to cry.

"Why don't you see for yourself?"

The panic must've been evident on my face, but he grabbed my elbow and turned on his heel without saying a word, leaving me hanging in a miserable and excruciating form of 'what if' that wouldn't erase the pit in the bottom of my stomach, the pain in my chest reminiscent of what I assumed a heart attack would feel like.

Was this the kind of panic Eli was feeling? How much pain was he in? Was there anything I could do to help? Of course, not. I wasn't a doctor or a nurse by any means. There was nothing I could do to assuage his pain, but with steely eyed Matthew pushing us through throngs of meandering patients, nurses and family members in crowded hallways, I couldn't help but wonder what had happened.

"Was it a drunk driver?"

Memories flashed of a very similar hospital almost seven years ago, riding in an ambulance with my father after my mother's body was driven away in a different once, the black body bag draped over her.

I could barely breathe, the past crunching me up like rocks and spitting me out in gravel sized pieces.

Grabbing hold of the wall for extra support, stars dancing behind my eyes, Matthew only slowed for a few moments before dragging me along again.

Matthew wouldn't be pulling me so quickly to see Eli if he were unconscious, right? He was either perfectly fine, and Matthew was trying to get me there quickly to quell my rising panic or...

Or Eli was on his deathbed and he wanted me to make sure I could say goodbye to him. But that didn't make sense unless he actually wanted to see me, after all this time. Matthew wouldn't bring me to a dying Eli for my own benefit only.

Would he?

My raging thoughts allowed a lull in my panic attack and soon we were faced with a giant whiteboard of patient names and numbers and Matthew retraced his steps, and soon we found ourselves in front of a large metal door, the curtain in the window pulled shut.

I was frozen. A downright coward, terrified of opening that damn door in front of me.

Thankfully, however, I didn't have to.

Matthew's hand turned the handle down and open the door swung, revealing a dimly lit room and exposing something I was not prepared for seeing.

Instead of an ailing, dying Eli hooked up to various IV drips and leeched of all color, I was faced with the complete opposite.

Standing up and facing the back wall, Eli's bare back was to us, and while there were a few scratches, there was nothing inherently wrong with him that was visible to my eyes at least.

"I just gotta put my shirt back on and we're good to go, man."

Shivers erupted down my spine at the sound of his voice after going so long without hearing it, but I didn't have time to relish in it, because then Matthew was speaking.

"You, uh...have a visitor."

Was this the Matrix? Because suddenly things were happening in slow motion.

Instead of Eli pulling his button down shirt over his shoulders facing away from me, the room perfectly dim and welcoming, I suddenly felt like an outsider to his life, a person that he didn't want any part of, like I was an intruder.

But that wasn't the look that was on his face as he turned to look at me.

The air seeped from the room and I couldn't breathe. Tears sprung to my eyes but I willed them to disappear, because this situation was embarrassing enough.

Just like every single time before, our eyes locking across an expanse of space, the rest of the world fell away and it was only Eli.

The gravity of his green-eyed stare melted me down to my core and I could've sworn my false eyelashes could've flown off in that moment and I wouldn't have even noticed.

"H-hi..."

"Hi."

Our words nothing more than mere breaths given syllables, the air became electrically charged with the weight of our intentions and the depth of our eyes drinking each other in after so long.

Still incredibly tan from countless hours in the sun practicing, Eli's skin glowed as if from within even in the dim fluorescent lighting of the hospital room.

Hair like dark coffee grounds, the style was cropped close to his head on the sides and grown out on top, still in good condition even despite his car accident.

His eyes, however, had changed somehow.

What once held a bitter undertone and guarded expression, a wealth of richness and knowledge seemed to be hiding in those mysterious verdant depths, his eyes raking up and down every piece of my body as if committing it to memory, like he didn't plan on ever laying eyes upon me ever again.

Like a knife to the gut, I took that thought and buried it because in that moment was where I wanted to live. In his gaze that held rapture and wonder and disbelief but also somehow relief and want, all bundled up into one smoldering look that had me wondering where I was and who I was and why I hadn't been with him, having him look at me like that the entire time.

