Taken (Erin Bowman)

We sat by her side and held her hand and told her we loved her, and it only made it that much worse the day she failed to wake up.
    I find the courage eventually, force my feet to move. I sit on the edge of Blaine’s bed and hold his hand. I talk to him, as the night-shift nurse suggested. I tell him everything. I recount our trip through the forest, the waterfall behind the rocks. I tell him about Bree and the Rebels and our father. I tell him the truth that I had so long searched for, about the Laicos Project and the Heist, about Frank and Harvey. It’s exhausting and it makes me realize how completely lost I feel, even now that I have the answers. Without Blaine, I am only half of myself.
    “Wake up, Blaine. Please. I can’t do this alone.”
    I squeeze his hand. He’s still sleeping, but I swear he returns the pressure. It is so soft, I’m not positive it even happened.
    I squeeze his hand a second time. This time I know I’m not imagining it. He squeezes back.
    “Blaine? Can you hear me?”
    He squeezes my hand again.
    And then I’m yelling for the nurse and she’s standing behind me as I tell her to watch, but she doesn’t need to look at Blaine’s hand, because this time, when I squeeze his palm, his eyes flutter open.
    “Blaine!”
    An older nurse pulls me away. “Careful, son. We don’t want to startle him. He’s opening his eyes for the first time in days.”
    I push her off. “You guys are the ones that will startle him. He’s my brother. Seeing me will help.”
    But then I can hear his labored breathing, and there’s a flurry of women around Blaine’s bed. They wheel him from the room hurriedly, and all I can think is that he’s not going to make it and they didn’t even let me be the last thing he saw.
    They bring him back in eventually, but the wait feels like an eternity. He is alive, intact, awake. Blaine rolls his head to the side, and when his eyes connect with mine, he is forcing a smile.
    “Gray.” It’s all Blaine says, and it sounds dry and brittle.
    “Hey.”
    He swallows heavily. “I heard you.”
    “I’m glad. ’Bout time you listened and came back.”
    “Not just that. I heard all of it . . . every last word.”
    He doesn’t look angry or confused the way I did after discovering the truth, but maybe painting those expressions onto his face right now requires more energy than he has. Blaine places his palms against the bed and attempts to sit up. He fails.
    “I need to get better.” He forces the words out, his voice strained. “I need to get out of this bed and we need to stop him, Gray. Think of Kale.”
    I hadn’t and I instantly feel terrible. There is a long pause where I hear nothing but the humming of a nurse and then Blaine finally says, “Everything was dark and I didn’t know which way was up. Then I heard you. It was easy after that.”
    That feeling I get when he is gone, that pang in my chest—he must get it, too. We are linked, bound, reliant on the other even when we try so hard to appear independent. He needed me. This whole time, all he needed was to hear my voice.
    “I’m so glad you’re all right. I just . . . I thought . . . I don’t know what to say.”
    “Don’t say anything.”
    And I don’t. We sit there together, comfortable in our silence. When my stomach growls audibly, he tells me to go eat.
    “Come visit soon,” he says.
    “Only if you promise to stay here, with us.”
    “I have to, don’t I? You wouldn’t last a day without me.”
    I laugh. “Blaine . . . you made a joke.”
    He smiles, but it looks pained. “I’m shooting for a fast recovery.”
    Back in the Eatery, I get some food and sit alone. The fruit on my plate is mushy and I nibble at it cautiously. A couple of tables over I can make out Harvey, who is showing an odd contraption to Clipper. The boy holds it in his hands, turning it over in awe and amazement. I can’t hear what they are saying, but I can tell Clipper is locked on every word escaping Harvey’s lips.
    I am just finishing my meal when a shadow falls across my plate. I look up to find an exhausted Bree, pale and somber, standing before me. Her hair is kinked from sleeping and fresh lines produced by bedsheets are strewn across her arms. She still smells like alcohol.
    “Don’t. Say. Anything,” she commands as she sits.
    “Wasn’t planning on it.” I can’t help smiling, though. It’s amusing to see her embarrassed.
    “You’re a jerk,” she snaps. “I take back