The image of her in my t-shirt, walking barefoot through my hall, nothing underneath but skin.

The push of her hands on my chest, small but firm, her ability to weaken my resolve with one saucy smile.

I should have set aside my work, should have cancelled meetings, planned vacations, made half the money and had twice the time with her. I should have taken her to dinner each night, been there for each birthday and holiday, met her mother, kissed her over breakfast, told her more of how I felt. If she is gone... if I don’t have a chance to say goodbye... she will never know how I really feel. How I cherish her.

I’m an idiot.

The car pulls up to glass doors and I open the door, and steel myself for the possibilities that await me.

She will be okay. She will live. I can make changes to my life and make her mine. Marry her. Rebuild my life the way it should be, with her front and center.

I step out of the car and move toward the glass doors of the hospital.

PAUL

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

I hear her breaths and hope that she is making them, hope that if this machine was to be turned off, that the controlled sounds of life would continue. I listen to the beep of her heart rate and watch the numbers on the screen, numbers that mean nothing to me.

I touch her hand softly, running my fingers over the top of it; its cool surface scaring the hell out of me. I hold it in my hands, the fingers limp and unresponsive.

“There is brain activity.” The words come from behind me and I turn to see a young male nurse, outfitted in green scrubs. He smiles. “Something came across the monitors a few minutes ago. It’s a good sign.”

“So she’ll be okay?”

His grin falters. “No. I didn’t mean that. But with her condition... we didn’t expect any brain activity. We are still a long way from stability.”

I nod and turn back to her. Squeeze her hand. There is nothing more heartbreaking than a limp hand. No life. No response. I lean over and place a soft kiss on a bit of exposed skin on her cheek—tubes and masks preventing any real connection.

I hear a commotion, raised voices, and the squeak of shoes on floor, and I know, without turning, Stewart is here. My hand tightens, without thought, on hers.

OVER THE FALLS: [prepositional phrase]

Getting pitched head-first and slammed by the lip of a crashing wave.

STEWART

The woman before me is infuriating. She blinks at me, gray hair covering half of her brown eyes, and purses her lips. “Only close friends and immediate family may go in. She is in ICU and already has one visitor.”

“I’m her boyfriend. Stewart Brand. My assistant should have called, you spoke with her earlier.”

“Her boyfriend is already in there. So unless we have a love triangle going on, I need to speak with him first. He’s the one who brought her in, he’s the one who has her identification.”

I grind my teeth at the title, never regretting a single decision more in my entire life then when I hear her reedy voice give ownership of her to another man. “I don’t need to explain the dichotomy of our relationship with you. Call Security if you wish, but I will be the one paying for her care and I—despite what you have been told—am her boyfriend. Fiancé once she pulls through.”

“If she pulls through.” The woman’s words are firm but gentle, the statement reminding me that Madison’s health is more important than the cockfight I am creating in my mind.

“I’ll find her room myself. Here is my card should you feel the need to get authorities involved.” I flip a business card out between my fingers and set it on her desk. Then I move forward, glancing in and out of rooms, hearing loud discussion behind me. I pass a room with a man, standing alongside a bed, and then stop, stepping backward, glancing at the chart hanging on the door.

Madison Decater. Room F. This is it.

I step inside quietly, pulling the door closed, the voices instantly muffled, and move forward, my eyes only on her, the man at her side stepping back, his figure muted in my peripheral vision, my horror growing as I look at the frail figure who is my heart.

She lies in a hospital bed, her face covered with a breathing mask, tubes and cords running from portable stands to her body, face, and hands. The mechanical breathing of the machine is like a beast, huffing hot breath out that sounds nothing like her sweet sighs of sleep.