"Umm...I'm just gonna...yeah, I'm gonna go."

We barely registered Matthew's words until the door behind me was closed and I was shoved a little bit more of the way in front of the door.

I had never been lost in someone's eyes before meeting Eli, but that phrase had never held more meaning than it had in that moment.

I probably could've stayed there contentedly for the rest of my life, having him devour me with his eyes while I gladly did the same with him, but everything shattered when he spoke.

"What are you doing here?"

What was I doing there, really? I definitely didn't have a family connection with him, and it wasn't like I was his girlfriend...

I cleared my throat and prepared for the monologue of all monologues, but he cut me off before I ever even started.

"I mean, okay I get why you're here, I just meant...did you not sing tonight?"

"I-I didn't hear about the accident until I was already done."

"So you what? You just wanted to come and check on your ex? Or was it something more?"

His eyes were begging for me to say that it was something more. Was this him trying to tell me that this was what he wanted from the beginning?

"Something more."

Did he stop breathing, or was that me?

A half clothed and disheveled Eli stood imposing before me, a mouthwatering testament of everything I had always wanted and yet something still forbidden to me because of my regrets and issues but in that moment they didn't matter anymore.

They didn't matter, because I'd almost lost him, and I was going to find him earlier in the night anyways and tell him exactly what had been brewing in my mind since the second I had let him go.

"I bet you did amazing," he said, stealing my confidence once more. Ugh! Why couldn't he just let me come right out and say it?

I still love you! It was screaming at me over and over in my head that I could've sworn the syllables slipped over my tongue and into the air.

From the non-reaction from Eli, however, I knew that I was wrong. It was still on the tip of my tongue. Why was I such a coward, why couldn't I just spit it out?

"I would've left without doing it if I knew about your accident before."

The confession was heavy in the air, lingering like an ill-timed promise, one that would've held more weight had it actually come to fruition.

"No, you wouldn't have. Not for me."

He shut down, features closed off and distant, and the second his eyes left mine, the panic set in.

Ragged, bone raw panic that blistered my teeth and made my gums bleed with its strength.

Panic that, if not quelled, would swallow me whole.

Say something, anything!

"Eli-"

"No, it's okay. I don't need your pity. I see now how wrong I was..."

"Wrong? No, I-"

Matthew's fist rapped on the door before he entered, ruining everything once more. This wasn't how this was supposed to happen. The tears welled up once more, only this time, I let them fall. One last shot.

"Eli Shepherd look at me right now."

Both boys stopped in my midst, taking in the emotional scene before them and Matthew promptly exited when he realized what he'd walked in the middle of.

"I was not giving you pity, and I did not drive here just to make sure you were okay."

Well, if I wasn't dead of embarrassment yet...

"Then why did you come? You already made it perfectly clear how you felt about us months ago."

"No, I didn't. Because I was just making excuses, because I was scared. Because I have issues and pain and so much anxiety I could fill a stadium with it. Because I couldn't handle my insecurities and be in a stable, healthy relationship with so much shit piled on in my life, and it was unfair of me to ask you to have to deal with that so soon, because it was all so new...."

"So you're saying now that you're ready to be with me, after everything? Did you just expect me to wait around on you for you to get your shit together and we'd live happily ever after?"

It wasn't rude, his tone. It was scathingly calm and questioning, like he was genuinely curious as to my state of mind...but I didn't mind answering. He deserved to know everything.

"No, I knew it would be unfair of me to ask you that, but I didn't know...I just knew that you'd be there tonight and I was going to find you and try to see you."

"Really? Even though I'm pretty sure my number is still blocked from your phone, and I can't access any of your social media unless it's from someone else's phone?"

I gulped. I had forgotten about that...

"I didn't want to be able to contact you, because I knew if I had a way, I would do it in a heartbeat. I had to make it a clean break, or I'd go back to you the second I heard your voice. With how often you were calling and texting, it was bound to happen, so..."

