Chapter 16

11 YEARS EARLIER

 

Noah is late.

He’s usually late, if I’m being honest. He usually shows up about half an hour after the promised time, all full of apologies and kisses and good sex. Noah’s never been great at being prompt, so I can’t fault him. I’m sure he means to get on the road at the right time, but then gets distracted by something on the computer, or caught up studying for a test, or who knows. It’s fine. Considering he’s driving nearly five hours just to see me, I can’t get too angry.

Today, however, he’s two hours late. Actually, more than two hours. We’re closing in on three hours past the time he was supposed to arrive at my dorm. During the last hour, I’ve gone from angry to worried. Even though I try not to call him when he’s on the road, I’ve dialed his cell phone three times. No reply.

It was snowing yesterday. I told Noah the roads might not be safe, but he insisted it was fine and he wanted to see me. God, I hope he’s okay.

Just when I’m about to completely lose my mind, my cell phone rings and I see Noah’s name flash on the screen. I pick up the phone, ready to give him a piece of my mind for worrying me so badly, when I hear a female voice on the other line.

“Bailey?” the voice says.

“Yes?” I reply. My stomach has twisted back into the knot that had loosened slightly when I first got the call.

“It’s Gwen,” the woman says. “Noah’s mother.”

Gwen Walsh. I’ve met her a handful of times since Noah and I have been together. She’s a nice woman, and she seems to like me a lot. She seems like she’ll be a good mother-in-law.

“Hi, Mrs. Walsh,” I say, because I can’t quite bring myself to call this middle-aged woman by her first name.

“Bailey,” she says, and her voice breaks on the words. “Bailey, I’m at the hospital. Noah… he’s been in an accident.”

This horrible, cold sensation overtakes my entire body. I’d tried to tell myself that it couldn’t be true, that Noah was fine. But all along, I knew it. He never would have kept me waiting this long without a call. Never.

A lump forms in my throat. He’s dead. I know it.

“I just got to the hospital,” Gwen tells me. “But… I didn’t see him. They said he’s in emergency surgery and that he’s in critical condition and…” Her voice breaks on the words, and she can’t go on.

My knees go weak. I grip the phone, sinking down onto my bed. “What hospital?”

Gwen names a hospital about two hours away from me.

“Is it all right if I come?” I ask her.

“Of course it is,” Gwen sniffles. “Bailey, he loves you so much. That’s why when they gave me his phone, I called you right away because I knew you’d be worried.” She takes a shaky breath. “When he wakes up, he’ll be happy to see you there.”

If he wakes up. “I’m on my way.”

_____

 

I make it to the hospital in an hour and a half. My hands are trembling the entire way, but I keep my foot jammed on the gas pedal. I realize it would be ironic for me to get into a car accident and die while coming to see Noah after his accident, but I can’t help myself. I need to get to the hospital. I need to see him.

Gwen gave me instructions on how to find the waiting area where she’s keeping vigil until Noah is out of surgery. I have no idea what kind of surgery he’s getting. It could be absolutely anything. I try not to think about it too much, considering the last thing I need is to start getting faint right now.

I find Gwen sitting in a plastic chair in the waiting area, her strawberry-blond hair disheveled, looking ten years older than the last time I saw her. There’s a pile of magazines on the table next to her, but she’s just sitting there, staring straight ahead, her eyes red and swollen. When she sees me, she stands up.

“Bailey!” she cries.

Then she hugs me. She hugs me even though I’m the reason Noah got in this accident. He was driving out to see me.

In the middle of our hug, Gwen starts sobbing hysterically. “They won’t tell me anything.” She pulls away from me to wipe her eyes. “For all I know, he could be…”

I swallow hard. “If it were really bad, they’d tell us, right?”

“All they said was that he was critical.” She looks in the direction of the door that leads to the operating rooms. “They said he lost a lot of blood.”

Lost a lot of blood. I sink into one of the cheap plastic chairs. I can’t think about this. I have to believe he’s going to be okay. He’ll pull through this. He’s so young—he has to.

And then I’m crying too. We’re both crying and hugging. And praying Noah will be okay.

It’s another forty minutes before a man in his forties in a surgical cap and scrubs emerges from the back room. He has a grim look on his face. I look over at Gwen, who is getting ready to cry again. My eyes are just as swollen as hers, and I feel them welling up too.

“Mrs. Walsh?” the man asks. Gwen nods. “I’m Dr. Hoffman.”

I can’t help but think of Noah’s dream to become a surgeon. I wonder if this surgeon realizes this about the boy he was just operating on. Probably not.

