Sitting on my hospital bed, I finger through the stack of envelopes Miranda gave me. There’s one for every day I’ve been in the hospital.

Each envelope contains something stiff—a card?

I open the first envelope. It’s a simple white card with “Get Well Soon” printed on it. Inside, there’s a short handwritten message:

No other word. Not even a signature or a name at the bottom.

Moving on to the second envelope, I find a similar card with the exact same message inside. The same with all the other ones.

With envelopes and cards strewn all over my lap, I clutch the last card to my chest and let myself feel the pain I’ve been holding in. I run my fingers over the cardstock, imagining Damon’s hand over the same paper texture. I wish I’d stolen one of those flower bouquets so I could smell the scent that would no doubt stick to Damon for at least a short moment.

Sorry.

That’s all?

I appreciate the sentiment and all, and I know he’s been coming here every day for two weeks. But he tried to kill my dad and got me shot instead, so there’s probably more than one word we need to exchange.

Will we get to have that talk? Will we ever see each other again?

That evening before leaving Damon’s apartment, when I asked him, he said, “Probably not.”

Things haven’t turned out the way he expected at the time, but seeing as my dad would never allow it, I don’t see how his answer could change.

A drop of clear liquid drips onto the card in my hands, staining the white, thick paper, and I realize it came from my eye. I put the card down, afraid of ruining the only things Damon has left me. Once I go home, nobody will be brave enough to slip me anything from Damon behind my dad’s back.

The doorknob turns, and the door creaks open.

Damn it; that could be Dad.

I scramble to gather all the cards and envelopes. I should hide them under the covers. I don’t want to get anyone into trouble.

“Are you okay?” asks a female voice.

I turn toward the door to find Miranda, standing by the door with her hand on the knob, looking at me with concern. I wipe the tears on my cheeks with the backs of my hands. “Yeah.”

Not super convincing, I know. But it’s the best I can do.

“I’m so sorry. I just came here to let you know your father’s in the building. He should be here any moment now so you might want to store the cards somewhere,” she says.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

She has colluded with the rest of the hospital to keep me in the dark about Damon’s visits. I don’t blame her because it’s my dad’s fault, but I don’t need her pretending to be my friend either.

* * *

I breathe a sigh of relief when my dad leaves after his daily visit.

During any of his visits, I don’t normally say much. I was even quieter today but he didn’t seem to notice. He just kept going on and on about how he has made all the arrangements for me to go home.

As soon as he leaves, I take out my stack of cards from under the covers. My treasure.

How long will these hand-written notes of apology remain dear to me? Will I keep taking them out to read, caress, and smell when they’ve yellowed? How long will it take until I stop missing Damon?

I let my thoughts take over and lose track of time. It’s dark outside when I hear knocking on the door.

Probably one of the nurses, here to check my vitals. I leave the cards on my lap. I don’t care if whoever the nurse is sees them. Maybe that’ll get Miranda into trouble, but whatever. It’s not like my dad will find out.

“Come in,” I say.

I catch a glimpse of the blue scrubs the nurses wear and turn my attention to the TV mounted on the wall. I don’t want to make small talk with someone who thinks they’ve got one over on me.

“Princess.”

That voice.

It must be my imagination, right? I’ve spent the past few hours obsessing about Damon; that must’ve taken a toll on me.

Afraid to shatter the illusion, I turn toward the door and see him.

Damon. In the flesh.

As he pulls the door shut, a tsunami of emotions washes over me.

I want to run over there, despite my body still being weak. I want to throw my hands around him and make sure he’s real. Ask him why he attempted to kill my father despite my pleas. Tell him I know about the flowers.

Instead, I just sit on my hospital bed and stare at him. My jaw drops.

He’s wearing scrubs. Blue scrubs that are way too small for him. His muscles bulge underneath, straining the fabric and testing the integrity of the seams.

And I snigger.

I burst out into laughter and can’t stop.

He may be wearing the right uniform, but it looks completely wrong on him.

I mean, Damon would look good in all kinds of uniforms. Firefighter. Police. Army. Even scrubs would look good on him if he got the right size.

But this . . .

Damon says nothing. He glances at his cards on my lap and waits for my laughter to die down, watching me with a patient smile as he stands by the bed.

“What happened? They shrunk your scrubs in the wash?” I dab at my eyes with the tips of my fingers. I laughed so hard I cried.

“This is how all the cool kids are wearing their scrubs,” Damon says.

Even though I expected to be mad at him, I grin instead. Damn those scrubs.

