CHAPTER NINE —A WEEK AND A HALF OF NOT LETTING GO
It didn’t start with sleep. It started with panic.
It started with Paige realizing her hand wasn’t touching Azzi and every wire in her chest lighting up like an alarm.
Found the curve of Azzi’s back and pressed her palm there broad, steady, covering. Azzi’s breath huffed against Paige’s shoulder, warm and real. The monitor calmed a notch without anyone telling it to.
“I’m here,” Azzi whispered, already awake because she’d been half-awake the whole time. “I’m right here.”
Paige’s voice was a scrape. “Stay.”
Azzi nodded against her. “Okay.”
Paige didn’t sleep unless she was holding her. It wasn’t about romance. It wasn’t even really about comfort. It was the way Paige’s body understood safety now… two points of contact, a count she could do with her palm: rise, fall, rise, fall. Proof that if she closed her eyes, the person she’d fought her way back to wouldn’t disappear.
Azzi didn’t mind. She needed it too.
She slid her hand under Paige’s and pressed it more firmly to her ribs so Paige could feel heart as well as breath. “Count with me,” she murmured.
The need softened to something she could breathe.
The doctors had expected Paige to be groggy. Slow. Confused for quite a few days after waking up.
She sat up on her own wincing, but steady before anyone came in to help. She drank the entire glass of water without spilling a drop. She asked for a physical therapy schedule before they’d even unhooked her morning IV.
The nurses exchanged quiet glances behind clipboards. The kind that said, We didn’t think she’d be doing this yet.
Azzi noticed every one of those looks. And she didn’t hide the fact that she was proud.
But she also didn’t hide the fact that she was watching. Always.
She’d catch herself glancing at Paige’s face every few minutes, checking her breathing, checking her pulse point where her hand rested over Paige’s arm. She’d wake up in the middle of the night and have to touch her just enough to know she was still there.
She never called it out, never teased. She just let Azzi keep a hand on her thigh when they sat together, or curl into her side when the lights were low.
And that’s how Dr. Patel found them when he came in and flicked on the light, checked the lines, the incision edges, the chart. “Pain control, hydration, rest,” he said. “We’ll walk later.”
Paige was already braced to sit up. “We’ll walk now.”
Azzi didn’t argue in front of anyone; she just stepped close, fingers anchoring the edge of the blanket like a quiet brake. “Bathroom and back,” she said. “Then you’re going to hate me for forty minutes while you rest.”
Paige’s jaw worked like she wanted to push. Then her eyes caught Azzi’s mouth set, soft and she nodded once. “Bathroom and back.”
Katie leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, trying not to grin. Tim hovered behind her with a coffee and a look that said he’d throw a hospital bed if that’s what keeping Paige safe required.
They made it there and back.
Paige’s mouth went white on the way down, but she didn’t make a sound. When the blanket was straight, Azzi’s fingers brushed Paige’s wrist a half-second longer than necessary checking pulse, maybe. Or counting again.
“Thank you,” Paige said once the door clicked and the room exhaled.
“For stopping me before I tried to prove something to a wall.” Paige’s mouth tipped. “I guess I just listen to you.”
Azzi looked away fast, like the words were too bright.
“Good,” she said softly. “Then don’t make me be mean.”
They gave her a walker and a distance.
Paige turned it into rhythm. Plant, slide, breathe. The moons on the hospital socks offended her; she threatened to throw them away and Azzi threatened to wrestle her for them because “they’re funny and you don’t get to erase funny right now.”
Tim claimed a windowsill like a guard dog. Katie took the end of the hall like an end line, hands in her hoodie pockets, eyes glassy whenever Paige wasn’t looking.
“Paige.” Azzi walked backward in front of her on the second lap. “You’re favoring the left.”
Paige adjusted immediately. “Better?”
“Better.” Azzi’s mouth curved. “Show-off.”
“Don’t hate the player.” Paige said smirking cockily.
“Don’t make me call the nurse.”
On the third lap, Azzi put two fingers lightly on the walker’s crossbar. “Stop.” She could tell Paige was getting tired. Not that Paige would ever admit it.
Paige slowed. Stopped. Looked up, stubborn and smiling. “Chair?”
“Chair,” Azzi said. “Two minutes. Then bed.”
Paige tipped her chin captain receiving orders from the one person she let outrank her. “Two minutes.”
She sat. Azzi set a timer and ignored Paige’s theatrical sighs with the kind of patience you only learn by loving someone through pain.
When the timer buzzed, Paige didn’t reach for the walker until Azzi nodded. It wasn’t about permission. It was about trust.
The first nightmare came just after midnight.
Paige was asleep on her back, Azzi half sprawled across her chest, listening to the slow thump of her heart like it might stop if she moved. She’d been drifting in and out, letting the sound anchor her.
