After ✔

01

Madrid, Spain.
Mid-Winter.

The door shuts with a bang and I jump.

"What the hell, Morgan?" Nate hisses. He walks over to where I'm sitting and engulfs me in a hug.

Which is weird, because I'm sitting on a wooden bench.

When he lets go, I notice he hasn't showered or changed his clothes either.

"Where's Gabriella?" I ask him.

"She's with Mason." He replies.

I take a shallow breath. Gabriella has to stay back with Mason these days since Amelia and I always seem to be at the hospital. It's nice - she always complains about how she doesn't have enough time to spend with her son.

Now she does.

Now, everything's changing.

"Things are getting better, Valencia." He says. "You should be happy. Dani showed his first signs of communication in over two years."

I glance up at the giant building looming over me. St. Mary's hospital - one the largest and the best in the country.

Yet,

"I don't want any false hope." I tell him. "What if he doesn't get better?"

Nate puts his arm around me. To think - he was actually Dani's brother but acted more like mine.

"Where's Amelia?"

"The last time I checked, Mom was talking to Dr. Drance."

I get it. Hope was such a cruel thing. Yet, a tiny part of me did wish that Dani would wake up again.

I stand up. "Wanna eavesdrop on them?"

Nate stares at me for a second, then gives me a wolfish grin. "Do I ever."

We both make our way through the familiar glass doors, heading up to the second floor.

From here, we see the British doctor and Dani's mother. She's... she's laughing.

Amelia never laughs in the hospital. She doesn't so much as smile.

So what the hell is going on?

Nate and I exchange a strange look.

When Amelia sees us, she runs over to us, smiling from ear to ear.

There are tears in her eyes, and her hands seem to be shaking.

"What's up, 'ma?" Nate asks.

"He's awake!" She half-screams. She's laughing, crying, giddy with joy and pleasure.

He's awake.

Dani's awake.

I let the words sink in. Or try to.

And suddenly, my knees feel like jelly. My eyes are wide and my legs are trembling.

"Don't bullshit with me--"

"Nate!" Amelia says. She's still smiling as she grabs him arm. "He's finally awake."

Nate turns to the doctor in disbelief. The doctor nods.

"When can we see him?"

"We're just running some madatory tests." He replies. "He may be very disorientated, so we don't know what will quite happen or how he'll respond."

He touches Nate on the shoulder. "I'm happy for you, I really am."

Of course he's happy. He's been Dani's doctor since the past year. He knows me, he knows Amelia, he knows Nate and Gabriella.

He knows how much we love him.

And what we would do to see him awake.

I pace down the hallway, still shaking with fear and excitement and nervousness.

Wake up, Dani. Wake up, tug your arm away from her grasp and ask me where the hell you are and why. Wake up, call out my name and tell me you love me.

Was I ready to see him? No, was he ready to see me?

My nervous tapping alerted Amelia, who couldn't quite contain herself. Nate called Gabriella to tell her, and there was a lot of squealing on the other side of the line.

Ten agonising minutes later, a nurse called us in.

"Perhaps it's best if you control your emotions around him." She says. "He may not realise he's been in a coma for so long."

And then she opens the door, and I think my heart stops.

He's there, real and alive and awake and breathing, and I think my own heart has collapsed.

He's there, sitting in front of me wide awake, and he looks at us with those gray eyes I didn't think I would see again.

The doctor mutters something, but I barely hear him.

"Hey, 'ma." Dani tries to smile, but ends up wincing at the pain.

Amelia rushes over to him with the brightest smile ever.

"Woah, calm down. You shouldn't be rushing around like that." When Amelia tilts her head, he explains, "it's bad for you, remember? Any sudden movements?"

I lick my dry lips. No. He must be confused. Amelia got better before Dani got worse. He should know that.

"I'm just happy to see you again." He says, resting his head on her shoulder. "I'm sorry for those God-awful things I said to you last week. I really didn't mean them."

He turns to Nate who cracks a weak smile.
"You owe me twenty bucks." Dani says to him, narrowing his eyes.

Nate lets out a small laugh. "Do I?"

"Yeah."

The room has gone silent, and everybody's waiting for the doctor to say something. Anything.

But then Dani turns to me. As his eyes lock with mine, I feel frozen on the spot.

"Who the hell are you?"