At Emergency medicine, we don’t find out much more except Ellie is in surgery, and all we can do is wait—which feels like a set of red-hot butter knives are slicing me open one long, slow slit at a time.
“I think we should contact Ellie’s parents,” Jett tells me. “If something happens, they should be here.” There’s a grave tone in his voice. I just nod. What else can I fucking do? I’ve done everything. Everything wrong. I drop my head into my hands. I should have never gone that night. I should have stayed away like my gut told me to. She wouldn’t be here right now fighting for her life. She’d be out having fun, living the way she so desperately wanted to. And I took that all away.
“Hey,” Jett puts his hand on my shoulder, “don’t do it.”
“Do what?” I look up at him.
“Blame yourself.”
“Too late. Too. Fucking. Late.”
He frowns. “I’m going to go arrange to have Ellie’s family flown out.”
I just nod despairingly.
Three hours. I have watched every second on the clock tick by for three agonizing hours.
“I’m looking for the family of Elizabeth Stevens,” a man in light-blue scrubs and a mask hanging off his face announces in the waiting room. Jett and I immediately stand up.
“I’m Dr. Holiday. I worked on Ms. Stevens.” He shakes both our hands.
“Jett Fox.” “Kayne Rivers.” We both reply.
“How are you related?” he inquires.
“I’m her fiancé,” I answer with a thread of composure. “How is she?”
The doctor sighs. “Ms. Stevens wound was severe. She lost a lot of blood and coded on the way to the OR.”
My knees nearly give out. Jett catches my arm and holds me up. “She—”
“No,” Dr. Holiday continues. “We were able to revive her, but she was deprived of oxygen for nearly five minutes. She’s stable, but in a coma,” he says gently.
“So, that’s good? Right?” I grasp at any tiny reassurance Ellie is going to be okay.
“It’s promising, but there is a chance, Mr. Rivers, that she’ll never wake up.
“Never?” my voice nearly disappears.
“The next forty-eight hours are critical.”
I nod, barely holding it together.
“There was something else,” the doctor frowns.
“What?”
“Our examination showed severe trauma to the vaginal region.”
I blink rapidly at the doctor. “She was raped?”
He nods. “If she does wake up, a social worker will be visiting.”
I don’t hear the last part as rage explodes inside me like a nuclear bomb. I punch a hole right through the wall to relieve the pressure in my chest.
“Mr. Rivers!” the doctor shouts. “I understand this is distressing news, but please compose yourself, or I’ll be forced to call security.”
I breathe savagely in his face. “You don’t understand jack shit.”
