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  “They don’t?” I ask. “So I should have just let you kill her off? That was the right fucking thing to do?”

  “I wasn’t going to kill her, Kaden…”

  “Feeling guilty?”

  “I can’t let you off the hook…”

  “You’re going to let Dr. Meiner get all the credit then? A breakthrough surgery, a novel approach to all kinds of neurological issues...pioneered here at Pittsburgh Memorial…under your direction.”

  I see it in her eyes the moment the greedy realization hits her.

  “Miener is ambitious,” I say. “If you don’t stage taking credit right away, he’ll get all the glory.”

  “I can still fire you—or force your resignation—and get credit for the miraculous breakthrough.”

  “Can you?” I ask. “When the patient is specifically asking for me by name?”

  “I don’t see how you pulled that off,” Bell says. “She shouldn't have a clue who you are.”

  “I guess we bonded,” I say, grinning. “Can we do this later? I need to see my patient.”

  “Fine,” she says, waving me away.

  I get to Rose’s room as fast as I can. Dylan is still there. They are both laughing.

  “Dr. Prince!” Dylan shouts. “It worked.”

  “Kaden,” I say, grinning. “And yeah, it did. Rose is awake.”

  I move closer to her, smiling down at her. “And how is she feeling?”

  “Good,” she says. “I keep feeling scared that I will fall right back to sleep, though.”

  I nod. “The device we implanted in your hypothalamus,” I say, “runs on the electricity from your own nervous system. It should continue working, and you should be able to stay awake.

  “But as soon as I fall asleep,” Rose says, “it might be years before I even know it happened. It can happen at any time.”

  “It won’t,” I say, moving closer.

  She grabs my forearm with one hand and squeezes. Her anxious big green eyes lock on mine, and she twirls her hair around a finger of her other hand. I’ve known this woman for five years, and I’ve never seen her nervous habits. I’ve still never seen her smile.

  She’s touching me, holding onto my arm, as if I’m her only anchor in the real world. As if holding tight to me can keep her from falling back to sleep.

  “It’s okay, Rose,” Dylan says. “You won’t fall back asleep.”

  “Your brother is right,” I say. “At least...not until tonight.”

  “No!” she says, squeezing my arm even tighter. “I can’t sleep, not even at night.”

  “I wish I could tell you that sleeping for seven years means you don’t need nightly sleep for a decade, but I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that,” I say, smiling at her and putting a hand over hers.

  “I’ll stay with you,” I say. “When it’s time for you to sleep again. I’ll make sure it’s natural sleep, and that you’ll be awake again in the morning.”

  She smiles at me. It’s a bright and wide smile that reaches all the way to her eyes. “You’d do that, Dr. Prince?”

  I nod. “You can also call me Kaden.”

  “Kaden,” she says, trying the name out. “Can you tell me why you’re in trouble? No one will tell me anything.”

  She lets go of my arm and inches herself up so she’s sitting up straight. She has a nervous expression on her face.

  Dylan steps in before I have to speak. “Mom and Dad left all their money to keeping you cared for...but it ran out. The hospital was going to pull the plug on you...I couldn’t afford to save you, Rose.”

  Rose’s lip quivers, and she bites down on it. “God, I can’t believe you felt like that was your fault, Dylan, it’s not...it’s my fault for being like this.”

  “It’s no one’s fault,” I say. “No one but this heartless place we call a hospital. I did what I had to do. You’re my patient, and I saw a way to save you. I had to take the chance.”

  I skip telling her that Dylan and I considered laundering my own money through him to keep her alive. We decided against it when we realized we had a better shot at actually waking her up through pursuing the experimental surgery with Dr. Meiner. Given enough time, I could have gotten around those laws, but Dr. Meiner’s device was too tempting. And it paid off.

  She smiles up at me again, her eyes tearing up. “Thank you, Kaden, I...I know you made a huge sacrifice, and I don’t think I can ever repay you.”

  My mind shifts itself to dirty thoughts straight away—it tends to do that—and I can think of dozens of ways I’d like for her to repay me. I shake my head, dislodging the unprofessional thoughts, but when we make eye contact with each other, I can tell she remembers our kiss.