"And what changed? Your dad's death? Or was it something else?"

His words weren't barbed, there was no ill intent behind his voice, but it was eerie how calm he was in the moment, like he was classifying everything I said and stowing it away in a file in his head for him to remember later, like he was trying to decide if my answers were good enough, if I was worth it.

"It was a lot of things. My dad's death really fucked me up, but it wasn't like I wasn't already like that. I didn't realize it, but the last time that I'd actually felt happy was months ago, when I was with you. And I know I shouldn't do that, thinking of you as something to make me happy, but it wasn't even the being with someone part...it was that I wasn't lonely anymore, that I had someone to actually talk to, and it didn't hurt that I was already in love with you.

"And then I ran into Matthew on the plane, and it kind of felt like a sign, or something. Like I was finally healed enough and in a good enough place to try and reach out to you again, but I didn't know where your head was at, like at all. I didn't know if you hated my guts, or if you'd ever want to see my face again. I was scared then. Terrified, really. I was still stuck under my dad's thumb, and you were something amazing in my life it almost felt too good to be true, like he'd rip you away from me at any moment like he did with everything else good in my life.

"But he's gone now, and it's like a dark cloud isn't hanging over me anymore. And I didn't even realize it, but nearly every song I've written since are all about you, so, if that wasn't a huge sign to reach out, I don't know what is."

My words hung in the air, silence stretching between us as Eli slipped his hand in the pockets of his black dress pants that hung low on his hips, the unbuttoned gap in his shirt exposing the cut muscles of his stomach that dipped low into a mouthwatering V line peppered with a light dusting of hair that disappeared into the waistband of his pants.

It felt like an eternity, but finally Eli spoke, and it was the next few words that came out of his mouth that would either make or break me, that would either heal me up from my pain or rip me wide open and bleeding onto the floor, but at least we were in a hospital so I wouldn't have to go far for stitches.

"Virginia..."

Uh oh. Full name...not good. I braced myself for the blow.

He took a step forward, but instead of stepping on strong and steady legs, his knees wobbled and almost gave way, forcing me to rush forward as well and brace my hands against his chest, his very naked and godly sculpted chest.

Our breaths mingled in the air and ever so slowly I chanced a glance upwards, into his face that would entrance me and hold me captive in its gravity.

He was already staring into my eyes, and it wasn't long before my heart was palpating in my chest, sending my blood pumping through my veins at a frenzied pace.

His skin, fevered with a coating of chill bumps breaking out across it slid beneath my hands, soft as silk and just so right under me. He was everything I thought I could never truly have, there in the flesh before me.

Our faces turned towards one another, longing etched onto both of our faces, the gravitational pull was too much to ignore, that electrical current always there between us, buzzing just under the surface finally coming to life and forcing us together.

Suddenly it wasn't me holding Eli, it was Eli holding me in his arms and pulling me flush against his chest, cradling me like I was the most precious thing to him, like I was happiness and he was a man drowning in sorrow.

I reached up and closed the distance between us, mouths closing over one another as if we'd done it a million times before and nothing was in our way.

We kissed, and it was like coming home.

And then Matthew had to open the door once more, interrupting us yet again.

Eli broke apart from me and sent a cold glare to the door.

"Are you fucking kidding-"

"Mr. Shepherd. Glad to see you're healing up nicely."

I blushed as the doctor entered the hospital room. Busted.

Eli tucked me against his body, folding his hand over mine as the doctors filled into the room and Matthew sent me a mild grin and a thumbs up while I only rolled my eyes, too elated to be annoyed.

Why, then, did it feel like there was something Eli was holding back? Even in our kiss, there was an air of restraint that he hadn't shown before, and it sent my gut spiraling.

No, he had heard what I had to say, and he had kissed me back and was holding my hand. We still had some serious discussions to have, but it would be fine. We would be fine.

And after all that time pining away for him and being desperately lonely and miserable, I had to cling to that fact, had to believe it with everything within me, because if not, I would lose more than my mind, I'd lose my heart, too.