Then Paige’s breathing changed.
It got quick. Harsh. Her heartbeat went from steady to erratic under Azzi’s ear.
Azzi’s eyes flew open. “Paige?”
Paige didn’t answer. Her jaw was clenched, a muscle twitching near her temple. Sweat prickled her hairline.
Azzi sat up just enough to cup her face. “Hey—hey, you’re safe. You’re here with me. Open your eyes, baby—”
Paige gasped awake, chest heaving.
“I’m here,” Azzi said instantly, leaning down until their foreheads touched. “Hey… Hey…You’re okay.”
Paige’s hands were already finding her, pulling her back down, holding her tight enough that Azzi could feel every tremor in her arms. “I’m sorry,” Paige murmured, still catching her breath.
“Hey it’s alright,” Azzi whispered. “I got you.”
Paige closed her eyes, exhaling slow against Azzi’s hair. “Thank you.”
And Paige strong, steady Paige just tightened her hold until Azzi was flush against her, one arm across her back, one under her neck, like she was making a promise with her body.
“Three sets of five,” the therapist said, handing Paige a yellow band and the kind of voice people use around a skittish horse.
Paige did three sets of eight. Slow. Clean. No cheating.
The therapist blinked. “Most people… don’t do that.”
“I’m not most people,” Paige said without heat. It wasn’t ego. It was biography.
Azzi stood to her right, fingers hovering at Paige’s elbow, not touching unless she needed to. Pride softened every line of her face. “Water,” she said quietly after the last rep. Holding it out for the older girl.
Paige took it without arguing.
The hallway distance was twenty feet.
Paige did forty, rested because Azzi said so, then ten more. When Dr. Patel caught them on the return, he looked at his tablet, then at Paige, then at his tablet again.
“You’re at fifty already,” he said, half-impressed, half-annoyed at his own chart. “You’re two days ahead of your curve.”
Paige’s mouth twitched. “So stairs tomorrow?”
“If—and only if—you promise not to sprint them.”
“She won’t,” Azzi answered before Paige could. “She’ll listen.”
Paige nodded. “I’ll listen.”
To you, she didn’t say, because it was obvious.
Rain came down lightly against the wide glass. The parking lot looked gentler than it had any right to look.
Paige leaned her shoulder to the frame. “Better than the desert.”
Azzi didn’t ask for stories; she’d learned that wasn’t how Paige gave them. She just found the glass with her own shoulder and stood close enough that their elbows touched.
“You don’t have to stand,” Paige said.
“I like standing where you are,” Azzi said.
Paige fogged a circle with her breath. Absently, her fingertip drew an A.
Azzi’s breath hitched, but her voice stayed teasing. “Subtle.”
“When have I ever been subtle when it comes to you?” Paige whispered as her eyes tracked a slow rain drop down.
Azzi just smiled softly and reached up to tuck a curl behind Paige’s ear. Her fingers didn’t leave when the curl stayed. They traced the line of Paige’s jaw like a check-in. Like: are you really here?
Paige’s gaze dropped to Azzi’s mouth on reflex she couldn’t unlearn. The air pulled taut.
“Paige,” Azzi said, barely sound, question hidden inside her name.
Paige didn’t move forward. She didn’t move back. She held the line because the line was honest. It tasted like almost and patience and a future they might be allowed to choose this time.
A cart rattled past. The nurse winced a sorry with her eyes.
Azzi let out a breath against Paige’s shoulder and laughed once, wrecked. “Later.”
“Later,” Paige agreed, easy. It wasn’t surrender. It was control.
Dressing change. Tape peeled slow. Air hit new skin. And this bitch burned like a mother fucker.
Paige stared at the ceiling and kept her breath even through the quick hot of exposed nerves. She’d learned how to feel pain and not react to it. It was a skill she both hated and admired in herself.
When the nurse left, nobody spoke.
She took in the ladder of stitches along the shoulder she used to fall asleep on. The bruise ringing Paige’s ribs like storm light. The small, puckered circle in her thigh. The proof that something entered and left and took pieces with it. The faint older lines that time had thinned but hadn’t erased.
Her hand trembled once on the rail.
“Az,” Paige said, steady.
Azzi’s eyes filled. Not dramatic. Not noisy. Just the clean kind that happens when love meets grief and both refuse to give.
Azzi shook her head, eyes glassy. “I hate that you went through this alone.”
“I’m so angry,” she whispered. “I’m so—”
“I know.” Paige opened her arms. Her hands were different now rough, stronger but they held Azzi with the same exact care. Paige reached for her without hesitation, pulling her into her lap despite the soreness. “But I’m here now,” she said, low and steady. “That’s what matters.”
