Feeling a hand on my shoulder, I looked up. Bennett wasback and had tears on his cheeks. He pulled a chair up next to me and wrapped both his arms around me, engulfing me in a hug as I cried, while he tried to hold it together. It reminded me of Donovan’s huge hugs.
“He’ll be okay, Audra. He will come out of this. I know it.”
“I love him.”
“I know. And he loves you, too.”
“He’ll hate me for this. For almost getting him killed.”
“The man could never hate you, Audra. And it was Theo who almost killed him, not you. I know the type of man that Donovan is, and he would protect you again without question, even knowing this was the outcome. Do you see the way he looks at you? There’s no way he’s not coming back to you.”
“I don’t want to be protected anymore. My mother was killed trying to protect me, and now he’s fighting for his life for the same reason. Why would anyone want to get close to me? Bad things happen because of me.” I knew the thought was irrational, but I couldn’t help it as I started to hyperventilate. I was so worked up that even though it made my incision sear in pain, I just couldn’t stop.
“Audra, my love, I need you to take a deep breath or I’ll have to wheel your ass out of here,” he said in a gentle, yet assertive voice. “I won’t let you bust your stitches or upset him. He can hear you, you know that. He needs you to be strong. When he wakes up and you two leave here, he’ll need a nurse who can take care of him, and he will need that to be you.” Then he swung my wheelchair around so I was facing him and placed my hand on his chest.
“Breathe with me,” he said as he took deep breaths in and out. I followed his lead and found myself calming down. When he felt I was calm enough, Bennett walked over to the tissues, pulled some out, came back, and blotted my eyes.
“There you go, love. Both of you are going to come out the other side of this stronger than ever,” and he wrapped me up again. “Now, he’s an adventurer, right? I want you to sit next to him and tell him about the things you want to see in this world, big and small. Just talk to him, no more freakouts, okay? Not right now, not in front of him. We can do that later when it’s just you, me, and my dog.”
I nodded at Bennett, appreciating my friend more than I could ever say.
“I’ll be back in twenty. You should tell him at least a dozen things by then and why,” he said, as he pushed my chair right up to the bed again so I could take Donovan’s hand.
“Understand your mission?” he asked.
I smiled at Bennett through my swollen eyes. “Got it. Hey Bennett, I love you.”
He kissed the top of my head and picked up the phone he had forgotten. “Ah, my favorite Audra, you know I love you too, girl.” He walked out to give me privacy.
Bennett was right. I grabbed Donovan’s hand, took a deep breath, and began.
“Donovan James Wright. I have some things to tell you about. I know you’ve seen a lot of the world, but I’ve seen nothing. Here’s my adventure bucket list. Seeing as I’m planning on nursing you back to health, we will have lots of places to see. Even if you’ve already been there, I’m going to make you go again to show me. Number one bucket list item? Northern Lights in Iceland. But I want to stay in one of those glass ceiling hut things. I’d say I want to make love to you under them, but we kind of fail in that department. I want to have dirty, dirty sex with you under the Northern Lights in our slut hut,” I snickered as I thought about how much he would laugh at that. “Then I want to motorbike all around the island,stopping at everything we find that tickles our fancy, from the hot springs to kayaking the fjords. I want to take at least 2,000 photos per trip, so I’ll need a fancy camera. And I want to make a photo book of every place we visit, so I’ll probably need to buy a selfie stick for us too,” I continued, documenting all the places I wanted to go until Bennett and Trina walked in together.
“We have to head back to your floor for rounds, kiddo,” Trina said as she walked in with Bennett right behind her. I looked at Bennett, and he answered my question before I asked it. “I’m going to sit here with Donovan, and if anything changes, I’ll call you,” he promised.
“Ok, thank you, B. And thanks for the adventure idea. That was perfect. Hopefully motivating enough to wake him up, too,” I offered a gentle smile.
Rounds went as expected, and I was being forced to stay another night for observation. Honestly, I think my father put pressure on Trina to find a way to make them keep me, because I could have gone home. But after I got the news I would not be discharged, I begged my new nurse to take me back down to Donovan. After fighting me on it, I finally said I was going to sign myself out of the hospital against medical advice so I could sit with him. After speaking to the other nurses, I was finally granted permission to go.
When she wheeled me in, I was surprised to see McKenna, red as a tomato with wild, red-rimmed eyes, and Bennett, looking extremely agitated. They both turned to me, and my own tears welled in my eyes. All I could think of to say was, “I’m so sorry, McKenna, this is all my fault.”
It was like a reverse of last Thursday night when she was asking for my forgiveness.I stood slowly and painfully from my wheelchair, and she walked over to me for a hug,
“Don’t you dare say that; it’s not your fault in the least, Audra. I’m so grateful he was there to help you.”
Miles came in from the hallway right after and hugged the both of us.I didn’t know he was coming.
Bennett cleared his throat after we held on to each other for a while, “I, um, I’m going to run for now. I’ll text you, Audra,” he said as he scooted out of there.
“He looks terrible,” McKenna said as she sat down. “I didn’t tell my parents. Do you think I should?” I could read between the lines of her question. Was he going to survive?
“There’s no reason to think he won’t come out of this. It’ll be a tough recovery, but Donovan is a tough man. At this point, I don’t think having your parents here would be helpful to him,” I said honestly.
McKenna’s head nodded in agreement, as another tear slipped from her glistening eyes. “This is hard to see,” she said.
“It is. I was a wreck earlier. The guy who just left is the one who grounded me, and got me talking to Van about our future adventures. Because we’re going to have so many when he wakes up.”
“That asshole?” she questioned incredulously as she flipped her thumb behind herself towards the door. “I find that hard to believe,” she scoffed.
