I looked around and noticed Max’s mom sleeping in the corner of the room.
But then the darkness got me again.
The next time I awoke I was up for good. I felt like shit. But I was alive and could move.
Nurses were immediately zooming around me, and a doctor appeared in my room within minutes. He spoke to me so quickly I couldn’t understand what he was saying. My head was still killing me so much that I couldn’t focus. The side of my face was aching. It felt like I’d been hit with a hammer. I reached to touch it and found it bandaged. I couldn’t wait until he left the room so I could ask Max’s mom for a recap. It felt like I’d been slammed a couple hundred times into the boards.
When Max’s mom could finally talk to me, I found out I’d been asleep for two days.
I walked away from the wreck with a concussion, a burst eardrum that would heal in time, and a deep gash in my face from a shard of the windshield. That was where all the blood had come from. It would leave a scar, but I didn't give a shit. I only cared about Jules and no one would tell me what happened to her or how she was doing and it pissed me off. She hadn’t been here. The hand had been Max’s Mom’s.
I wasn’t allowed out of my room until I was cleared, but I didn’t do well with rules restraining me.
After hours of waiting and going crazy on my own I roared at a nurse to tell me where the fuck my girlfriend was and I’m pretty sure she peed her pants. She exited quickly and Max and Paige entered.
I didn’t like the look on their faces. I didn’t like it one bit.
She was alive. I’d seen her awake and moving. But fear bubbled inside of me that something happened after I’d fallen unconscious.
If Jules was gone, I couldn’t go on. She had to be in this world with me. And taking her from this world… It couldn’t be my fault. It just couldn’t.
“What?” I spat at them.
They were still silent and not looking at me. I felt the rage building in me.
“Tell me!” I roared and slammed my fist on the bed, making the IV stand fall down.
“Shit. Easy, man,” Max said as he leaned down to pick up the IV. “They’re going to commit you or somethin’ if you don’t mellow out.” Max spoke in an even voice that sounded like it was coming from underwater and it wasn’t doing anything to calm my nerves at all.
“She’s okay,” Paige told me then and I felt like I could finally breathe. “But… she’s not here,” she finished. “We don’t exactly know where she is.” Paige’s eyes were darting around the room nervously. She wouldn’t make eye contact with me.
“What the fuck does that even mean?” I asked. Paige flinched at my harsh tone.
Max gave her an apologetic look and stepped in front of her, “It means her grandaddy came here and raised hell and got her taken to a better hospital. She was in a coma. Just like you were.”
I felt rage twisted with disgust. He didn’t understand that she already chose me. I needed to hold her and to know everything was ok and to tell her how extremely sorry I was. It was all my fault. If I’d handled it differently everything would’ve been okay. God. How did everything go so wrong?
“She’s moving with me to Texas,” I told them. “As soon as we can.”
Paige looked at me with a doubtful expression and Max patted my leg on the bed with a sordid expression.
“What?” I demanded.
“Her Pops was…saying stuff about you. He blames you,” Max said with a shrug. “I would just focus on yourself and healing for a little while before things cool down, man.”
I’d focus on healing, but only with Jules. I needed to get out of this place and find my girl.
I rode the elevator in the “fancier” hospital to her room. The last week had been excruciating.
“Congratulations, baby.”
I replayed her saying it over and over again in my mind and it made me want to cry like a damn baby.
She was still asleep. She hadn’t woken up since they brought her in.
It didn’t make sense to me. We’d both been awake in the car. She screamed when she saw my bleeding face. They told me that was what adrenaline did though, and once it had done its job and the shock wore off, her body had to shut down.
I found out from Paige that she was at Northfield’s Mercy Hospital and that she’d had a spinal concussion. From all the tests, they knew she’d most likely be fine when she woke up…. she just needed to wake up.
