The nurse at the desk directed her to the pediatric wing without asking for an explanation, which meant Daniel had put her name somewhere, which meant something, which she didn't let herself think about yet. He was in the hallway outside Sophie's room, sitting in a plastic chair with his elbows on his knees and his hands over his face. He looked up when he heard her footsteps. The expression on his face when he saw her was one she would remember for the rest of her life. "She's stable," he said, immediately giving her the information she needed before anything else.
The imaging showed a mild concussion. No bleed. They want to monitor her through the night because of her age. "Okay. " Riley sat down in the chair beside him. "Okay. " "What do you need? " He shook his head.
The meaning was unclear. "What do I need? I don't know. I can't think. What a strange question. " "Have you eaten? " she said.
"I'll find something. " She stood. "Riley. " His hand caught her wrist light, not restraining. She stopped. "I'm sorry," he said, "about what I said in the garage. I was You don't need to do this now.
I need to do it now because I need you to know. " He looked up at her, exhausted in the way people get exhausted when fear has been burning in them for hours. "I was scared. That's what it was. I was scared because something was starting to matter, and I looked for a reason to stop it before it could, before I could. " He stopped. "I was protecting myself. " "I know," she said gently.
"I know you weren't lying. I knew it then. I justโ" "Daniel. "" She sat back down, close enough that their shoulders touched. "Sophie's in there. " "She's okay. Let's just Let's just stay here for a while. " He exhaled.
A long, slow exhale, like something finally releasing. "Okay," he said. They sat in the plastic chairs, and they didn't sleep, and they were there when the night shift nurse came by at 4:00 to say Sophie's vitals were perfect, and she'd been asking for Gerald. Daniel went in and came back out with his eyes red at the corners, and Riley pretended not to notice, and he sat back down, and his shoulder came back against hers and stayed there. At some point, she told him not everything.
There wasn't time for everything, but enough. The company she'd built, the engagement she'd ended, the morning she'd stood at her window in Denver and felt the particular loneliness of a life full of the wrong things. The motorcycle she'd bought on impulse and barely ridden. The storm. He listened the way he did everything, completely.
"You weren't running away," he said when she finished. "What was I doing? " "Running toward something. " "You just didn't know what it was yet. " She looked at him in the fluorescent light of the hospital hallway. "When did you get wise? " she said. "Sophie's been coaching me," he said. "She has thoughts. " Sophie came home on a Saturday.