***
Only one person is allowed to ride with him to the hospital, so Denham goes as I’m not sure Lottie should go anywhere without one of us with her. Jack brings the SUV around and we follow a couple of minutes behind. Lottie stares blankly at her feet the whole way. Her sobs mingle with whispered pleas for Spike to be okay. I can feel her heart breaking. We are ushered into a small family room when we arrive, and find Denham in there, too.
“Where is he? What’s happening? Please tell me he’s going to be okay, he has to be okay,” Lottie begs, and Denham folds herinto his chest. He strokes her hair until she quiets, then he holds her by her shoulders so he can look her in the eyes.
“Lottie, I need you to listen and be strong, okay?” he says, trying to hide the shakiness in his voice. Her lips quiver when she meets his gaze but she nods. “They’ve taken him to the operating room. He has a ruptured spleen, and some internal bleeding that they need to stop. He’s in bad shape, babe. But he’s going to okay, okay? He’s our Spike, and he’s going to be okay.” Denham’s voice cracks on the last words, and the wall of tears he’s been fighting back breaks. The pain at seeing his little brother in such a way streams down his face and seeing him cry breaks my own composure. A sob hitches in my throat, and Denham holds out his arm and pulls me into him, too. Not half an hour ago we were in this same position. I want to rewind. I want to go back. Then it hits me. This is my fault. It’s all my fault. Denham wouldn’t listen to me when I told him I was trouble. Nothing but trouble. If I hadn’t been there tonight, Denham, Lottie, and Spike wouldn’t have gotten kicked out early, and we wouldn’t have been standing on that sidewalk. A chance hit and run. But due to circumstances revolving around me, that chance meant it wasusin the wrong place at the wrong time. If something happens to him, I don’t know how I can live with myself. I don’t know how Denham and Lottie will live with me. Maybe they won’t want to. After all, who wants someone like me around when all I do is put their loved ones at risk. First Tara, now Spike.
I break away, and wipe the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. “I’ll get us a coffee,” I whisper.
When I exit the room and shut the door behind me, a deep voice makes me jump.
“Is there anything I can get you, Miss Fraser?”
Jack is standing to the right side of the door with his hands clasped behind his back.
I look down and shake my head. “No, thank you, Jack.”
“You have to have faith, you know,” he says, all the while, he’s standing like a sentry guard, eyes constantly scanning the corridor ahead of us.
“Are you a bodyguard, Jack?” I ask, still puzzled at his position in Denham’s life.
He laughs low. “No.”
“Then what are you?”
“I’m just…Jack,” he says cryptically, finishing with a shrug.
I find the coffee machine and pull out some change from my clutch. I pull my cell out and contemplate calling my mom. I don’t know what she can do to help, but she’s the person I feel I can turn to. Just hearing her voice; it always makes everything feel better. But I don’t. It’s late. She’s probably asleep; besides, I don’t want to upset her until we know what’s happening. But I glance at the screen and see that I have a message. Sliding it open, I see that it’s from a number that hasn’t been stored under a name in the memory. When I press my finger to open the message, the words stop my heart from beating.
You ready to come back to me yet?
That can only be one person. The only person in the world that’s capable of wrecking my life and causing so much pain. Did he do this? Is it all down to him? It was a chance hit and run, wasn’t it?
I can’t…I can’t process it all. I just need to know that Spike’s alright. I need to know that he’s alive and he’s going to be okay.
When I get back to the family room, Dana has joined Denham and Lottie, and Denham sits protectively with her, his hand in hers.
“Here,” I offer Dana my coffee and she takes it blindly. She’s in shock. Lottie’s in shock, and as usual, the person holding everyone together is Denham. How’d he get to be so strong? How did his shoulders get so broad that they could carry the weight of the world on them?
“Any news?” I ask.
He shakes his head. I sit in the space between him and Lottie and rest my head on his shoulder. I just want him to know I’m here for him, for them all. But I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know what to say to ease the tension or make this situation any better. And now, I’m questioning if I’m the reason he needs to be strong this time. Lottie curls into my side, and I put my arm around her, she lets out little sobs that catch in her throat as she breathes, and every now and then she wipes silent tears away from her cheeks.
It’s been so long that we’ve been waiting for news, that I must have closed my eyes. I think it must be hours later that a surgeon enters the room and makes everyone jump up with expectation.
Dana and Lottie scramble to stand, and both start firing questions at him immediately.
“How is my son?” Dana asks. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Can I see him please, I need to see him,” Lottie says desperately.
The surgeon holds a hand up to halt their questioning and speaks in a soft voice. “Preston had some internal bleeding which we’ve been able to stop, but he also has some swelling around the brain from the impact. We will be keeping him in an induced coma for the next twenty-four hours while we keep a close eye on his condition.” On the word ‘coma’, Dana gasps and clamps a hand over her mouth and Denham puts his arm around her shoulders. “There’s damage to his spine, several fractures that we’ve pinned, but until he wakes up, we can’t be sure of the extent of these injuries.”
“His spine?” Denham questions. “Do you mean he’s going to be—?”
“We’re unsure what the outcome is at this stage. What it does mean is that the next twenty-four hours are critical. We will do the very best we can and take it hour by hour.” He nods and leaves the room.
His visit lightened the air for the split second when he told us Spike is alive, but the air is now black and heavy with the uncertainty of the words coma, and spinal injuries. Does this mean he might not wake up? Does it mean that if he does, he might be paralyzed?
