I damn near fall over when Damon walks in the door wearing my boyfriend’s face minus the swelling, the cuts, and the bruises. Damon is just as beautiful, but very different, despite being identical. His hair is darker, and his eyes are sharp and coldcompared to the softness and warmth in Tay’s. Damon’s pinched brow relaxes slightly when they land on his brother, but they’re back to ice when they swing to me.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“Knox Bennett. Taylor’s boyfriend.” I reach my hand out to shake his, but he doesn’t take it.
“D,” Livvy says, “don’t pull that high-and-mighty, protective-twin shit now. You haven’t spoken to Bird in ten months. Knox helped put him back together when he fell apart and you weren’t there. You owe him a thank you.”
Damon stares at his sister, and I see his jaw clench even tighter as his nostrils flare from the effort of holding back.
He says nothing, but when his eyes travel back to his brother, he starts crying, and I realize the emotion he was trying to hold back wasn’t anger, but sadness, and probably a large amount of fear and guilt as well.
Livvy stands from the side of Taylor’s bed and offers the seat to Damon, who remains standing, but bends forward, sobbing with his forehead next to Tay’s on the pillow, careful not to touch him as he begins to speak.
“Birdie, tell me what you need. Blood? I’ve got the same type. You need a kidney? I’m an exact match. I don’t need both of ‘em. Come on, man. Whatever it is, I’ve got one you can have.” Everyone in the room is silently wiping tears from their eyes at the intimate moment playing out in front of us. “We both fucked up, okay?” Damon continues, sobbing into Taylor’s ear. “What you did was messed up, but I realize I didn’t handle it like I should have. I need you to get better so we can settle this like we used to. Rock, Paper, Scissors for who got top position before we’d grapple. Remember?Please,Taylor. I need you.”
Don’t we all, I think to myself.
Taylor has beenin a medically induced coma in the ICU for three days and I haven’t left this hospital once. By the end of the second day, the nurses allowed me to shower in a vacant hospital room. It was either out of pity or fear for their own sense of smell.
Someone from the station called Jake who was nice enough to bring me a change of clothes, a toothbrush, and my phone from my locker. At first, I thought Jake was an odd choice since everyone knows Phoenix better, until I remembered Jake was on call when Dylan’s shop caught on fire. He’s the only one who truly understands why I lost the contents of my stomach, how my heart stopped in my chest, and why I won’t walk out of this hospital until Taylor does. He didn’t stay long, but it was nice to be comforted by someone who gets it.
In an attempt to be respectful of the six members of Tay’s family who all want to be close to him—and needing a break from the incessant beeping and the fact that my incredible, vibrant boyfriend is dead to the world around him, unable to breathe on his own—I step outside the room and sit in the chair just outside the door. Leaning my head back against the wall, I close my eyes and begin to pray.
“Knox,” a feminine voice says, shaking my arm. “Knox,” she calls again when I don’t immediately answer.
Taylor’s parents have taken turns going home every other night, and I don’t fault them for that one bit. Since I refused to leave, I’ve been given access to the overnight accommodations generally used for out-of-town relatives. My fire chief called ina favor to her sister-in-law, who happens to be the charge nurse on this floor, and as bad as I feel for using an accommodation someone else may need, I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, either.
I hadn’t realized I’d dozed off, my body seeking sleep wherever it can be found, and I’ve passed out in the hallway chair.
Opening my eyes, I turn my head to see Rebecca Landry squatting next to me. It’s the first time she’s voluntarily touched me, and it feels like progress.
“Knox, wake up. Taylor’s still unconscious, but he’s showing signs of wanting to breathe on his own. They’re getting ready to extubate him and move him to a regular room.” I jump out of the chair so fast you’d think my asshole was on fire, but she grabs my arm. “You can’t go in there right now. They said they’d let us know when they’ve finished.”
“With all due respect, Mrs. Landry?—”
“Knox,” she says, cutting me off. “You and I are almost the same age. Call me Rebecca.”
I nod. “Just wanted to be polite. You’re still my boyfriend’s mother. But as I was saying,Rebecca,if there’s a chance he’s going to wake up during this procedure, I’ll be goddamned if he does it alone.”
I push the door to Taylor’s room open and step inside. All of his family members who were in here previously are now in the lobby.
“Sir, you’re not supposed to be in here,” an older nurse with curly gray hair says sharply.
“It’s okay, Judy,” Nurse Lorena says. “He’s with the fire department. He’s the one who pulled Mr. Landry out of the car. He’s also, um,” her eyes flick to mine, telling me she’s uncomfortable with my relationship with Taylor, “Mr. Landry’spartner.” She whispers the last word like it’s dirty.
Judy, however, nods, completely unfazed, and turns back to Taylor while still addressing me. “Fine. But if you’re going to be in here, be useful. Hold his hand and keep an eye on his O2 sats. If they fall below ninety, I want to know.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I’m so relieved to be touching Taylor, I could fucking weep. During the day, I try to be respectful, despite not leaving when asked, and I allow his parents and siblings the chair next to him. Someone is always talking to him. It’s part of the reason I always wanted a big family. They lean on each other and cry together and laugh together and support each other during times like this.
But it also means the time I get to spend next to him are the late hours of the night and early hours of the morning, when my own exhaustion takes over and I fall asleep in awkward positions instead of talking to him like I want to. When his inability to answer me back causes my words to get stuck in my throat because the silence that follows them is unbearable.
Taylor handles the extubation well and isfinallybreathing on his own, much to my relief. The external fixator protruding from his shin is cleaned daily, and the swelling in his face has begun to subside, although his bruising looks much worse. He still has three broken ribs, two fractured vertebrae in his cervical spine, his shoulder was dislocated and had to be popped back into place, and he’s now missing his spleen, but he’s breathing on his own, and that was the biggest hurdle.
I keep a hold of Tay’s hand as he’s rolled down to a regular patient room after sustaining independent breaths for two hours. His mother and father are on the other side, and his siblings follow behind us.
We look like a funeral procession, and I fucking hate it. It makes my skin crawl.