Azzi nodded, but the tears came anyway. Azzi folded into her like gravity. Her forehead found Paige’s collarbone; her shoulders shook silently; Paige’s palm moved up and down her back in a slow line that said Stay. You’re allowed to feel all of it. I’m here.
Paige let her cry into her chest for a minute before Azzi finally lifted her head, she breathed once, twice, calmer. “Can I… I mean—can I —”
“Only you,” Paige said before the sentence finished.
Azzi’s mouth brushed the edge of the stitched line at Paige’s shoulder. Then lower, the darkest ring of bruise. Then the old pale slashes time had made faint. Each touch was careful. Devotional. Not romantic, not performative. A way of saying: I bear witness to what you survived. I won’t pretend I didn’t see it.
She felt the press of soft lips against her skin once, twice, again and again until every scar had been kissed.
She didn’t say thank you.
She just cupped the back of Azzi’s neck and held her there, her thumb stroking slow over her hair.
Paige trembled under it not from pain. From relief. Being known without being asked to speak.
“Two steps,” the therapist said. “We spot you with two. No heroics.”
Paige, of course, lit up like she’d just been told she was cleared for a championship game.
She made it halfway up before the pain hit hard enough to make her breath stutter.
“Stop,” Azzi said instantly, one hand at Paige’s lower back, the other gripping her arm.
Paige shook her head. “I’m fine—”
The tone was soft, but it was the kind that left no room for argument.
And Paige determined, stubborn Paige stopped. Just like that.
She leaned into Azzi for balance, letting her guide her down, their foreheads brushing when they hit the bottom step.
“See?” Azzi murmured. “Listening doesn’t kill you.”
Paige smirked. “Not yet.”
Paige sighed but nodded. “Tomorrow.”
The therapist shook her head, smiling. “Outpatient is going to fight over you.”
Paige’s mouth curved. “They can text me their pitches.”
“Pick the one who listens to her,” Katie said, nodding at Azzi.
“Pick the one who argues with me politely,” Paige countered.
Tim muttered, “Different people.”
“Exactly,” said Katie, and somehow that settled it.
They made rules without making a scene of it.
If Paige startled awake, she didn’t have to explain. She tightened her arm; Azzi pressed Paige’s palm to the steady drum under her ribs and counted with her until the count belonged to both of them.
If Azzi shifted away in sleep, Paige reeled her back in without apology, and Azzi stayed exactly where she landed. And Azzi did the same to Paige.
If anyone opened the door after midnight, Paige’s hand found Azzi first, and Azzi’s fingers curled around Paige’s without needing to look.
None of it made them a couple.
All of it made them safe. Loved.
Paige did ten careful steps without the walker, a hand to the rail, Azzi ghosting at her hip, not touching unless needed. Each step looked placed, chosen, owned.
Dr. Patel watched from the station, then came close with a look he tried to disguise as stern and failed. “I keep moving your milestones. You keep beating them. I’m proud. Also: don’t get stupid.”
“She won’t,” Azzi said, and laid two fingers in the notch of Paige’s hip to remind her body how to stand easy.
“I won’t,” Paige echoed, because Azzi had said it.
No pictures. No fire. Just Paige’s body going marble-still and the sound of a breath that stopped halfway like it had forgotten how to finish.
Azzi was already upright. “Find my voice,” she said, calm and low. “Find me. I’m here. I’m here.”
Paige’s eyes were open and nowhere.
“Smell,” Azzi said, because they’d learned tricks. “My perfume. Your shampoo on my sleeves.”
Paige blinked. Once. Twice. The world slid a millimeter toward focus.
Azzi slid a hand to Paige’s jaw, the other to her sternum. “In two, three, four. Out two, three, four, five, six.”
Paige’s hands stronger every day, rougher than they used to be fisted in Azzi’s shirt until Azzi knew she’d have crescent moons on her skin later. She didn’t care. She wanted the marks.
“I’m sorry,” Paige rasped when her breath caught up. “I keep—”
“Don’t apologize,” Azzi said, and kissed her temple. Not a romantic kiss. A human one. “You’re rewiring. It’s messy.”
Paige shut her eyes, trusting that sentence like a ledge.
“Stay,” she said, smaller than she meant to.
“I will,” Azzi answered, like oath.
The doctors said she was “ahead of schedule” now.
Her strength was coming back faster than they’d predicted. Her numbers looked good. She’d walked the hallways twice that morning without stopping.
Azzi still wouldn’t let her out of sight.
If she needed the bathroom, Azzi waited outside the door. If she had to meet with the doctor, Azzi stood in the corner. If a nurse came in when Azzi wasn’t there, she’d return in under a minute, breath quick until she saw Paige still in bed.
