Her body felt light and each breath filled her with relief. She hadn’t realized the extent of the guilt she had been carrying until it fell free from her. She had lived with it for so long that it had become a part of her. In hoping that her words could help him heal, he had just given her the ultimate gift…the gift of forgiveness.

  Chapter Nineteen

  When Jackson first opened his eyes, all he could make out were blurry shapes and patches of light and dark. The shapes slowly turned into blurry images and he could distinguish the faces of his parents…then Sally, Tommy, and Alex. He tried to smile, but his mouth felt like he had just left the dentist’s office.

  ****

  Alex and Tommy stood in the back of the room as Jackson’s parents were briefed; Sally hovered nearby. The doctor was encouraging as she spoke to his parents. “Jackson is responding more quickly than we expected after reducing his medication. It will be a few days before we can determine the extent of the damage, though.” She went on, “Jackson will need extensive physical therapy to regain basic motor functions. There is the possibility of speech therapy, as well.”

  Alex high-fived Sally and Tommy at the news and congratulations were exchanged all around. Jackson’s friends didn’t know what the future held for him, but one thing was certain—he would get to have one.

  ****

  Caroline received a call at work with the good news. “Hey, Caroline, it’s Alex!”

  At first, her heart stopped when she saw Alex’s name on her caller ID, but the tone of his voice immediately erased any concerns she had about the call bearing bad news. “Hi! What’s up? How are you?”

  “I’m great! I just wanted you to know that he opened his eyes.”

  Caroline’s grin stretched from ear to ear. “Really? When?”

  “About ten minutes ago.”

  “Oh my gosh, that’s awesome!” she exclaimed. “That is awesome…right?” she asked.

  Alex laughed and then explained. “It’s definitely awesome. But, he can’t talk yet and the doctors aren’t sure when his speech will come back, or to what extent. I just wanted you to know that he’s awake.”

  “Thank you so much, Alex. I really appreciate the updates.”

  “Of course. I’ll call you if anything else happens, okay?” he said.

  “Okay,” Caroline said one last time before she hung up. Her hopes high, she figured it was only a matter of time before her phone would ring with Jackson’s voice on the other end.

  She turned towards Bailey’s cubicle and beamed in her direction. “He’s awake!” she shouted in a loud whisper.

  Bailey looked up from her work and squealed. “Really? How do you know? Did he call?”

  “One sec.” Caroline held up a finger, then she thumbed Tracey a text message with the news. Tracey responded right back telling her “Great news!” and asked when she was “Coming back out?”

  Caroline turned back to Bailey. “Alex called. He said that Jackson couldn’t talk yet, but his eyes were open.”

  “That’s great news, Care. Let’s go out and celebrate tonight!”

  “Sounds great.” Caroline could use some fun in her life. She had been all but consumed in thoughts of Jackson for what felt like forever. And she’d been doing a lot of waiting—waiting for Jackson to wake up, waiting for him to call, and waiting for her life to begin again.

  The girls headed straight to a restaurant and bar after work. Caroline was still on cloud nine from Alex’s call that afternoon. They sat in a small booth and Caroline ordered appetizers and a light beer.

  “So, how long until Jackson calls, you think?” Bailey asked.

  “I don’t know. I mean, Alex said he couldn’t talk yet. But…” Caroline’s voice trailed off.

  “But what?” Bailey rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t even, Caroline.”

  “Don’t even what?”

  “You think he’s not gonna call. I can’t believe I’m best friends with an idiot.”

  Caroline shook her head with a laugh. “No. I think it’s idiotic to assume he will.”

  Bailey slapped the table and Caroline grabbed her drink before it toppled over. “Ugh. Really? Of course he’s going to call. He loves you. Even Alex said so!”

  “Alex also thought Jackson’s parents knew who I was. So, he could be wrong.”

  Bailey shrugged; Caroline was right about that. Alex had been just as surprised as Caroline when they realized that Jackson’s parents didn’t know who she was. “I still think he’ll call,” Bailey said with optimism.