  The fucking kiss. Why did I do it? Did I really start to believe the fairytale bullshit? Sleeping Beauty? Fuck no, it was the quantum circuits fusing into her nervous system, jump starting—rebooting—her brain. If I hadn’t kissed her, she’d have woken up anyway. At least I think so. Right?

  She licks her lips as I continue staring at her.

  “I’d do the same thing for any patient that I did for you,” I lie.

  4

  Rose

  I’m already feeling tired when Dr. Prince—Kaden—comes into my room.

  “My shift is over,” he says, stretching. “Finally.”

  “You’re going to stay here with me even though your shift is over?” I ask, clutching the blanket up to my neck.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Don’t worry about it. I want to.”

  His sleeves are rolled up, and I notice the ink he has tattooed all over his forearms. His hands look amazing—strong, powerful, gentle – I guess I didn’t lose my appreciation for a good pair of hands even after being asleep for so long. Surgeon’s hands. He looks almost too rugged to be a doctor, with his seemingly permanent stubble, wide shoulders and broad chest, and big, bulging arms.

  “Okay,” I say, nodding. “Thank you.”

  I’m clutching the blanket against my body because of my breasts. The last night I remember, I was trying desperately to make my inadequate chest look big for Ryan, and seemingly overnight I’ve woken up with “big naturals.” A seven-year night. They’re what I always wanted, but it feels odd, like it’s not even my body. It sometimes feels like I woke up wearing another woman’s skin...a woman who also just happens to be a 25-year-old virgin.

  Kaden has seen my body more than I have, and having big boobs should be nothing new to him—it’s not like I’ve seen him leering at them or anything. Still, it makes me feel nervous. I also would love to know how the hell it happened—how is it that my body matured so much while I was sleeping? I’d die of embarrassment asking him that question, so instead I go for another.

  “Dr. Pri—”

  “Kaden,” he says, smiling.

  “Kaden,” I say. “How is it I don’t feel like, weak? I haven’t used my muscles in seven years, and even though they won’t let me try to walk yet, I’m pretty sure I could.”

  “Your body was basically in stasis,” he says. “The feeding tube provided the small amount of nutrients you needed, and nurses moved you around every day to keep your muscles from atrophying.”

  Nurses were moving me around? The mental image of that makes me feel a bit uneasy. People were tending to me and touching me every day for years, and I have no recollection of it.

  “We’ll let you walk soon,” he says. “As soon as possible. We just want to run a few more tests first.”

  “Is it weird?” I ask. “Seeing me awake? You probably got to know me as this really quiet girl—”

  I stumble for words. I’m not really a “girl” anymore, am I?

  “And,” I continue, “now I just can’t shut up.”

  “It’s good you’re asking questions,” he says. “You want to keep it up, feel free to ask me anything you’re wondering about.”

  “Do we have flying cars yet?” I ask. “I haven’t been outside.”

  He laughs. “Flying cars? No, not yet.”
<
br />   “I used to love watching Back to the Future 2,” I say. “I thought it would be so cool to travel through time into the future...I never thought I’d actually do it.”

  “We did have hover boards,” Kaden says. “But they banned them from almost everywhere because they kept exploding and catching fire.”

  My eyes light up. “You’re kidding? Hover boards! Like—”

  “No,” he says. “Not like in the movie. I don’t know why they called them hover boards, really. They were just like...really crappy scooters with no handles. You stood on them and moved slowly around. On wheels.”

  “Oh,” I say, deflating. “What cool stuff is there, then?”

  Kaden pulls out his phone. “You fell asleep in 2010, so...damn, if it had been a few years earlier, I could have wowed you with an iPhone or something.”

  He pockets his phone.

  “What can the new iPhone do?” I ask.

  “Let’s see…” he says, pulling his phone back out.

  He holds a button down, and there’s a chirping sound.

  “Siri,” Kaden says. “What appointments do I have tomorrow?”