“My baby,” I whisper. “Oh my God, my sweet sweet girl.” Tears spill. Tears I didn’t even know my body could still create. I haven’t cried since Jennifer, not even at Mother’s funeral. But this, seeing her before me, struggling to breath, artificially hanging onto life... it is as if I am seeing my life dissolve, right before my eyes, and have no way of rescuing it. Her life, her fire... it is gone. It is gone and I am faced with the sudden reality that it may never come back. I am faced with my mistakes, etched in stone, unable to be wiped clean and rewritten. I sink to my knees beside her bed and hold her hand, her limp, cold hand. I pull it to my cheek, a tear leaking down my cheek, my breath gasping as I press soft kisses onto her palm.

I know that I love her. I know that she is the light in my life and keeps my world from being too dark, too consumed with work. But I haven’t known, haven’t realized until now how my love for her works. How it is more than affection. How it is the only part of me that has life. She is the only feeling that exists in my body, the only feeling that isn’t tied to greed or competition or ego. She is my light, and I haven’t realized it until now, when it is so close to being extinguished.

I lie my head on her chest, wrapping my arms around and under her body, gently grip her to me. “I need you, baby. I love you so much.”

There is a small cough, and I remember the other man in the room. The other man in her life. A man that, at this point in time, needs to take his leave, to step out of her life and allow me to take my rightful place. I release her gently and straighten, staring at her closed eyes, and squeeze her hand before turning to face her other man.

Seeing Paul’s face pulls the final nail from the coffin that is my sanity. He stands tall, taller than I remember, his chest strong, eyes fierce, blazing with the same passion I feel behind mine. I have seen his photo, Dana’s letters occasionally containing a news article or magazine clipping. But I don’t a photo to know who he grew into. I have memorized every line of his face since he was a child. Admired his athletic build, his skill in the water, his easy smile and infectious laugh. He was always our golden child, the one who talked his way out of trouble, rescued stray animals, and waltzed through life with an ease—just like Madison. The thought hits me hard, the similarities terrifying in their possibilities.

I freeze, examine the look in his eyes, try to pierce the possibilities together, try to understand exactly what his presence means and pray to God that it is not what it appears. “Why are you here?”

“For the same reason you are.” He nods toward the bed, toward the woman who I’ve spent the last two years thinking of as my own. I knew there was another man. Hell, I’m the reason she settled down with one. I didn’t want her f**king half the town, going home with strangers. I wanted to know that she had a steady relationship, had someone to go home to, someone to watch out for her and care for her in my absence. I just never thought of that person having thoughts and feelings for her, having ownership of her. I’ve always pushed that reality to the side, work taking center stage, everything else flowing, the well-oiled machine not one I needed to examine too closely. Realizing that he is her other man... Paul falls in love with baby kittens. I don’t have to look in his eyes to know that he is head over heels for her. Jesus Christ, I’ve f**ked to the thought of her with him!

My legs have lost all strength, my knees physically threatening to buckle. I stagger a few steps to the side, collapsing into the closest chair and close my eyes. There is a vibration in my pocket—my phone—and I reach in and hold the button on the side, depressing it until it vibrates and is off. “How long?” the words come out a whisper and I clear my throat.

“The doctor should be back in about an hour with some results. We will know more then.” I crack open my eyes to see him sit in a chair opposite me, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his eyes looking at her, and then at me.

“No.” My voice is stronger, though it still cracks as I speak. “How long have you been f**king her?” I open my eyes and look into his.

PAUL

My brother has changed so much. At twenty years old he was already serious, dedicated to school when I was partying, his brow furrowed over grades and projections, current events, and our family’s finances. Worry. Worry. Worry. At a point in his life when he should have been partying and f**king. Enjoying life. But he is even worse now. He has fully evolved into a rock hard frame of intensity. When he opens his eyes and stares at me, it is like being in the path of a train, frozen to the spot, unable to move even though the ground is trembling underfoot.

“A year and a half... almost two. We met in Santa Monica.”

“So this... this is coincidence?” His voice is hard, unbelieving, and it is through his petulant tone that I fully believe it is solely happenstance.

