“Oh my God, Keller, you can hear me.” She takes my hand in hers. “It’s Lara. Can you open your eyes?”
My mouth is so fucking dry, I feel like my tongue is plastered to the roof. “Wa-water,” I say as my eyes start to blink open. Fuck, it’s bright.
A straw is brought up to my mouth, and I take a few sips, the cool water refreshing my mouth and allowing me to free up my tongue to talk.
“Lilly,” I say. “Where . . . where is she?” I’m able to blink my eyes open just enough to catch the troubled look on Lara’s face.
“Keller . . .” she says, her voice tight.
“Don’t,” I say. “Don’t fucking . . .” My voice catches in my throat. “Don’t tell me something went wrong.”
Her lips twist to the side. “She’s . . .”
“She’s what?” I ask, my pulse picking up.
“She’s not . . . she’s not doing well.”
I try to sit up, but it feels next to impossible as my head pounds with pain again. I wince, and then rest my head back down. “Fuck . . . just tell me . . . is she alive?”
“Right now . . . yes. But she’s coded twice. She’s on life support. It’s not looking good.”
My stomach churns with nausea, and Lara must notice, because she quickly hands me a vomit bag and I throw up into it, the pain from my head so fucking intense.
After I dry heave a few more times, I hand the bag back to her and say, “Take me to her.”
“Keller, you just had brain surgery. You can’t go anywhere.”
Eyes shut, leaning against the pillow, I breathe out heavily. “She needs me. Take me to her.”
“Keller—”
“Please, Lara.” Tears pool in my eyes. “Take me to her.”
She grips my hand and says, “Let me see what I can do.”
* * *
With nursesand a doctor surrounding my hospital bed, I’m wheeled down the stark white corridors of the hospital, a few onlookers stopping to bow their heads to me. Lara told me they were willing to put us in a room together, but I told her that wasn’t good enough. I wanted to be in the same bed. According to hospital protocol, they can’t allow that to happen in case something drastic happens to the patient, they need full access to both. I told her again, that wasn’t good enough, and then I heard Theo step in.
He demanded we share a bed and didn’t care if it went against hospital protocol.
Once the hospital staff went to figure out how to make this happen, Theo came into the room and sat next to me. He didn’t say much, but simply held my hand and told me how much he loves me. I fell asleep after that.
“Right over here,” one of the nurses says to me.
I’m wheeled into a warm, tan-colored room with green drapes. Flowers fill the space. The aroma is so powerful that it takes over the sterile hospital smell that seems to have planted itself in my nose.
I try to lift my head to get a look at Lilly, and when she comes into view, my entire heart trips and falls to my stomach.
A tube is pushed down her throat, wires are hooked up everywhere, and her face is a pale, almost ghostly color as the lone beeping sound of her heart monitor fills the air. Resting in a large, almost full-size-looking bed, they’ve moved her to the side, making just enough room for me.
“Lilly,” I whisper as my bed is wheeled up next to hers. “How . . . how is she doing?”
“She’s stable for now,” the doctor says.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means she’s fighting.” And that’s all I get from him before the sides to my bed are lowered and I’m helped up to my feet, two large men flanking my side to help me into her bed.
