It’s bright and blurry. I try to swallow but my tongue’s in the way, feeling like it’s swollen to the size of a sofa, and I can barely talk.

I can barely move. Everything hurts, everything, but I keep trying because I feel like my joints are stuck in place, so I keep trying to bend, flex, anything to fight off the sensation that I’m freezing in place.

“Shh, shh,” a voice says, big blurry shape says, leaning over me. “Don’t move.”

I ignore her and try to keep moving anyway. Even though it hurts. Someone holds a straw to my mouth, and I latch onto it, sucking, still trying to blink the blur from my vision.

I drink the water until they take it away, and the first blurry shape is back, hovering.

“You’re awake, in the hospital,” she says.

I blink again. The last thing I remember is... headlights. Just headlights.

“Do you know what day it is?” she asks.

I swallow, try to clear my throat. There’s something around my neck that feels weird and unwelcome, but like if I tried hard enough I could get it off.

“Is it still Saturday?” I guess.

“It’s Friday,” she corrects me. “Nearly a week later.”

Oh my God. A week. The last thing I remember is from nearly a week ago.

“How was I supposed to know that?” I rasp.

She doesn’t answer, but further away in the room, someone I can’t see yet chuckles.

It’s Declan’s chuckle. My heart seizes.

“Declan?” I whisper.

Strong, warm fingers take my hand, and he leans over me. My vision’s slowly clearing, and I can see the outlines of his face.

“Good morning,” he murmurs, the slightest hitch in his voice. “I missed you.”

Before I can respond, there’s a shout outside the door, and my mother rushes in, practically screaming.

“Aurora!” she exclaims. “You woke up!”

* * *

The next week is a blur. A different kind of blur, but after a while, the days in the hospital blend together.

As my swelling goes down, they poke and prod me endlessly. It turns out I’ve got several cracked ribs, very bad bruising, some sprains, and my left shoulder was wrenched out its socket. All bad, but nothing irreparable.

In other words, thank God for side-door airbags.

Even more endless are the cognitive tests. It feels like hours of every day they spend asking me what color something is, having me close one eye and say it again, connect random words to random shapes.

I memorize lists. I repeat them backward. I play word association games and look at Rorschach tests and pretty much do every psych test under the sun.

They all come back clean. Turns out I’m better at verbal reasoning than spatial reasoning, but I think that was always true.

And through it all, Declan is always there until the nurses have to chase him out every night. He tells me that while I was in a coma, he talked to Grayson and got his blessing.

“That means there’s just one thing left to do,” he says, grinning.

I’m partly sitting up in my bed, the brace still around my neck, but I’m at least allowed to get up sometimes now.

“Ask my dad?”

For once, I’m not worried. I don’t think my father will say no to anything I want right now.

“Talked to him already too,” Declan says, reaching into his pocket.

He pulls out a small box. Gets down on one knee.

Oh.

“Aurora, will you marry me?” he asks, his voice suddenly soft.

Somehow, I wasn’t expecting it, and I get choked up. Tears rush to my eyes, and I press my lips together, trying to force myself not to cry.

“Yes,” I whisper.

Declan slides the ring onto my finger. It’s not huge, but it’s ornate, beautifully wrought in white gold, and it sparkles in the light when I move it.

“It was my great-great-grandmother’s,” he says. “And then my grandmother’s, and someday, one of our grandchildren will be wearing it.”

He stands, bends over my hospital bed, and kisses me. It’s slow and deep, almost lazy, and I wrap my hand around his head, into his hair and hold him to me.

Despite everything, he still makes me shiver. He lights a fire deep inside me, and it’s unfair, because right now I can’t even take care of myself, and Declan keeps refusing. Something about not wanting to re-sprain my hip or re-crack my ribs.

“I love you,” he murmurs.

“I love you too,” I say.

I take one of his hands, guide it to my breast, my stiff nipple under his fingers.

“If you loved me you wouldn’t torture he like this,” he groans.

I lick his bottom lip.

“I could say the same,” I whisper.