Chapter Seventeen
Ivy
“No, she has no family to alert. It’s just her,” Dean said. “Which is why you need to talk to me. I’m all she’s got.”
“How do you know her?”
“We’ve been seeing one another for about three weeks now.”
“Doctor Anderson, you know how this looks to me.”
“I know how it looks, but there is no other person,” he said. “She’s got friends I can try to get in touch with, but no family. Talk to me, damn it. What’s going on with her?”
“Dean-”
“Please.”
Talk to him, doctor. It’s okay. He takes good care of me. You have my permission.
“She sustained serious trauma to her head, Dean. She was barely responsive in the ambulance. The dilation of her pupils you witnessed was probably a simple medical phenomena. And even then, none of the paramedics wrote down in their notes that she was responsive to outside stimuli. And she wasn’t in the O.R. either.”
“I know what I saw, Doctor.”
“And I trust you. You’re one of the best doctors we have at this hospital. But now that I know about your emotional attachment to her, you can see why I’m wary of taking it into consideration. She’s been out for four days, Dean. The anesthesia has beyond worn off.”
“How’s her concussion?”
The darkness sucked me under before I could hear anything else. The panic in Dean’s voice broke my heart. I could remember getting in my car. I could remember being excited about going to see him. I could remember pulling out into the road.
But I couldn't remember anything else.
It was dark. Too dark for my liking. I always needed some sort of light. That’s why I left my curtains open at night. The only time I could handle the dark was when Dean’s body was against mine. I could sleep in the dark so long as he was there. And sometimes, he was. I’d come to from my darkened dream-state and feel him holding my hand. Feel him caressing my cheek. Feel him massaging my legs and moving my joints and making sure I didn’t develop bedsores. I knew I was in the hospital. And I knew it was bad. Moments of searing pain shot through me sometimes whenever Dean moved me, and I tried so hard to talk to him. To signal to him. To move something to get his attention.
It was like being present in my body but not having control.
And I didn’t like not having control.
After I lost my parents, my need for control grew. Became greater than I could’ve ever imagined. And that's probably why my career skyrocketed the way it did. Controlling a model’s movements and controlling the tempo of the fashion shows and helping to control the model’s frames of mind during rehearsals… I craved it. Longed for it. Woke up just to be able to do it again. It made me feel powerful. Strong. Purposeful in my actions. I couldn’t save my parents and I couldn’t hold onto Grace and Emilia when they got married to the loves of their lives.
Everyone slipped away eventually, so control was all I really had.
Until now.
“You need to wake up, okay sweetie?”
Emilia.
Is that why my room smells so good? Oh, I love your flowers. They’re the best.
“You need to wake up and stop giving this sweet man at your side such a heart attack, okay?”
I felt Emilia slip her hand into mine, but I couldn't squeeze. I couldn't hold it back. Fuck. Why couldn’t I move?
“I’ll be back with some more flowers tonight, okay? Your favorite. Tulips and carnations. Such an odd combination. But you’ve always been an odd one, Ivy.”
I felt something wet fall to my skin.
Was Emilia crying?
Don’t cry. Please. You’ll make me cry.
But even though sorrow hung heavily in my chest, nothing happened. No watery eyes. No shaking hands. No weakening of my legs. Nothing.
It was like my emotional state was completely disconnected from my physical state.
I slipped back into the darkness and there was nothing. No dreams. No sounds. No laughter. No presence. Just a dark expanse of nothing that rattled around in my body. I hated it. I couldn't stand it. I wanted to sit up in bed, rip the I.V.’s from the tops of my hands, and get back home. Get back to Dean. I wanted to throw myself at him and strip him down. Kiss him everywhere and make him beg for me. I wanted to feel like a woman again in his arms. I wanted to force him to love me the way I knew only he could.
Dean.
Where was Dean?
I needed Dean.
I felt a hand slip into mine before something warm fell against my cheek. I wanted to turn my head. Turn my lips into the familiar sensation. There he was. My Dean. My precious, strong, entrancing Dean. I tried to move. Tried to speak. Tried to open my eyes.
Fucking move, you dumbass hand!
“I don’t know if you’re in there, Ivy.”
I’m right here, Dean! I swear! Just… fuck!
“I don’t know much of anything right now.”
You know me. You know me so well, Dean. I’m right here. I haven’t left. I promised you I wouldn’t leave you. I haven’t left you.
“It’s been two weeks…”
What?
“Saying that just… hurts, Ivy.”
I’ve been in this hospital for two weeks?
“I’ve been doing some research. Studying up on comas and things like that. There are many theories that talk about how outside stimuli can sometimes provoke an internal response. You know, re-hardwiring of the brain and such.”