“So we got him stabilized,” Dr. Hoffman says.

Gwen’s eyes spill over with tears. “You did? You mean he’s okay?”

Dr. Hoffman hesitates. “It’s still early to know for sure, but he’s most likely going to pull through.”

My knees feel weak with relief. Noah isn’t going to die. He’s going to be okay. Thank God.

“That’s so wonderful,” Gwen sobs as she grabs onto Dr. Hoffman’s arm. “Thank you so much, Doctor! Thank you for saving my son.”

The surgeon’s expression is still grim. “You have to understand though, Mrs. Walsh, his injuries are very severe.”

Gwen frowns. “But you said he’s going to live.”

Dr. Hoffman sighs. “Yes, but…”

“I don’t understand,” Gwen says. “Is he some kind of vegetable…?”

“Nothing like that,” the surgeon says quickly, although Gwen is still wary. “We scanned his brain and there was so sign of bleeding—nothing to indicate a significant brain injury. He did have a lot of blood in his lungs though, which is why we had to place a chest tube and we’re keeping him sedated and intubated for now. The major trauma, unfortunately, was to his lower extremities.”

Gwen shakes her head. “His…?”

Dr. Hoffman puts his hand on Gwen’s shoulder. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but we had to amputate his left leg above the knee. He had already lost a tremendous amount of blood through his femoral artery and by the time we got him to the table, the leg wasn’t salvageable. There was nothing we could do.”

Gwen’s mouth falls open. I understand exactly how she’s feeling. Five minutes ago, all I cared about was that Noah would live. But hearing this new piece of information is a punch in the gut. He lost his leg. He will never, ever be the same after this.

“Also,” Dr. Hoffman adds. There’s an “also”? Shit. “There were multiple fractures in his right leg as well. He had an open femoral shaft fracture, which means the bone went through the skin, and he unfortunately lost quite a bit of skin. He had a tibial shaft and tibial plateau fracture. He also has a trimalleolar ankle fracture. We placed an external fixator, but he’s looking at an extremely long recovery time for that leg.”

“But at least it’s still there,” Gwen says.

Dr. Hoffman is quiet for a moment. “Right. It’s still there.”

I can hardly listen to any of this. I’m trying my best not to imagine all these injuries, but even so, there are spots dancing before my eyes.

“Can we see him?” Gwen asks.

The surgeon nods. “We’re going to be moving him to the surgical ICU. You can see him down there.”

Part of me is hoping Dr. Hoffman will say I can’t go in because I’m not immediate family. I’m not his wife—I’m nothing. But I know Gwen wants me with her, and nobody is trying to stop me. I’m just not sure I can handle seeing Noah like this. The thought is making me feel like I’m going to throw up.

I follow Gwen down the hallway to get to the surgical ICU. I can’t stop shaking. My whole body feels cold and horrible. She glances over at me. “Don’t worry, Bailey,” she says. “Noah got through his dad leaving us in the middle of the night, and he’s going to get through this. We’re going to get him back.”

The surgical ICU is quiet, which makes sense considering it’s two in the morning. There’s a woman manning the front desk, who gently asks us who we’re coming to see. “My son was just brought here,” Gwen tells her, in a voice stronger than I’ve heard since I arrived. “His name is Noah Walsh.”

There are no separate rooms here, only hospital beds. Three of them are occupied, and from afar, I couldn’t say which of the patients is my fiancé. They all look the same—a million tubes coming out of them, bandaged up, barely alive.

It brings back memories of my mother. When she was at her worst. When we thought the cancer might win.

“That’s him!” Gwen grips my arm.

She’s pointing to a bed at the end. Of the three patients, Noah looks the sickest. As we get closer, I see he’s got a tube coming out of his throat, taped to stay in place. He’s wearing a hospital gown with only a sheet half-heartedly covering the parts of him that aren’t injured. I count at least three tubes coming out of his body and draining off the side of the bed.

“Oh, Noah!” Gwen cries out. She runs to his side, grabbing his hand in hers. She reaches out to stroke the side of his face, at the stubble growing there. He doesn’t even flinch. “Noah, your mother is here. I’m here.”

The nurse at the desk, watching the entire encounter, speaks up, “He’s very sedated right now. He’s not going to respond to you.”

But Gwen doesn’t care. She keeps whispering to him and stroking his hand. As for me, I try my best to focus on Noah’s face. Amazingly, his face seems to have sustained very little damage. He’s got an abrasion on his cheekbone, but other than that, he looks fine. Well, aside from the tube sticking out of his mouth, pushing air into his rising and falling chest. Looking at his face makes me feel like he really might be okay.

