“Please, tell me what that means.”
“It means that your mother needs to wake up on her own. There’s nothing medically keeping her unconscious any longer. Some of her injuries are still severe and they are healing, but you need to prepare yourself for the chance that she may never wake up.”
“Ever? Can’t you… Can’t you give her adrenaline or something? Drugs that will force her awake? Can’t you just do that?”
“I’m sorry, but we can’t do that, Ivy. Anything we do give her could tip the scales we can’t see.”
“What about a scan or a test or something? There must be something you can do to wake her up and make her better! I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry. Unfortunately, in cases of deep trauma like your mother has suffered, the body and mind can fall so deep into themselves that they simply don’t wake up.”
Ivy slowly turns to me, her eyes shining with utter despair.
“That’s enough,” I snap at the doctor, stepping forward and sliding my arm around Ivy’s shoulders. “You’ve said enough.”
The doctor dips his head and seems grateful for the conversation to end. He turns and hurries down the hallway, occasionally glancing back.
Ivy trembles like a leaf under my grip and she lifts one hand to my shirt, gripping tightly. “This isn’t real,” she murmurs. “This can’t be real.”
“Come on,” I say as gently as I can. “Seeing her might make you feel better.”
She nods slowly, hastily wiping away her tears. “Okay.”
Together, we walk down the hallway but just as we reach her mother’s room, someone exits in such a flurry that all three of us crash into one another.
“Ow!” Ivy takes the full brunt of the person’s hasty exit and falls back into me, her heel coming down hard on my foot which makes me grunt in pain as I steady the two of us.
The stranger stumbles, her foot catching on Ivy’s ankle, which draws another squeal of pain from her.
“I’m so sorry!” The stranger, a woman, gasps as she trips up and crashes hard down onto her hands and knees. The slap of her palms landing on the linoleum echoes through the hallway. Just beyond her, through the door to Ivy’s mother’s room, I glimpse a large bouquet of flowers sitting at her bedside.
“Ow,” Ivy groans, regaining her balance. “Oh, my God, are you okay?” She immediately reaches for the woman on the floor, butas she makes contact with the stranger’s arm to help her up, the stranger waves her off quickly.
“I’m fine. I’m fine!” She keeps her head low as she climbs to her feet.
“I’m sorry again,” Ivy gasps. “I never expected Mom to have visitors.”
“I was just leaving!”
“Hold on—” Instinctually, I reach for the woman’s arm and grab her elbow, bunching the fabric of her coat around my wrist as she tries to hurry down the corridor without even looking at us. “Why are you in such a hurry? Are you a family friend?”
“Let go,” the woman gasps, jerking her arm out of my grip. “Let go!”
As I release her, she stumbles over herself with her sudden freedom and her head lifts. The jolt dislodges the massive dark glasses covering her face and we finally get to see her.
“You?” The sudden heat of anger in Ivy’s voice catches me off guard and before I can stop her, Ivy flies at the woman with both hands outstretched. “Why are you here? How dare you even come here!”
I recognize the woman just as Ivy collides with her and shoves her into the wall. It’s the woman from the footage of Camden’s date.
The woman he was sleeping with.
“I’m sorry,” the woman gasps, trying to wrestle out of Ivy’s grip. “I was just leaving!”
“No,” I say, stepping up behind Ivy, and as the woman slips out of Ivy’s grasp, I’m right there to slip my arm around her waist and haul her backward. “You’re not going anywhere until we’ve had a nice little chat.”
22
IVY
