He had been given a reminder of what it felt like to see himself through her eyes. It had him thinking that maybe fate gave second chances for a reason, that maybe the trouble in his life had never been that he wasn't successful enough, but that he'd never tried hard enough to appreciate what he had. He missed Cherie desperately and Angela was definitely not the answer, but he was alive, and that was a start.
While she had been in the ICU, the hospital wouldn't let him visit because he wasn't family. Her condition was still considered critical, but she had her own room now and visitation rules were different. Miri had put him on a list of approved visitors, and he was grateful for that. Angela might not be Cherie, but they had known each other a long time and he was partly responsible for the events that had gotten her busted up in the first place. Whatever came now, he would look out for her as best he could. It was what Cherie would have wanted.
Now he sat in a hard plastic chair beside Angela's hospital bed, watching sitcom reruns whose laugh tracks seemed like cruel taunts to the unconscious woman whose situation seemed so dire. From time to time he glanced over to see if she had woken or at least moved, but there was no indication of life save for the steady rise and fall of her chest. The machines monitoring her vital signs blinked in silence.
And then she stirred.
"Hey," Angela said, an uncommon tenderness in her voice.
Doug turned to her, smiling. "Hey, yourself. You're alive, in case you're wondering."
She turned to him, eyes fluttering open as she reached out to take his hand.
Her eyes were a bottomless, wintry blue.
And her touch was like ice.