“Just tell us. Please. Is he alive?”
Four
Mae blinked away the blurriness in her sight as she tried to focus on the words coming out of the doctor’s mouth. She just wanted to hear how Stone was. Right then and there. Was there hope? A faint ringing started in her right ear as heat crawled up her spine.
“He was in bad shape when he got here, I’m not going to sugar coat that. We were not only dealing with the internal injuries from both bullet wounds, but Mr. Lawson suffered massive blood loss as well from where the bullets struck.” Her arms and legs were tingling something fierce. Mae just needed this guy to get to the point. “We transfused him, several times, and— Ma’am? Are you alright?”
“Gunner! Grab her!” Why did Lily sound hysterical? Shit. Gunner’s arms wrapped around her as the room tilted.
“Okay, Mae. Easy. Easy. Just breathe.”
“Why don’t you have her sit down, with her head between her knees, for a moment while I grab a nurse?”
“No!” she cried, her stomach churning more as the room continued to spin. Her hearing was starting to come back, but that woozy, lightheaded feeling wasrelentless. “I’m fine. I just…” She swallowed roughly. “I just locked my knees. I know better. Is he… Is he still alive? Please. Please just tell us that.”
“I’m sorry…” Her heart crushed painfully in her chest. “I should have led with that. Mr. Lawson made it through the surgery. He’s going to be in the ICU for a while while we continue to monitor him and assess his head injury. For now, he is doing as well as we could expect.”
“Mae, sweetheart?” Cheryl’s voice drifted over her. Stone’s mother, and his brother, Rhett, had made it to Dallas sometime in the early morning hours the day after Stone was shot. It was nearly a full day of driving to them, but they still made it there with barely any delay. Mae hadn’t left Stone’s side the entire time, and there had been no change in his status. She knew that his body was using the time to heal, but god, there was nothing Mae wouldn’t give to see his hazel eyes one more time. It had already been days since she’d seen them, and she was suffocating under the weight of that knowledge with each passing moment. “Honey, why don’t you take a break?”
“No.” Mae cleared her throat as she lifted her head from next to Stone’s hip. She was going to have a permanent curve in her spine from sleeping hunched over like that, but it was worth it to be by his side.
Two visitors were allowed in Stone’s room at a time, and she damn well sure was going to be one of them. She didn’t care who the other person was, and there had never been a time when she’d been alone there since they were first allowed back to see him. Whoever it was always brought her something to eat. Tried to get her to go out for a walk. To take a break. But unless they finally found out who was responsible for his shooting, she didn’t want to spend the energy talking toanyone else. It was pointless. Her only goal was to get Stone to wake up. That’s where she wanted to focus her energy.
Nausea rolled through her. The smell of her own body was overwhelming, even though she’d freshened up in the small bathroom that morning. She needed a shower, another reminder she was neglecting her own health.
“I think it’s important you take a break. The girls are down the hall in the waiting room. They want to take you to lunch.”
“It’s lunch time?” The thought of food made the pain in her stomach double. “I’m not hungry. And I need to be here.”
Cheryl sighed, placing her hand on Mae’s arm. “There needs to be something left of you for him to come back to. Taking care of yourself… getting a good meal, taking a shower, sleeping in your own bed for more than an hour… those are all things you can do to help Stone when he wakes up. He wouldn’t want this. He wouldn’t want you to waste away at his bedside.”
“I don’t want to leave you here on your own.”
“You’re not. Nash is here, and he’s going to sit with me until Rhett gets back from picking Sara up at the airport.”
Sara, Rhett’s wife, was a nurse in the local emergency room back in Delaware, and wasn’t able to make the trip down originally with Stone’s mother and brother. God, Mae was thankful that she would be there now, if nothing else than to provide a distraction for Cheryl and Rhett.
“Are you sure?” Mae lifted her shirt and sniffed. God, she could definitely use a shower. “You’ll call me immediately if anything changes?
“Of course. I have you on speed dial. Now, go.”
Mae made it to the doorway of the waiting area, where the girls were all sitting. She caught Lily’s eye before the bile she’d been swallowing down decided to force its way back up. Mae turned, running down the hall to the small bathroom markedfor visitors. The tile floor was cold on her legs as her body fell to the floor, her stomach cramping so hard she thought it might actually stop her heart.
There was nothing to come up. She couldn’t even remember the last time she felt hungry. The toilet paper holder squeaked as she unrolled a few squares, swiped them quickly over her mouth to clean up as best she could and flushed them away.
The door to the hallway opened with a rush of cold air.
“Mae?” Lacy’s voice wavered as her footsteps got closer to the stall where Mae was still curled in a tight ball against the wall. “Are you okay?”
“Define ‘okay’?” she laughed, but there was no emotion behind it.
Her sweet friend sighed. “Dumb question on my part. Can I get you anything?”
Mae pushed off the ground, bracing against the wave of dizziness that surged forward. “No. Just a queasy stomach from not eating and being stressed out.” The lock slid over, and Mae walked from the stall over to the sink.
Was it gross to be using the hand sink in a hospital bathroom to splash water on her face? Yeah, absolutely. Was that going to stop her from doing the one thing that would hopefully help her feel more human in that moment? Hell, no.
“Want to talk about it?” Lacy asked, handing Mae a paper towel.