  Caroline smiled. “I hope so.”

  “There’s no way this all happened for nothing. All the drama, the heartache, leaving Clay…”

  “You better be right,” Caroline said.

  “Dur. Of course I’m right. I’m smart, remember?” Bailey laughed, and held up her glass.

  Chapter Twenty

  The days seemed to pass in slow motion as Caroline waited for the call that never came. She attempted to fill the agony of waiting during the day with work and let Bailey drag her out at night.

  She sat at her desk trying to concentrate on the ad mock-up that was due before the end of the day, but Jackson consumed her every thought. Caroline wanted to believe that he would call soon, but worried his silence meant what she had feared the most…that Jackson had really moved on and was no longer in love with her.

  Caroline silently berated herself for the hundredth time for waiting so long to walk away from Clay. She had finally admitted what she had felt since that first day, but it was apparently too late and she had no one to blame but herself. She had waited too long…treated him badly…abused his heart. She snapped her laptop shut in frustration, picked up her cell phone and checked to make sure she still had a signal. She did.

  Bailey walked by her desk quickly without stopping. “Anything yet?”

  Caroline simply shook her head and Bailey mouthed, “I’m sorry” as she continued on to the conference room.

  ****

  Jackson laughed in his hospital bed as Sally told him about a funny incident at the bar. Alex leaned in the doorway and watched Sally’s interaction with Jackson. He had tried to be patient, wanting to ask his best friend about Caroline, but once again it seemed like a bad time. Sally was always in Jackson’s room whenever Alex dropped in, and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

  When Jackson first awoke, he couldn’t speak clearly and had been in intense physical and speech therapy ever since. Sally made a point to be at the hospital as much as possible, and Alex knew that her support had been good for Jackson.

  Jackson joked with Sally like old times, and Alex smiled in relief at the improvement he noticed. His friend was more and more like his old self every day. Maybe there was no time like the present.

  “So…” Alex ventured. “How are things with Caroline?” Sally stiffened and leaned back slightly.

  Jackson’s brows furrowed and he dropped Sally’s hand. “What do you mean?”

  “Haven’t you talked to her?” Alex asked pointedly.

  “No. Why would I?”

  “She was here, you know.” Alex glanced at Sally. “You did know she was here, right?”

  Jackson started fidgeting in his bed. “No, I didn’t. How would I know that if no one told me? When was she here?”

  “When you first got into the accident…she came to the hospital.”

  “She came here? She flew…out here?” Jackson’s face froze and his eyes were unfocused as he obviously struggled to understand.

  “Yeah, I thought you knew that.” Alex shrugged.

  “How the hell would I know that?” Jackson shouted, his color rising as his temper flared.

  “Because she left you a letter!” Alex retorted.

  “What letter?” he asked in disbelief..

  Alex looked in Sally’s direction. “Sal, you never gave him the letter?”

  ****

  An agitated heat swirled throughout Jackson’s body. None of this made sense…could Caroline have really come to the hospital? He didn’t remember any of it. He frowned at Sally, whose face had turned pale. Slowly, she picked up her purse and pulled out the tattered envelope that had “Jackson” written on the front in blue ink.

  “I’m sorry. I should have given this to you weeks ago.” Her hands quivered as she handed Jackson the envelope.

  “You’ve had a letter from Caroline this whole time?” Jackson asked, his voice dangerously soft. “You kept it from me?”

  “I’m so sorry, Jackson. I was supposed to give it to you when you woke up, but I panicked.” Sally shifted in her chair and pulled her purse closer to her body. She glanced up at Alex for support, but he looked away.

  “You panicked? You knew how I felt about her.” Jackson struggled to keep his temper in check as his voice rose and his face flushed with color.

  Sally stuttered, her voice shaking. “It just happened so fast after you woke up. For the first time, you actually needed me. And I didn’t want to lose that…I didn’t want to lose you.” She reached out to touch his arm, but drew back as he stiffened.

  Sally leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. “But I realize now that I never truly had you in the first place, so you can’t lose something you don’t have, right?”

