SAM'S POV

Sam had been sitting on the chair next to Sarah's bed when he heard the sound of a machine beeping incessantly. Sleep had come to him ever so fleetingly the night before. He'd always heard that no two things could keep a man up at night like fear and love could. And that night his sleep battled with both. In his arms, he held his girlfriend against him and he was overwhelmed. He was overwhelmed because as he lay in bed, he reflected over the day and all that had occurred. And he thought that it might have been the day that he realized, without a shadow of a doubt, that she loved him.

When he had watched her walk out the door after he had attacked Alex, he'd thought that she had left him and a large part of him had felt like it had instantaneously shut down the way the electricity does in a power outage-quickly and without warning. He didn't know where she would go or how she would get there and he didn't think she'd ever tell him either. He thought she was disgusted by him, because frankly he was, too. He would never see her again; never see her smile or hear her laugh. Never hear her soft snoring in the morning next to him after having spent the night listening to her making even sweeter sounds in his ear that sleep couldn't produce.

The truth was, Sam hadn't counted on living another day without her ever again, and he wasn't prepared to figure out how to do it. But in his mind it had been too late. She was long gone-she'd taken some directions from a stranger and found her way to a train or a bus, gotten a hotel room and would leave as soon as she could get her things from his father's trunk.

What he felt when he'd realized just how wrong he'd been was indescribable. It was past happiness and beyond relief. When he'd walked out of the room, he'd been shaken and overcome with panic and guilt that he thought would eat at him until he was at risk of vanishing completely. He'd intended to find Alex and attempt to fix at least one part of all of this, but he'd found her instead. And just like electricity returns after the black out, the veins in his body were pumping life again. His initial thought had been to run to her, to wrap his arms around her and hug her. But he'd thought better of it immediately. Though she was there, he hadn't known exactly what their first encounter would be like after what had happened. He'd half expected her to walk right past him and ask his father for his keys so she could get her stuff from his car. But instead, she'd stood there as he approached her. She didn't appear angry or disgusted-she'd even managed to chuckle at his theory of her leaving. She spoke with the utmost of concern for him. She didn't talk at him, she talked to him and when the conversation had ended, he hadn't felt judged or belittled-he'd felt encouraged.

I'm not gonna leave you, Sam.

The words felt the way a warm bed does after a grueling day of work. They'd been the last words he'd expected to hear from her that day. But she'd said them, and he knew that she'd meant them because she was still there. He'd made an awful mistake attacking Alex the way he had and all on an impulse and a striking bolt of anger. If his actions were indicative of their future together, he was a man with abandonment issues who ran at the sight of trouble, and a partially raging temper-and he didn't think she would want a future with that at all. But there she was, standing in front of him, declaring her willingness to stay. And all the while she was changing him, molding him into a better man just by existing.

She loved him. He didn't doubt it then and he didn't doubt it when she'd told him later on that night in his bed that everything would be alright.

Truthfully he'd regretted asking her the question of his sister's fate immediately after the words had left him-the pressure wasn't fair. But she hadn't sunk beneath it. She didn't know what would happen to Sarah-no one on the earth did, and he knew that.

I think everything's gonna be okay.

He hadn't fully grasped what it could mean until he'd woken abruptly a couple of hours later from his sleep. And when he understood it, it both broke his heart and mended it all at once. What she'd really meant was that, even if his little sister never opened her eyes again, everything would be okay. It was a hard pill to swallow and it nearly choked him every time he attempted to fall asleep again that night. He kept thinking how unfair it was that he still had the choice to wake up or not to, while his sister lay in a bed that wasn't hers, with only enough consciousness to move her legs. The sun was rising by the time he had finished pondering just how brief life could be for the people who deserved to live the most. After he wrote a quick note to Mercedes, he showered and then drove his father's car back to the hospital and the two of them had a quick breakfast at a small diner around the corner. They ate in a comfortable silence as the news played on a television screen on the wall. A reporter was saying something about a woman giving birth to six babies at the hospital where Sarah was. A cryptic laugh escaped him as he considered how tragic it was that six lives began within the same building where his sister's was slowly fading, along with his hope.

Was it tragic? Or beautiful? He couldn't decide. He only knew that life was short and Sarah had only seen the tip of the iceberg, and already she was checking out. The thought of it felt like a knife jabbed through the back of his chest that twisted and moved deeper each time he looked at her.

Back at the hospital, the beeping shook him from his sleep. Only a couple of minutes before he'd thought he'd heard his father say something about a vending machine. When he woke, there was only him and Sarah so he figured he hadn't imagined it. He stood and his gaze followed the sound of the beeping, attempting to locate its source but there were too many machines for him to identify it. He was just moving to go get a nurse when he heard the door swing open behind him, but he couldn't bring himself to turn around because he'd happened to look down at his sister, and found her looking right back at him.

Send your thoughts! ^.^