she slips real hard, he says

He strides into the emergency room and she's in those hospital clothes and she's crying and it takes all his fucking strength not to run. She can hardly breathe, he holds her so close, places his hands on her face, dries her cheeks with the palm of his hand. She is too numb to stop the tears, dismiss the pain and her lips are split open, her breath haggard.

"Baby," he whines plaintively, big amber eyes searching hers for signs of life (hardly finds anything).

"How are you?" It takes all her strength to speak because her head is pounding and she can hardly live, hardly live right now.

"Terrified," he breathes, fingers entwined hard with hers. "I fucking love you and I want to know you. I want to know you a long time."

For hours they are trapped in tragedy and confusion, countless faces and emotionless eyes taking her vitals, asking her about her darkest secrets. Suicidal, they think when they see her red, swollen eyes, tear-stained skin, nervous fidgeting.

She's stuck there in the hospital bed with a band around her wrist with her name and a barcode, with hospital gowns that morph her body into a shapeless flow of battered cotton (maybe whoever wore them before was actually crazy). There's no way to get out, she has trapped herself, so she makes confessions to psychiatrists (she's lying, she must be suicidal), to social workers (don't trust them, they've fucked things up before) that make her man squeeze her hand and squirm and lose his words (fuck, how much he accepts her, cares for her, lets her go crazy).

"She slips real hard," he says.

But still, even through all this he lays in the hospital bed with her, lets her cry on his hand, hold onto him and the idea of him just to survive.

"And I was just thinking about how to tell you I love you," she tries to laugh, "And you go and say it first."

He laughs and makes a promise. "I'm not going anywhere."

It's dark and there are crazy people staring at her through the dark. She wraps the hospital gown tight around her, feels the plastic band on her wrist and the eyes of the nurses on her. But those big amber eyes, those big hands, forehead pressed against hers as they say farewell, and the final kiss make her chest pound and make the world seem nothing but the ground underneath their feet.

"This place is weird, I'll get you tomorrow. You don't belong here."

"Okay," she whispers weakly, unsure of her own perseverance.

"Hey," he implores, his sandalwood fingers curled in hers, soft lips pressed against her hand. "It'll be all right."

Weakly she waves as the nurse ushers him out; feels small and insignificant underneath the blanket draped over her shoulders.