But my eyes get drawn like a magnet to his legs. His right is clearly badly injured. It has pins sticking out of it both above and below the knee, with rods connecting the pins. If he were awake, I’d have to imagine it would be extremely painful. Everything is wrapped in gauze, but I can see the blood oozing out under the gauze.

And then there’s his left leg. Or the absence of it. Where his leg used to be, there’s only nothing. His left leg ends abruptly, mid-thigh, swathed in bandages. I see crimson staining the bandages. Dark, dark crimson. So much of it.

So much.

And that’s when I pass out.

_____

 

It’s embarrassing. More than embarrassing—it almost sends me to the emergency room. The nurse saw me starting to go down and managed to catch me before I hit the floor, and then she started fussing over me like I was one of the patients. She ended up giving me some apple juice while I sat in a corner, feeling horrible about the fact that the sight of my fiancé made me faint.

Gwen decides to spend the night at the hospital, dozing in a recliner by Noah’s bed. I offer to stay too, but it’s a relief when she insists on paying for a hotel room for me nearby. “Come back in the morning,” she says. “When you’re feeling better.”

As if I’ve got some sort of bug that knocked me out.

In the morning, I take my time. As much as I love Noah, the thought of seeing him like that again makes me queasy. But it’s not like I can leave town and not come back until he’s better. Especially since the doctor promised his recovery would be a slow process.

It’s mid-morning by the time I make it to the surgical ICU. I’ve braced myself for the worst, but when I arrive at the small unit, I get a surprise: Noah is awake, the tube out of his throat.

The head of the bed is raised so he’s partially sitting up. He has dark circles under his eyes and he’s very pale, but he’s most definitely alive. Gwen is next to him, looking exhausted but still smiling. There’s a white sheet covering his lower body, making a strange-looking tent over the pins and bars in his right leg, then falling flat over where his left leg would have been.

When Noah sees me, his face breaks into a tired half-smile. “Bailey,” he says. His voice is hoarse. “We thought you took off.”

He’s joking. He has no idea how close he is to being right.

“He took out the tube in his throat himself early this morning,” Gwen tells me. “They were going to wait another day, but as soon as the anesthetics wore off a little, he pulled it right out.”

“It was uncomfortable,” Noah says.

Gwen pats his arm. “I’m just relieved you’re awake and okay.”

Noah leans his head against his pillow and sighs. “Yeah, that’s relative.”

Gwen looks between the two of us, then stands up from the chair where she’s spent the night keeping vigil. “Let me give the two of you a little privacy. I’ll grab some food from the cafeteria.”

With Gwen out of the way, I slowly make my way to the empty seat that she had occupied. It’s better if I’m sitting. Just in case.

Noah rolls his head to look at me. He sighs and shakes his head. “I’d say you look worse than I do, Bailey, but I’m not sure that’s possible.”

“You look fine,” I say, too quickly.

“Do I?” He raises his eyebrows at me. “I heard about your little spill yesterday. The nurse blabbed.”

“Oh.” My cheeks grow warm. Why would someone tell him that? I thought I’d keep that secret from him till one of us was in the grave. “Well, you know how I am.”

“Yeah,” he mutters.

I squeeze my hands together. Aside from seeing his mangled limbs, this was the part I’d been dreading—finding out how my usually upbeat fiancé would react to something beyond horrible. And now he knows I couldn’t even stand the sight of him last night. “I’m sorry,” I murmur. “It wasn’t… I mean, it was just hard to see…”

Noah is quiet for a long time. Long enough that my stomach starts to churn and I’m certain he hates me. When he finally speaks, he says, “I threw up.”

Huh? “What?”

“When I first saw them,” he says. “My legs. I looked at them… what’s left of them… and I… I threw up.” He gestures down at them. “That’s why this sheet is here. I couldn’t stand to look at them.”

I feel a new rush of sympathy for Noah—at least I can go to the hotel and not think of what’s going on here, but he can’t escape it. Ever. I reach out and grab Noah’s hand off the bed. He slides his fingers into mine, and squeezes my palm.

“This is really fucked up,” he sighs in that hoarse voice.

I squeeze his hand. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Says you.”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “Even if I faint every day, I’m going to be here with you through this whole thing.”

He manages a hollow laugh. “I think at some point, you might get desensitized. Hey, maybe after all this, you’ll decide to go to med school.”

Well, that’s impossible. But I make a vow to get past my phobias and be here with Noah through this entire ordeal. He needs me. I’m not going to let him down.