No matter what, I am here for Leon, my husband. It breaks my heart that, with all of my medical training, there isn’t a single thing I can do to fix him.There’s no medication to wake him up because he’s in a self-induced, natural coma. Trapped. Stuck in time.
His team at work has been incredible at holding down the fort by using the excuse that Leon is currently on a business trip overseas, and they have told me to stick to the same story. We are doing everything in our power to keep his accident under wraps. In the meantime, Nigel and Mark, Leon’s long-standing employees, are practically running Leon’s operation and managing his clients.Without them, Leon’s clients would be having a meltdown, but with their quick thinking, they’ve made everything seem as though it’s business as usual. I don’t know how we will ever repay them.
I press the elevator’s call button halfheartedly. The last thing I want to do tonight is go to work, my heartstrings tugging, urging me to go back to Leon. The elevator doors slide open, and as I step inside the metal box that I wish was magic and could transport me to another dimension, my cell rings. It’s Valerie. When I hit accept, the line crackles, hissing at me down the earpiece, just as the doors slide shut.
I press the ground floor button to go to the pit. Nicknamed perfectly as the ER is always chaotic, nonstop, and ridiculously noisy.
“I can’t hear you.” I strain to hear Valerie down the phone, covering my other ear to block out the elevator's whirl and hum, the metal box muffling the signal.
In a breakthrough moment, her voice becomes as clear as day. “He’s woken up.”
My body stiffens, shoulders pulling back, all my senses on edge. “What?”
“He’s awake.”
And I wasn’t there.
“I’m on my way.” I hang up and stare at my cell in disbelief, then shove it into my top pocket before gripping the metal railing behind me to steady myself, feeling strangely weightless, almost numb. “He’s awake,” I mutter, pulling myself back into the present and pressing the button to go to the next floor so I can get off the elevator and catch another one to take me up to neurology. The elevator comes to an abrupt halt, then I’m dashing out of the sliding door that has barely opened, and sprinting toward the elevators that will take me to the floor Leon is on.
He’s awake.
I keep replaying Valerie’s words in my mind. They’re the words I’ve desperately wanted to hear, yet somehow, they don’t feel real.
My stomach lifts, followed by a fluttery hollow swoop as nerves overtake me.
I jump into the first available elevator, pushing past patients and visitors, and explaining, “Sorry, emergency.” I press the button on the panel, and the doors slide closed. “Get the next one,” I call out, as a wave of giddy excitement begins to ripple through me.
My husband’s awake. My beautiful man, whom I love with every cell in my body.
I gasp as I see my reflection in the elevator mirror and take out my messy bun that’s twisted on top of my head, then fluff my hair to make it look neater. It’s still sun-kissed, a bit lighter at the ends from the Bora Bora sun, a small reminder of some ofthe happiest days of my life with Leon. Those days feel so distant and have been replaced with heartache and worry.
Running my fingers under my eyes, which look puffy and hollow from lack of sleep, I give up and accept the fact that he’ll have to see me wearing aqua blue scrubs and a pair of white Crocs. I’m the farthest thing from sexy I’ve ever felt, and this look I’m rocking may make him change his mind about our marriage and have him asking for a divorce on the spot.
The elevator stops suddenly, and my legs carry me out, moving me closer to his room. Then I’m almost running.
“Hey,” I call out before I arrive outside his private room. Security is standing guard alongside Valerie, Jack, my brother, Lily, and Buster, his ex-teammate and business partner. I pull a strained smile, the desperation almost too much to bear. My fingers tingle, and my throat aches from the pressure of everything we’ve been living through over the last month. Fear, hope, the loneliness of talking to someone who couldn’t answer.
“It’s a miracle, Erika.” Valerie darts toward me, her eyes glassy and filled with weeks of emotional turmoil.
“Is he okay?” I look through the sliver of glass separating us, watching as nurses and doctors surround him, checking his vitals, pulling out his feeding tube, and checking his temperature. He looks well. Alert, and better than I expected, the faint bruise around his eye and temple the only remnant of his accident on his face. Although the deep gash on his temple that travels into his hairline will take months to fully heal and years to fade, if it ever does.
He’s the same Leon we’ve come to know.Ash.
My boy is back.Jack.
He was a bit confused about where he was at first.Valerie.
He’s great.Lily.
He knew who I was.Buster.
I fold my arms around myself, then burst into tears. “He’s okay?” I drop my head to hide my emotions. I can’t believe it. He’s going to be okay.
“He’s fine.” Lily lays her hand on my arm to comfort me, bending down to catch my attention, smiling in my face, and guiding my chin upward with her pointer finger. “He’s okay, Erika.” She nods, encouraging me to jump on board the happy train with them.
Speechless, I throw myself around Lily’s petite frame, towering over her.
Together, Buster, Ash, Jack, and Valerie join us, and we stay like this in a huddle until the door opens and Dr. Gilbert exits his room, and I can already tell he knows he won’t be able to keep any of us away.