  “You have a robot assistant?” I ask, sitting up. The blanket falls down, and my big boobs—still at least covered by a hospital gown—spill out. I pull the blanket back up against my chest.

  “Tomorrow you have ‘walk with Rose Dorner’ at 10 a.m., ‘lunch’ at 12:30 p.m.…”

  “Got it,” Kaden says.

  “‘Poker’ at 8 p.m., ‘UFC’ at—”

  “Siri, chill out!” he says.

  She keeps going until the whole day’s schedule is announced.

  “I guess robots aren’t going to be taking the world over quite yet,” I say.

  “I’m honestly surprised she even understood me. I usually have to repeat myself three or four times. I guess she wanted to impress you.”

  “You play poker?” I ask.

  He grins. “Yeah, I was pro for a while—”

  “Wait,” I say. “You went from pro poker player to brain surgeon? How does that even happen?”

  “I didn’t want to go into debt for medical school,” Kaden says. “So I saved up the money for it all upfront.”

  “You paid for medical school just with poker money? Isn’t that like hundreds of thousands of dollars?”

  A tattooed, poker-playing brain surgeon. It’s going to take me a while to figure this guy out. Not that I’ll mind spending more time with him. I keep feeling like he’s so much older than me. He looks like he’s in his early thirties, which feels like more than a 10-year age difference...but then I remember I’m actually twenty-five. Not eighteen.

  “Yeah,” Kaden says. “It took me a few years, but I was pulling in crazy cash in pro poker. More than I needed. So I invested it.”

  “Why not just keep doing it then?” I ask. “You could have just done it a few more years and retired early.”

  He shrugs. “I always wanted to be a doctor. It wasn’t really about the money. Even if brain surgery had paid lousy, it’s what I wanted to do.”

  I smile. “Well, you’re really good at it.”

  “Tell that to Dr. Bell.”

  “I did,” I say, winking. “I think I helped save your ass.”

  He laughs. “You one hundred percent saved my ass, Rose. I owe you.”

  “You don’t owe me,” I say. “I was repaying my debt to you. You’d already saved me, so I just...paid it back.”

  “Well,” he says. “We’re even then, aren’t we?”

  “I’m not even with everyone,” I say.

  He leans in closer to me. “What do you mean?”

  “Dylan,” I say. “I can’t help but feel...he was always smart. I think he gave up everything for me. He’s a barista. When I fell asleep, he was looking at going to Harvard.”

  Kaden bites his lip. “You can’t blame yourself for any of that, Rose. You didn’t ask for the wiring in your brain to suddenly go bad. It just happened. I’m sure Dylan did what he wanted to help. You didn’t force him. You’re his sister, and he loves you.”

  No one will tell me what happened, but I can piece it together. Mom and Dad decided to spend all their money on my treatment, and there was nothing left for Dylan. Then Dylan decided to work instead of go off to school. They probably all thought that I’d wake up soon, and by the time Dylan realized I wouldn’t wake up, it was too late for Harvard and the money was all gone.

  “So,” I say, trying to shift the conversation to a less depressing topic. “You’re an ex-pro poker player, and you play with your friends? How is that fair?”

  Kaden leans in closer to me, until I can see each hair of his stubble and can smell his masculine scent, and whispers, “Can you keep a secret?”

  I nod. “Sure, I mean, of course I can.”

  “I play with other doctors and hospital staff—nurses, EMTs, a bunch of people. Poker just ended up being what everyone does to hang out with each other. It’s a ton of fun...and so I lose on purpose.”

  “You what?” I say, my voice rising.

  “Shh,” he says. “I seriously don’t want anyone to find out. I played under an alias back before poker players were on TV and stuff. No one knows I used to be a pro, and they think I’m one of the worst players at the table. I just have fun shooting the shit, even if it costs me a few hundred each time we play.”

  “You could at least win sometimes,” I say. “To make up for your losses…”

  He shakes his head. “It’s either all on or all off with me. If I started winning hands, they’d see how much I’d been faking all along, and it would ruin poker night.”

  “Honestly, Kaden,” I say. “I think everyone would think it’s hilarious. You should just sweep the game one night, then tell them how long you’ve been faking it. How long have you—?”

