I woke up in a room filled with more machines than I had ever seen in my life, making more noise than I had ever heard. It was loud, it was cold, and I wasn’t entirely sure I hadn’t woken up in Hell. It would serve me right for all the bullshit I had pulled–building a house on someone else’s home. Wallowing in my self-pity. Not seeing people for who they really were. Relying on money. But then I turned my head, and she was there. Savannah. Hair a mess, pulled up into the ridiculous hairstyle she liked so much, eyes sleepy and bruised with exhaustion, and looking right at me with the biggest smile on her face.

“You’re awake,” she breathed.

“And you’re not in the house,” I pointed out. I looked around the stagnant room, assuming I was in a hospital of sorts. All I knew was that as much as I hated the loud room, it was a hell of a lot better than the four walls I had been forced to look at for the last hundred years.

She filled me in on what had happened over the last week, and then crept in next to me in the small, uncomfortable bed. She clung to me while I clutched her to my chest and cried until there were no more tears left in my body, and Savannah’s shirt was soaked through. I mourned everything I had lost, and everything I had found. Everything seemed like a blur.

For two weeks, I stayed in the hospital, the doctors making sure everything was functioning as it should. They couldn’t explain to me how I was still around after hearing as much of the story we were willing to share, and I didn’t bother to explain. Some things in this world you just couldn’t understand.

On New Years Eve, when I left the hospital, Brynn offered to let the four of us stay at her place. None of us wanted to leave Savannah’s side, and she and Brynn had a lot of catching up to do. Between Brynn’s granny being sick and our experience in the house, she’d had enough excitement–for right now at least–and she ended up staying home after the holidays.