  Jackson refused to look at her. Without a word he yanked the envelope from Sally’s hand and opened it carefully. He unfolded the piece of paper and read it to himself.

  Dear Jackson,

  You once told me that we were like two ships passing in the night…that we had found each other, but couldn’t be together because there were forces, situations, or other things that we couldn’t overcome. And for a long time, I believed the words that you wrote to me. I had to. I knew that what we’d found in one another was truly rare, but I held on to the notion that we simply weren’t meant to be. As painful as that notion was, I chose to accept it the same way you had.

  But now, as I sit in the hospital where you lie helplessly in a room down the hall, I wonder if they weren’t so much situations we couldn’t overcome, as much as situations we chose not to. And by we, I really mean me.

  I sit here unsure of your feelings for me and I think I finally understand how you must have felt all along. And I can never apologize enough for the pain I caused you. As hard as it was for me, I know it was harder for you. And for that, I am truly sorry.

  It took almost losing you for me to see that there is no one else I want to be with other than you. There’s nothing more I’d rather do than sit in that room by your side every moment until you open those beautiful blue eyes and look at me again, but I’m not naïve enough to think that your life hasn’t continued on without me (Sally is fantastic by the way). I don’t want to assume that I still hold a place in your world. But if I do…and if you still want to be with me the way I desperately know I want to be with you…then call me when you wake up and I’ll be on the next flight out.

  I love you…I always have. I was just too stupid, or cautious, or filled with worry and guilt to do anything about it. I’m finally ready to follow my heart—and all roads lead to your door.

  xoxo, Caroline

  “I can’t believe you kept this from me.” Jackson said tightly, his gaze focused on the letter he couldn’t believe he was holding in his hands.

  “I’ll make it right with her. I’ll do anything. Please, just forgive me,” Sally pleaded.

  Jackson shook his head and looked at Alex. “Does she know I’m awake?”

  “I called her the day you woke up.”

  “Of course you did,” Tommy chimed in snidely from the hallway.

  Alex turned to glance behind him. “When did you get here?”

  “Just now.”

  Jackson ignored their exchange as he quickly calculated the number of days he’d been awake. He read her letter one more time before cursing under his breath. “She thinks I don’t love her.”

  “Why would you say that?” Alex asked.

  “Because she told me to call her when I woke up if I still wanted to be with her,” Jackson explained, holding up the letter.

  Alex’s face dropped. “Oh.”

  “Alex, I’ve been out of the coma for weeks, and she knows that.”

  “But…”

  Jackson interjected, “Have I mentioned the fact that I haven’t called her?”

  “Unbelievable,” Tommy snarled and stormed out.

  “But you can fix it! Just one phone call will fix everything. She’ll understand. Call her!” Alex pleaded.

  “I can’t.” Jackson sighed as his eyes glazed over.

  “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  “Did he meet her when she was here?” Jackson tilted his head in Tommy’s direction.

  Alex snorted. “Oh yeah. He met her, all right.”

  “Was he mean to her?” he asked through clenched teeth.

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “What’s his problem?”

  Alex shrugged his shoulders. “I honestly don’t know.”

  “I think I do,” Sally offered softly. She looked over at Jackson before he nodded with silent approval for her to continue.

  “It’s hard to stand by and watch your best friend go down a road you know will end badly for them,” she began. “It’s like you see them in the path of an oncoming train, but they don’t see anything past the pretty trees near the tracks. You want to push them out of the way so they don’t get run over, but they refuse to move. So you’re forced to stand there helplessly and watch the devastation happen, powerless to do anything to stop it.”

  “I guess.” Jackson conceded. “But I’m a big boy; I can take care of myself. It’s my decision if I want to stand on the train tracks or not. I know what’s coming, but it’s my risk to take.”

  “It’s still painful to watch.”

  All heads turned at Tommy’s comment. Alex wasn’t sure if he was more surprised that Tommy had returned, or by what he had said.

  “But I didn’t ask you to watch,” Jackson argued.

