I watch his chest rise and fall, unsure of what to do or say.Tentatively I reach out and thread my hand through his. The moment I touch him, his eyes fly open and meet mine. But the rest of his body remains still.
“Liv,” he whispers. “You’re here.”
“I’m here, Brodie. I’m here.”
Tears begin to fall down my cheeks as his eyes close again, and he falls back asleep. He was in and out of sleep for the rest of the night. I stayed with him and continued to be by his side during the night. When he woke up, and they told him again of his paralysis, he yelled while he simultaneously cried. I held his hand through it all, praying I could do something to take his pain away. We did this for each other during every other hardship in our lives. I couldn’t leave him now.
The weeks that followed were a blur. I forced Dax out of my mind and continued to work at the hospital, relying on routine tasks to get me through each day. And I managed to finish school, although each class, each homework assignment, and each test felt like I was in a haze. If I wasn’t at work or school, I was at the hospital helping with Brodie’s rehabilitation. While everyone else returned to their everyday life, mine had been thrown entirely upside down. The visits from friends to see Brodie decreased, and phone calls and care packages stopped coming. But I stayed. As always, I remained the only constant in his life.
At the end of most days, I lay in bed and cried. How did we get here? Why did this happen? My thoughts were plagued with “what ifs.” Our spring break was supposed to be about clarifying our relationship or breaking up. Not ending as me being a caregiver for my now paralyzed, cheating, sort-of-boyfriend. Everything changed in the blink of an eye. Most nights, I dream of Dax. Of his brilliant smile. Of the way his hand felt in mine and the way his skin smelled. And how my name sounded coming from his lips. But I’d wake in the morning plagued with guilt. How could I be thinking of Dax when Brodie is going through so much? So I continued pushing Dax out of my mind and robotically moving throughout the day.
It’s been eight weeks since the accident. The surgery helped to alleviate the spinal cord compression, but the damage was done. Brodie’s injury could not be helped any further.He’s paralyzed.The surgeon's words still haunt me. In the days following his surgery, we learned he had suffered an incomplete spinal cord injury. Leaving him with limited use of his arms and no use of his legs. Rehab has helped him with some arm movement, but simple things like feeding himself are still a struggle. I was there every day as he tried again and again to do simple tasks. Some days he seems like he’s making progress and others, he doesn’t even want to try. Now that inpatient rehab is ending, he will be transferred to his father’s house today in Houston for more recovery and in-home care with a private provider.
Graduation was last week. I didn’t go. It came and went without much excitement. My family and friends tried their best to get me to participate, but I couldn’t even bring myself to care. I’d rather just start the move to Houston and prepare for a temporary travel assignment in the downtown area before I start my future graduate school.
A knock jolts me from my thoughts. “Coming,” I blurt out as I head for the door.
I quickly check the peephole and notice it is dark outside. Where did the time go? I see Emma standing there with her phone in one hand and a coffee in the other. I undo the chain at the top of the door and the deadbolt lock to let her in.
“Hey you.”
She rushes in and attacks me with a hug, “Hey, girl. How are you?” Breaking the hug, she walks into my apartment without turning around. “Just thought I’d come to check on you after I got out of work,” she says over her shoulder.
“Thanks for thinking of me,” I reply, following along after her. She pulls my hand and sits down with me at the kitchen table. “Did Brodie make it to Houston, okay?”
I go to the breakfast nook and retrieve the glass of wine I had been drinking before she stopped by.
“Not sure. I assume he is all settled in. Do you want a glass?” I lift my glass up, drain the rest, and pour myself another.
Emma looks at me with concern. “Have you heard from Dax?”
I stop mid-pour at hearing his name. A name I have tried to forget so the thoughts of him lessen in my mind. I finish pouring her a glass and hand it to her, not caring that she never said yes when I asked or that she’s currently drinking coffee.
“Not since the last text message he sent me about a month ago.”
Dax had sent me a text message the week after the accident.I am thinking about you.Only a few words, but I read and reread them a thousand times. And a thousand more times, I attempted to write back. I tried to formulate the words to express everything I was going through but came up blank. When I didn’t respond, days turned into weeks, and I just couldn't answer him back. Despite what I felt about Dax, I keep replaying the weekend in my mind and can’t seem to shake the idea that if Dax hadn’t been there, then Brodie wouldn’t have been drinking so much, and the accident wouldn’t have happened.
Is it displacing the blame? Yes. Do I still long to feel Dax’s body against mine again? Hell yes. But I block it out because the guilt is all-consuming. I close my eyes and again see Brodie’s body in the wet sand, unconscious, and I ache. I go to lift my hand and begin to rub my chest. The ache is so intense that I can’t make it stop.
Emma notices this, looks at me with sympathetic eyes, and shakes her head in understanding. “Liv, you know this isn’t yours or Dax’s fault, right? He made those choices—to cheat on you, to get drunk, and to flip drunk when he knew he shouldn't. You can’t blame yourself for another person’s bad choices. I won’t let you.”
Emma said everything I already knew, but why did it hurt so bad? We move to the living room and chat for a while.
“How’s the packing going?” she asks.
“Slow,” I say as I move to get up and get another box to continue the monotonous process.
Before I can ask her to help, she blurts out, “How would you like a roommate in Houston?”
My eyes widen in shock, and my mouth drops open. “What?” I stammer.
“You heard me. I was thinking about taking a travel assignment and just doing it. I figured now would be as good a time as any. And then we could stay together.”
I can feel my face light up with excitement as tears brim my eyes, “I would love that.”
“Good,” she says as she brings me in for another hug. “l called the recruiter for the travel agency in Houston and gave my 2-week notice at the hospital today.”
I look at my friend dumbfounded. “Are you sure, Emma?” I have to ask because I don’t want her to uproot her life because of me.