“I’m so glad you’re okay.” Damon glances at my left shoulder. “I . . . I came here . . . I drove you here right after, and I stayed all night. The next day, a nurse told me I had to leave, so I did. But after that, they never let me come in to see you, no matter how many times I came or how long I waited.”

“Until tonight.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Miranda—one of the nurses—she got me her friend’s scrubs and helped me get in here.”

I nod.

So she tried to make it up to us after all. That makes me feel bad about ignoring her when she came in to warn me about my dad’s visit earlier.

Damon reaches out like he’s about to touch my hand. Before I think about what I’m doing, I flinch away from the edge of the bed.

When he flicks his gaze up to look into my eyes, I can tell he’s hurt.

“I’m so sorry, princess.”

I nod. I know that. I’ve read his cards. That’s all he’s said in every single one of them.

“I can’t sleep at night. I keep wondering if you’re okay, if you’re even alive. Fuck.” Damon runs his fingers through his thick, dark hair. “When I left the hospital after that first night, they told me you were going to be fine. But I just . . .” Damon’s dark eyes cloud over. “I needed to see you.”

“And now you have.” I surprise myself with my blunt answer. I didn’t expect to say something that sounds like a dismissal.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

I stay silent, afraid I’ll say something hurtful again, even if it’s subtle.

“I’ve never . . . I’ve done a lot of bad things, princess. I’ve hurt a lot of people,” he says. “I tell myself it’s just the nature of my job. That’s the same justification your dad makes, which makes me just as bad as him. But I . . . I’ve always been able to sleep.”

“Are you saying you want me to ask a nurse for some sleeping pills?” I ask, unable to stop myself. Is this speech supposed to make me feel better somehow?

Damon hesitates. “It’s not easy for me to say this. I guess that’s why I’m deviating from the main point.”

I stare straight at him.

“The only times I couldn’t sleep was right after my parents died,” he says. “I . . . I’m a moron, I know. But when you . . . When you got hurt, when that bullet entered your body, I realized how much you meant to me.

“I’ve been thinking about why it took a bullet for me to realize that. Night after night, when I lay in bed alone in the dark, unable to sleep . . . I can’t stop thinking about it.

“I think . . . I don’t know. This sounds like stupid psychobabble even to me, but I never knew how much I cared about my parents until I lost them either.” Damon pauses and stares at his shoes. “I . . . They were never around, and I had to learn to be independent.”

“So because of your past, it’s okay that you tried to kill my dad?” I ask.

The pain in Damon’s eyes makes my chest clench, but at the same time, there’s righteous anger burning in my belly.

Ironically, I now understand why Damon wanted revenge.

He tried to kill my dad, and now I can’t forgive him.

But that doesn’t mean I want him dead. I haven’t even thought about killing him once.

“I’m not saying it’s okay,” Damon says.

“But you want me to forgive you anyway?” I ask. I’m on a roll now, and the words form themselves and launch off my tongue without any control from me. “Because you didn’t forgive my dad for doing something like what you tried to do? Do you see how hypocritical that is?”

“Yeah.” Damon nods. He draws a heavy breath. “I do hope you’d to forgive me, but it’s okay if you don’t.” Looking deep into my eyes, he says, “I love you, princess.”

I’ve been dreaming for years about hearing those words from Damon’s mouth. But now that it’s happening, I don’t feel the way I always thought I would.

The anger in my stomach burns hotter. It coils and readies its venom to attack.

“Really? You tried to kill my dad, and now you tell me you love me? What do you want me to do with that?” I don’t know where the words come from, but there’s a steady supply of them inside me. I continue, “We had a good time together, Damon. I won’t deny that. But let’s not pretend that it was something more than a fleeting thing.”

“It can be more than a fleeting thing, princess. You know it, and I do too. We can make a real go at this. We can work this out,” he says. “Tell me what I can do to make this right. You want me to get on my knees and beg for your forgiveness? Because I can do that. I love you. I’d do anything for you.”

I glare at him.

If he really loved me, he wouldn’t have gone to that abandoned house. He wouldn’t have tied me up and sat me on the floor to watch him threaten my dad. He wouldn’t have pulled his gun out. There were so many moments where he could’ve changed his mind.

So how dare he tell me he loves me now?

Damon sinks to the floor. “I’m so sorry, princess. I love you. If you forgive me, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

I make some kind of sound in my throat, but no word comes out.

“Please, princess.”

The door bursts open, and we both freeze.

Miranda pops her head into the room. She pauses in surprise when she sees Damon on his knees. Then, she says, “You need to leave. The doctor is coming. He can’t see you here.”