I had worked through the scenario before he arrived, turning over the realization of his identity in my head, trying to figure out the pieces, and what my part in this twisted game was. There were three possibilities. One: He had sent Madd to me—some f**ked up situation that reeked of anything but the level-headed Stewart I knew. Two: Madd had sought out two brothers, for reasons known only to her, a deceitful game that would only end in disaster. Also completely opposite of the woman I love. Three: It is all a coincidence. A f**ked up, someone-upstairs-is-screwing-with-you, coincidence.

“It’s either coincidence or she somehow orchestrated this situation.” I glance toward her bed. “And I don’t think she would do that.”

He closes his eyes, drops his head back against the wall. “No. She wouldn’t. Plus, I’m the one who pushed her to take a boyfriend.”

“Why?” It is a question I have always wondered. Why a man would send someone like Madison out into the world, not concerned with the possibility of losing her. It is a question I have always contained, not wanting to rock the boat with Madd, and a little scared at what the answer might be.

He sighs, opening his eyes and staring at the ceiling. “I assume you know how she is, with sex. From the beginning, I couldn’t give her the time she needed. For sex, for a relationship. She deserved a full-time boyfriend and she knew it. Refused to be exclusive with me. And I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I wanted her as a constant in my life, but I wanted her to be safe, and happy, and loved. And... fuck. Satisfied. I didn’t want her out f**king around. And I didn’t want her out of my life.” He pushes away from the wall with his shoulder and meets my gaze. “I thought if she had a man, someone to spend her days and nights with—someone who understood that I was there, that I had a place in her life... it would keep her happy and give me a spot in her life. Give our relationship some security.”

I frown. “Without you... I could have had a normal relationship with her. I could have made her happy.” My voice strengthens as I speak, anger flowing through my veins. “I could have been everything she needed.”

He laughs, a short bark that only pisses me off more. “Paul, you’re a kid. You float through life in some imaginary world in which you do what you love and are lucky enough, so far, to make enough to live off of. What are you going to do when you can’t surf anymore? How are you going to provide for her? At some point in time you have to join the real world. And the real world changes people. The real world takes your cheery little smile and turns you in a dark cloud of reality. It drowns you in bills and expectations and adds piece after piece of reality onto your shoulders until you are struggling under the weight of it all.” He stares at me, his features tight, face angry, and I want nothing more than to punch him, hard enough to crush bones and draw blood, but his words stop me. Words filled with as much anger as conviction. “You can’t be everything she needs. You are a fuck. Probably a good one. And you are fun. You’ve done a good job of keeping her company. But you can’t be her everything. You are barely your own everything. And you will fail her. Just like you failed Jennifer. Fuck—you were probably with her when this happened. Were you?” He stands, stepping closer to me, his eyes dark, his jaw tight. “Were you there when she drowned? Did you just let her die, like you did with Jennifer? How many women who I love are you going to hurt with that smile? With that casual attitude that lets everything important slip through the cracks?”

There is a level when your heart breaks past a point of repair. When it is shatters into pieces that cannot be glued back together. His words are knives into my chest, the truth behind them lacing the blades with poison. At some point in his speech I stand, my temper flashing as I face his affront. But then, halfway through his final words, when the truth and guilt burn its way into my soul, I weaken—in the end dropping to my knees, my hands falling to my side, my eyes wincing when the final stone finds its mark and shakes my soul.

I barely notice when he steps away, when he moves out the door and the click of the door sounds.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale.

Her haggard breathing is the only sound in the room until I sob, gripping the bars of the gurney, holding onto them tightly and leaning against her bed. “Please wake up,” I plead to her unresponsive body. “Please, baby. Please. I love you and need you so much.”

I do. I need her arms around me. Her eyes, staring, smiling into mine. They make me feel as if I can do no wrong. As if all we have is time and our time is golden. No worries, no regrets. Two people running through life with our arms outstretched and the sun on our back. We don’t need much. We have love. We will make everything else work. Fuck Stewart. Fuck him and his speech and his intensity.