Paige teased her once lightly and Azzi’s face fell in a way that made her regret it instantly.
“I just… I can’t have you disappear again,” Azzi admitted.
Paige face fell for just a moment. Guilt flooded her veins but she just cupped her cheek, firm but gentle. “I won’t. Not without you knowing where I’m going, when I’m back, and why I left in the first place.”
Azzi blinked at her, something fragile in her expression. “Promise?”
“Promise,” Paige said without hesitation.
Afternoon turned the room to honey. The second journal rested on Azzi’s lap, thumb marking the page. She didn’t read everything. She read the lines that sounded like Paige even on the worst days. The jokes she insisted on wedging between the pain.
“I watched you drop twenty-eight on a cracked iPad,” Paige said, eyes closed. “Almost got written up.”
“You should’ve,” Azzi said, smiling.
“Worth it.” Paige said with a drug and a tilt of her head that was just so Paige it had Azzi smiling seeing her come more like herself.
They didn’t say UConn. They didn’t say comeback. They let the idea sit between them like a soft animal that might spook if you reached too fast.
“If I try,” Paige said finally, voice careful, “I need you to tell me when I’m pushing because I’m scared, not because I’m ready.”
Azzi nodded. “I can do that.”
“And I need you to tell me if I’m… different in ways you can’t carry.”
Azzi’s eyes went bright. “I won’t drop you.”
Paige opened her eyes and met hers. “I know.”
“I don’t know how to be home,” Paige admitted into the blue dark. “What if I reach for boots instead of sneakers. What if my body only knows fight. What if I walk into your kitchen and feel like a… guest.”
Azzi smoothed the line between Paige’s brows with her thumb. “Then we’ll teach your body other things. Where the light switches are. Where the stupid cereal bowls live. How to lean on a counter and complain about homework you don’t have anymore.”
Paige breathed a laugh that caught and kept going. “Bossy.”
“And if you reach for boots,” Azzi added, “I’ll hand you sneakers. And if you forget how to laugh, I’ll say something dumb until you roll your eyes at me and remember.”
Paige’s hand found Azzi’s under the blanket. The rough of her palm covered Azzi’s knuckles like a roof. “Deal.”
Morning cut clean and bright. Papers. Gauze. Hoodie instead of gown. Dog tags in the pocket because Paige hadn’t decided what to do with them yet, only that she didn’t want them on her skin today.
Dr. Patel did the final check and stepped back with a look that read like pride he wouldn’t say out loud. “You blew the curve,” he said. “Don’t jinx it by trying to prove it again tomorrow.”
“I won’t,” Paige said meaning: because she asked.
Tim signed where the clipboard pointed. Katie zipped the duffel and hugged the nurse like she’d known her for years. Katie and Tim had slept here more nights than they should have; they moved like people who knew the drill and were ready to break the routine in half.
They wheeled Paige because rules are rules. Azzi walked at her shoulder because some rules are optional.
At the doors, winter air hit fresh and real.
Paige closed her eyes, let the sting happen, and didn’t let go of the arm of the chair until she felt Azzi’s fingers under hers there. Presence confirmed. We can move.
Paige thought back to the bed she’d learned to breathe in, the window with the ghosted A, the chair where Azzi had spent more nights than made sense.
“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
Katie’s SUV waited, warm air fogging the glass. Tim hovered like a wall. José loaded the bag. Jon held the door.
Azzi helped Paige into the backseat, hands careful at her ribs, and then climbed in beside her without asking if that was okay because it was. Because the only thing worse than the week before this would be trying to sleep six inches farther away than necessary.
As the hospital roof slid out of the rearview, Paige watched the winter sky do its pale-blue thing and kept her hand curled in Azzi’s sweatshirt like a quiet contract.
“Az?” she said, to hear it.
“I’m—” Paige stopped. The word felt too big, too simple. She tried again. “I made it.”
Azzi’s thumb traced once over the rough line of Paige’s knuckles. “I know.”
Paige leaned her head to Azzi’s shoulder and stayed there the whole drive, counting the rise and fall under her palm like prayer, like proof, like a map out of the worst part.
She didn’t let go that night, either the first night in the Fudds’ guest room, where the sheets smelled like detergent and safety and there was a stack of extra blankets on the chair because Katie overprepared for things that mattered.
Paige fell asleep with her arm around Azzi’s waist, breathing matched, bodies careful about stitches, minds careful about lines.
Not dating. Not pretending.
Just two people who had been broken in different places, choosing the same side of the bed because the distance between them had almost killed them once, and they weren’t about to flirt with it again.
In the morning, they would start the next thing.
For now, the only thing that mattered was simple:
Don’t let go unless the other says it’s okay.