  “Five years,” he says, laughing. “For as long as I’ve worked here, for as long as I’ve known you.”

  “I can’t believe you’ve known me for five years,” I say. “It feels sort of like I just met you.”

  “Sort of?” he says. “You did just meet me.”

  I look down, not sure how to respond, or how to word it. “It’s just...there’s just this feeling I have that I have known you. Maybe part of my brain knew you were there, or that you talked to me. You don’t really feel like a stranger to me.”

  Or maybe we have a connection. Maybe there’s some serious chemistry between us. It’s not at all like with Ryan, or any of the boys I dated in high school.

  As much as I want to stay up talking to him, I’m starting to feel tired. My vision is getting blurry, and I keep rubbing my eyes. My body is begging me to go to sleep, but my mind is terrified.

  “You should sleep,” Kaden says, as I yawn. “I’ll be right here. Once you’re asleep, I’ll make sure it’s a natural sleep—I’ll closely monitor everything.”

  “I’m really afraid to,” I say, yawning even more.

  “Don’t be,” he says, putting a hand on my shoulder and squeezing.

  I suddenly imagine him giving me a massage until I fall asleep. If I could lay on my stomach and have those delicious surgeon hands kneading and pressing into my body, I could definitely fall asleep without…

  My eyes open up, and I see a beam of sun touching my blanket.

  Shit, I fell asleep? How long was it for this time?

  I look up and see that Kaden is gone. Dylan’s there instead.

  He smiles. He doesn’t look any older, did—?

  “One night,” he says, as if reading my mind. “You slept a good eight hours, and you woke up like normal.”

  “Thank God,” I say, putting a hand over my chest. My heart is racing.

  “What time is it?” I ask.

  “It’s eight o’clock,” he says. “You’re going to get to go for a walk in two hours.”

  I remember Kaden’s robot assistant saying that. I feel like I could just jump off the bed and walk now on my own, so why even wait?

  Well, it might be f
un to take my first steps with Kaden. Maybe he can hold me up in case I fall. I suppose that’s worth waiting for two hours.

  I feel so stupid having a crush on my doctor, but then again...the kiss.

  Was there really even a kiss, or did I dream it? I remember, before I got sick, I used to only ever remember the dreams I had right before waking up. I probably would dream the whole night, but I only ever remembered the minute or two of dreams I had just as I awoke. And then, I’d only remember them if I struggled and fought to. If I just got ready for school and didn’t think of them, they were gone within an hour. As if they never happened.

  So maybe I really did dream those whole seven years, and maybe in the last few moments before I woke up, I dreamt that Kaden Prince kissed me awake. Like right out of a fairytale.

  Yeah, it must have been a dream. And I have some stupid schoolgirl crush—even though I’m twenty-five—on my hot doctor. He’s just doing his job, and I’m falling for the first guy to look at me since I woke up. He’s assigned to look after me. This is his job.

  Though he did risk his career to save me, but I do get the impression that he’d take crazy risks for any of his patients. He just seems like that kind of man.

  “Are you going to stay here?” I ask Dylan. “Didn’t you work a night shift?”

  He nods, and suddenly the aroma of coffee hits my nose. I perk up and look at the cup in his hand.

  “Dylan,” I say. “Can I have some?”

  “You’re not supposed to,” he says. “The nurse specifically mentioned it when she saw me carrying it in. Water and soup only for—”

  “Dylan,” I snap, using my ‘big sister’ voice. “Give me a sip. Please, the smell is driving me crazy.”

  “One sip,” he says.

  He puts the coffee onto my tray, right next to the glass of water I haven’t touched.

  I put my nose over the cup and sniff. The smell is euphoric, and then I take a sip.

  It burns my tongue a bit, but I slurp it fast to cool it down. It tastes amazing, and I greedily take another sip before Dylan can take it away from me.

  “Come on, Rose,” he says, grabbing for it.

  “Fine,” I say, sliding it back. I don’t want to use the gross bedpan again anyway. I should be able to walk to the bathroom from now on.