I managed a nod, but nothing more.
Then Nash was opening the door for me.
And I wanted to throw up.
When I finally found the courage to step through it, all I wanted to do was die.
There was no describing what I felt in that moment when I took in the sight of my son lying in that bed. When he’d been hospitalized in Germany after his unit had been attacked more than thirteen years earlier, he hadn’t actually had any bandages, aside from the one on his leg, and the only machine he’d been hooked up to hadn’t even been a machine, just an IV stand giving him fluids.
But now…
God, now I didn’t recognize him.
He was covered in snow-white bandaging from his waist up to his neck and his arms were braced in some kind of splints so that he almost looked splayed out. His skin was nearly as pale as thebandages and there were several machines surrounding him. I could see the standard IV sticking out of the top of his hand, but there was a second port on his other hand. His face was turned away from us, but when he slowly turned it, I held my breath.
He seemed groggy as he took us all in. His eyes were shrouded in pain and that was what finally got my body moving.
“Reese,” I whispered as I reached him and carefully took his fingers in mine.
“Dad?” he muttered, his voice heavy with confusion. He’d either just woken up or he was weighed down with pain meds. Probably a little bit of both.
“I’m here, son,” I said as I reached out to push his hair back. It was one of the few places on him I could touch.
And I needed to touch him.
I needed to feel that his skin was warm. I needed to know that he was really still here and that I wasn’t caught in some cruel dream that would have me waking up to find out his cold, stiff body was actually in that morgue I’d imagined.
My relief at seeing my son was short-lived, because only a few seconds had passed before his fingers went lax around mine and he tried to pull his hand away. It was a move made impossible by the padding that had been placed around his body to keep him from moving his arms.
“No,” Reese muttered and then he tried to jerk his head away from my touch. I drew my hand back so he wouldn’t hurt himself. “No,” he repeated, his voice clearing as he worked past the fog of pain.
“Reese—” I began.
“Get out,” he barked. “Get the fuck out. I,” – he paused to suck in a deep breath and closed his eyes, presumably to deal with whatever wave of pain was going through him – “I don’t want to see you.”
I felt something inside of me tear open. I’d expected the reaction, had tried to prepare myself, even, but I’d been a fool to think there actuallywasany preparing for it.
Reese’s eyes shifted to everyone else in the room and finallylanded on Dr. Fields. “I don’t want him here!” he practically yelled, then he jerked his arm, as if trying to get it as far away from me as he could. His upper body began thrashing on the bed as he tried to sit up. The port on his hand caught on something and got ripped from his hand, causing blood to pour from the torn skin. But Reese didn’t even seem to notice.
“Get out!” he shouted.
Dr. Fields and Ronan both pushed past me to get to Reese. Ronan held him down as Dr. Fields called for a nurse.
I was frozen in place, even though I knew I needed to move. The need to help my son warred with the need to escape his wrath. Nash made the decision for me when he grabbed my arm and pulled me from the room. I wasn’t aware of anything as he led me down the hall. It could have been minutes or hours until he ushered me into a small conference room.
“Everett, I need you to slow your breathing,” he said, his voice gentler than I’d ever heard it. I felt light-headed as the room began to spin.
“Everett, look at me right now.”
Firm fingers grabbed my chin and forced it up. My eyes settled on stormy gray ones.
“Now take in a deep breath and hold it.”
I wanted to ask him how the hell I was supposed to do that when I couldn’t fucking breathe in the first place. But I couldn’t talk, either. There wasn’t enough oxygen in my starved lungs for that.
“Everett, please,” Nash said softly, then his fingers gentled on my chin before sliding down to my throat and settling there. I focused on the warmth of his palm on my skin and finally did what he said.
Or tried to, anyway.
