1 Prologue

Through the gap in the door, she could see his glorious, perfect rose vine tattoo in his right forearm covered with bandages. It stared deeper into her swollen eyes as she quietly opened the metal door and stepped inside. The air was cooler in the care unit.

But it didn't sooth her flaming heart. Seeing him unconscious in a hospital bed had shunned her mind out of any positive thoughts.

WHAT HAD HE DONE?

She dreaded to think of the answer. He couldn't do this to himself, could he?

She clenched her trembling hand into a fist from reaching out to his still face – his beautiful, gorgeous…scarred face – and wrapped it around her throbbing chest. She didn't deserve to touch him.

THIS ISN'T RIGHT!

THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!

Her gut wrenched and her brain froze for a second when she saw IV sticking out of his left sleeve.

She should have said something. ANYTHING. Anything when there was time. She should have listened to her heart. But, how could she? And it was too late now…

Her hurt eyes dropped as numbness captured her parched throat. The room was disturbingly silent, so much that the crying in her aching mind had become so loud that she wanted to dash out of there as soon as she could.

That's all she had done for so long, hadn't she? Ran away when things became difficult. She had run away from happiness, from love, from passion…from…him.

He… deserved more. With her heart in her throat, she took a shaking step backward, careful not to touch anything in her way, her way out of these walls closing in on her. She couldn't think straight. She needed to breathe.

She couldn't stand the idea of doing THIS to the man that loved her.