That’s it, Dean. Use that glorious mind of yours. Help me get out of this and I swear to God, once I wake up you’ll never be left alone again.
“They say the best thing is to read to someone. To find a book and just, start reading. Would you like that?”
I would love that.
“I um… I have to work. I… have a shift.”
Don’t go. Please don’t leave me. I’m scared, Dean. And I’ve never admitted that to anyone before. But I’ll admit it to you. I want to admit everything to you. How you make me feel. How I perceive myself when I’m around you. How you light up my life in ways I never thought possible.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
Then don’t. Fuck ‘em. Do what you want, Dean.
And then, the darkness swept me under again.
I felt exhausted. Torn. The pain was getting better, but I wasn’t. I knew that, and I couldn’t tell anyone. I could hear the pain in Dean’s voice, but I couldn't take it away. I heard my doctors and nurses talking around me, rattling off words I didn’t understand, and I couldn’t even ask them to explain themselves. The darkness was thick, and I felt more disconnected than ever. More out of control than I could ever explain.
I needed sleep.
I felt so tired.
Two weeks of fighting. Two weeks of screaming in my mind. Two weeks of lying helplessly in a bed with my hips aching and my legs cramping and my body healing. But I couldn't fight any longer. I didn’t have the energy to. Every time I fought, the darkness swallowed me whole. Like it was trying to prove a point. Prove that it was stronger than me. And usually, I fought back. I showed my ass and beat it to the punch no matter how much of me it took.
But maybe this time I couldn’t fight.
Maybe this time, it would take all of the strength in me to succumb to the power of the darkness around me.
Is that what was necessary?
Did I just need to… let go?
I didn’t know if I was dying. Everyone always said their loved ones knew when they were dying. My parents knew when they were dying. But I didn’t know. I didn’t think I was dying. I didn’t feel like I was dying. So maybe my body hadn’t given up on me yet. But continuously fighting with myself would get me nowhere. If I was conscious-- if I could move-- the doctor’s number one recommendation would be to rest. To take off work and sleep and recuperate.
So maybe I needed to do that anyway.
Maybe I needed to relinquish the control I was trying to fight for and succumb to the darkness.
Maybe the darkness wasn’t something to be afraid of. Maybe it had healing properties I didn’t know about. Maybe the darkness wasn’t some looming entity in the distance that threatened my life, but a healing pool of navy blue I refused to see through my own biased lens. I’d attributed darkness to bad, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe darkness wasn’t good or bad. Merely a state someone had to get through in order to come out of the other end.
And if I refused to delve into the darkness, I wouldn't be able to come out on the other end.
“She’s completely unresponsive, Doctor Anderson.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Dean asked.
“We can keep her comfortable. She’s already been transferred. But at this point, that’s all we can do.”
“There has to be something else.”
“There is nothing else, Dean.”
“There has to be something else!”
I couldn’t take it any longer. Dean’s frustration. My frustration. The doctor’s solemn words. I refused to believe them. I refused to believe I was beyond all hope. No one was ever beyond hope. If there was anything I believed, it was that. No one was ever beyond the scope of help, myself included. I had no idea how I was going to get my body to do what I wanted it to do again, but I was certain as to what I had to do.
What my body needed from me.
I imagined myself folding my arms across my chest. Standing at the side of a dark pool of sludge that kept reaching out for me. My hands were shaking and I felt my panic attack rising again. It was hard to breathe and tears streamed quickly down my cheeks and my neck. Never in my life had I experienced such fear. Such hesitancy. Such isolated anger. I felt a tendril of sludge wrap around my waist as I flexed my toes upwards, allowing my body to fall back.
Back into the pool of sludge.
Back into the darkness I’d feared for most of my life.
Back into a section of my life I refused to entertain because it meant spiraling out of control.
I felt myself falling. Sinking. Drowning. I felt the sludge wrapping around my body and covering me until I could no longer see anything. It was warm. Hot. Sizzling with energy. The voices of my doctor and of Dean faded into the background and I was dragged under once again. Only this time, I wasn’t standing on the edge. I wasn’t gazing off into the horizon. I wasn’t cooped up in my apartment as I looked over the endless expanse of an oncoming storm.
I was adrift in the middle of it. Suspended in the thick of it. Surrounded by the crashing sludge as it poured down my throat and choked off my own air supply.
And instead of fighting the panic, I let it wash over me.
I let the darkness I’d been so afraid of finally take hold of my mind.
If this was the only way to get back, I would do it. If this was the only way to see Dean again, I would do it. If this was the only way to heal, then I would do it.
Anything, if it got me my life again.
Anything, if it got me Dean again.