  “But as your friend, I can’t help it,” Tommy insisted. “I can’t just walk away and pretend I don’t care. It just sucked, okay? I’ve never seen you like this about a girl.” Tommy eyeballed Sally.

  “Sorry, Sal,” he continued, “but it’s true. Jax, you were crazy for this girl. But she had a boyfriend and I couldn’t help but think that you were headed for some serious heartbreak. Not to mention the fact that the whole situation was pretty messed up.”

  “You’re a good friend, Tommy,” Jackson acknowledged. “And I appreciate your concern, but you have to let me live my own life. I knew that I was heading in a potentially bad place. But I had to take that chance.” His eyes softened and he smiled at the thought of Caroline. “See, she was worth the risk. You can’t make those decisions for me.”

  Tommy took a deep breath. “I know that. It’s just still hard to stand idly by and watch you get hurt.”

  “Are you in love with me?” Jackson asked sarcastically and the whole room burst into laughter.

  “I’d punch the shit out of you right now, if you weren’t lying in a hospital bed,” Tommy promised.

  “Lucky me,” Jackson smiled.

  “I don’t mean to break up the ‘bromance’ we have going on, but…” Alex paused and smiled. “Are you gonna call the girl, or what?”

  Jackson took a deep breath. “I have to think.”

  “What is there to think about, Jax?” Alex prodded.

  “I just need to figure some stuff out, okay?” Jackson snapped harshly and Alex shut up.

  Sally watched the exchange between the guys and suddenly felt out of place being there. “Can you guys give us a moment alone?” she asked meekly. Tommy and Alex exchanged glances, then slipped out the door and closed it behind them.

  She sat up a little straighter and folded her hands tightly in her lap, before she took a deep breath and looked Jackson directly in the eye. “Jackson, I truly am sorry.”

  His face softened and he reached for her hand. “I know. I don’t think what you did was right, but I know where it came from.” Jackson regretted that he had never been able to return Sally’s feelings for him, and his voice gentled. “I need to thank you,” he said, catching her off guard.

  “Thank me…for what?” she stammered.

  “For loving me,” he said kindly, and squeezed her hand. “I know it hasn’t been easy for you, knowing that my heart was unavailable. But you never let that stop you from taking care of me this whole time. I know you haven’t left my side for a single day.”

  Sally’s face flushed and her eyes welled with tears. “I didn’t want to.”

  Jackson smiled. “I know. You’re an amazingly kind and giving woman. One day you’ll find the right guy for you. And if he treats you the way I did, I’ll beat the crap out of him.”

  Sally wiped at her eyes and laughed. “Thanks, Jackson. And Caroline’s incredible, by the way. She truly is.”

  “You liked her?” His face brightened and Sally could see that he wanted to ask more.

  “I do like her. It took about all of five minutes for me to see what you saw in her,” Sally admitted.

  Jackson kissed the back of her hand and looked into her eyes.

  Sally grabbed her purse and stood to leave. “Thank you for showing me what I’ve been missing,” she said, and leaned over to kiss Jackson’s cheek.

  Jackson watched Sally walk out the door and knew with certainty that she wouldn’t return. Now he needed to figure out what to do about Caroline. Of course he wanted to be with her, but it had been weeks since he’d woken up. What if in his hesitation to call her, she had gone back to Clay? What if she had moved on? What if she were mad at him? His mind raced through a million different thoughts, but he didn’t pick up the phone.

  When his head began to ache from his never-ending brain chatter, Jackson forced himself to sleep. He decided to call Caroline the following day and hoped she would understand and still want to see him.

  ****

  Jackson watched as a figure approached in the distance. He put his hand up to block the setting sun and knew immediately that it was her. Caroline walked quickly through the tall grass and flowers toward him. As she came closer, he saw the huge smile on her face. He ran to her, but stopped short of picking her up and swinging her around. Instead, he paused and looked her up and down, noting that she was wearing one of his white button-down shirts. He wondered briefly how she got it, but then quickly dismissed the thought.