remember. Surely you understand that their presence comforts me, right?”
“You left Elliot,” Anderson said bluntly. “You wanted more from him than what he could give you. You told me you had never loved anyone the way you loved me.”
I felt like I couldn’t speak.
“When I met you, we just clicked. Once we started talking, I soon found out that you were . . . depressed,” he said tentatively. “You don’t like medication so you didn’t want to see a doctor about it, but you were hurting in your mind. You had pulled away from your parents, your ex’s family, and it got so bad that you even quit your job not long later.”
I stared at Anderson with my mouth agape. I’d left my job as a florist . . . something I adored and which brought me joy outside of all my relationships. My heart clenched with pain.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “No one told me any of that.”
“They probably didn’t know about your depression.” He shrugged. “It’s just been you and me for the past few years. We’ve been together nearly four years and married for three.”
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.
“I was depressed?” I blinked, bewildered.
It made sense. After leaving Elliot I could imagine myself going into a pit of loneliness and sadness . . . but I’d never have pushed my parents away. I tensed when I suddenly remembered my mother speaking to me on the night I awoke from my coma. She’d said she was never letting us drift apart again.
“Very depressed,” Anderson answered. “You were sad . . . but then we got close. We fell in love fast, and when I asked you to marry me, you said yes. We married ten months after we met. A whirlwind romance.”
I felt like my heart was about to burst. I had left Elliot after being together for seven years, and jumped into a new relationship and married ten months later. That was beyond crazy to me. It didn’t sound like something I would do . . . but then again, neither did leaving Elliot because he didn’t want to get married.
I tried to imagine myself entering a relationship with Anderson while I was still dealing with the hurt from breaking up with Elliot, and it dawned on me that Anderson must have been someone I felt a deep connection with in order for that to happen. I had always wanted security in my relationship, and since I’d lost that in Elliot, it made sense that I’d moved on with Anderson if he was someone I believed I could depend on.
“This is . . . a lot to break down,” I said, lifting my hands to my head. “A lot.”
The door to the room suddenly opened and I heard a female voice say, “It is way past visiting hours, sir. It’s three in the morning.”
“I’m her husband,” was Anderson’s reply.
That didn’t appease the nurse in the slightest, and I closed my eyes.
“You’ll have to leave, sir. Now.”
“Okay,” Anderson grunted. “Allow me to say goodbye to my wife . . . she’s hurting and wants me here.”
I couldn’t speak; an ache was forming and I was trying not to think too hard, but how could I not? Anderson had just told me a secret about myself that I would have preferred remaining ignorant of. When I opened my eyes again, the nurse was gone, and I was alone with Anderson.
“She’s getting you painkillers; she’ll be back soon.”
“Not morphine,” I said. “I hate that stuff, it makes me feel sick. I don’t take to it well. A little bit of it and I’ll be drowsy for hours.”
Anderson nodded, slowly.
“Try to relax,” he soothed, his thumb moving back and forth across my wrist. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you things from your past that could upset you . . . the doctor said information like this is overwhelming and could harm you, but you had a right to know, baby. It’s only been the two of us . . . now they want to keep you away from me. My own wife.”
My head was hurting, but through the fog of pain I could hear the anger in Anderson’s tone, and to an extent I could understand it. He felt ambushed by Elliot and my family, who had apparently not been in my life for the last few years. Some of this new information was clearly among the things that Elliot had decided to keep from me for my own