Chapter Thirty-Six
Vanessa
I woke up a little as the doctor came into the room, even though he moved as quietly as he could. He smiled over at me. “You may want to go home and get some real sleep,” he said kindly.
I shook my head, wincing at how stiff my neck was after sleeping in various hospital chairs. “I’d hate to think that something might happen while I’m away,” I rasped hoarsely, aware of how dry my throat was.
The doctor, Mark, handed me a plastic bottle of water, but he didn’t suggest I leave again. “We’ve finished running some more of the scans,” he said, looking down at his clipboard. “He’s in stable condition, so that, at least, is good. Well, maybe not good, but at least it’s not bad.”
“What exactly is wrong with him?” I asked. “You must know by now, right? It’s been almost a week.”
The doctor sighed and perched on the arm of one of the other chairs, staring sympathetically down at me in a way that I was rapidly coming to hate, almost as much as I hated the smell of that room and the way the doctor’s scrubs crinkled every time he moved. “As I said, his condition is stable,” he repeated slowly. “But I’m afraid there’s been a lot of swelling around his brain.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So, you just need to, what, bring down the swelling around his brain, and he’ll be back to normal?”
“It’s not that simple, I’m afraid,” Mark said. I could tell he was about to deliver bad news from the way he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Head injuries are always tricky,” he continued. “And with an injury like this, we don’t know how long it could be before Trethan wakes up. To be perfectly frank with you, there’s a relatively high possibility that he may never wake up from this.”
I gasped, putting a hand up to my mouth. I had known that the possibility existed, of course, but to hear the doctor say it was another thing entirely. I stared down at Trethan, tears forming in the corners of my eyes.
Mark sighed. “The other thing to know is that even if he does wake up, we have no idea what kind of condition he’ll be in. He could be paralyzed or have developed amnesia or any number of other symptoms. Like I said, brain injuries are tricky. We’re going to do everything that we can to help him, but there’s a possibility that he’s never going to be fully back to who he was before the injury.”
I nodded, tears slipping down my face. “I understand,” I managed to whisper in response, even though it was difficult to even consider any of those things happening.
Mark reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “The best thing for him right now, though, is to be surrounded by his loved ones,” he said. “He may not be able to really hear you, but I’m sure that he knows that you’re here. He’ll respond to that.”
I nodded. “Is there anything else that we can do for him?”
“I’m afraid it’s just a waiting game now,” Mark said, shaking his head. “I wish I had some better news for you, but unfortunately, that’s where we’re at. If the swelling gets any worse, we’ll have no choice but to go in and operate, but that could make things worse for him. For now, we’re just going to observe and let the swelling go down on its own. The good thing is, apart from the head injury, he hasn’t sustained any serious injuries to his body, which means that his body can really focus on the one injury and repair it. You’d be surprised at what the human body is capable of.”
“Amen,” Dad said, coming into the room. He smiled at me, but I could tell how concerned he was. “Honey, I know how worried you are, and when Trethan wakes up, I’m sure he’ll be grateful that you’ve been staying here at his side, but he wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself waiting for him to wake up.”
“What if he doesn’t wake up, though?” I asked, the words thick in my mouth.
“He will,” Dad said, nodding. “He’s a fighter.” He paused for a moment. “I visited him in the hospital before, you know. Back when he overdosed. It was a lot like this back then, too. But you know what? He pulled through and came out stronger on the other side of it.”
“Yeah,” I sighed, staring down at my hand where it held Trethan’s limp one on the edge of the bed. I didn’t want to think about the possibility that he might not wake up this time, but the reminder that this wasn’t his first time in the hospital had me even more worried. Maybe this was it, then. Maybe his time was up now. He had cheated death for long enough.
“How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” Dad asked gently.
I gave him a guilty look, glancing over at Mark. “I should probably eat something,” I agreed, despite the fact that I had zero appetite at the moment. I didn’t even want to leave Trethan’s side for long enough to go down to the hospital cafeteria. I could never live with myself if something happened while I was out.
“Why don’t I go get you something?” Dad suggested, accurately reading my hesitation. “Anything you’d prefer?”
I shook my head. “It’s not going to taste like much anyway,” I told him. “You could bring me back sawdust, and it would taste just the same.”
“Wouldn’t be quite as nutritious, though,” Mark pointed out, smiling at me. He stood up. “We’ll keep monitoring him,” he promised me. “Hang in there. For all we know, he could wake up tomorrow.”
I nodded at him, unable to find anything to say in response to that. He and Dad both slipped out, leaving me alone with the comatose man I loved.
I let the tears fall. I was surprised I still had tears to let fall. Six days of crying should have had me all cried out, but apparently not.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to Trethan, even though he couldn’t hear me. I stroked the back of his hand with my thumb, wishing I could do something more.
“Trethan, I need you to wake up for me. I can’t do this anymore. It’s killing me to sit here and watch you like this. I need you to wake up, so I can tell you all the things that I didn’t tell you before. I love you, Trethan. I love you so much, and if you die on me, I don’t know what I’m going to do because I can’t even imagine my life without you.”
I took a deep, shuddery breath. “I should have told you that before you went out there and nearly got yourself killed, I guess. I hope you didn’t go out there just so you could get the prize money for me. God, I couldn’t live with myself if I knew that you were injured just because you thought you had to get the money for my sake.” I sniffled.
“But you did win it, Trethan. You rode so well. You got another ninety-two on that last ride, so you blew the competition out of the water. You were amazing.” I shook my head. “You are amazing.”
I sobbed. “I should never have let you go out there. I knew something didn’t feel right. I knew you might get injured. I should have just told you I wasn’t okay with it. Like Dad said, you and I should have talked more. If we were going to have a relationship, we needed to talk more, to communicate better. But we didn’t, and now we might never get to have that talk because you might never wake up again.” I swallowed hard, squeezing my eyes shut and squeezing his hand at the same time, trying to hold myself together.
“Trethan, I need you,” I told him quietly. “I don’t know how I ever left you when I went to college. I was so stupid. I wasted five years without you in my life, and if I could go back now, I would. I absolutely would. Even though I know we both needed those five years to grow up and become who we are now, I still would go back. Because if I never get to hear you laugh again or see you smile that devilish, sexy smile of yours, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
I pressed my forehead to his hand. “The thing is, I could still take the prize money. You’ve made it clear to everyone that you were going to put it into the gallery, so even if you never woke up and confirmed it, no one would stop me. But the idea of living here in White Bluff, with the gallery, living out the dream life that we were supposed to share…
“If you weren’t there with me, I don’t think I could do that. It would be too horrible.”
I wiped away the tears and leaned up to kiss him, hoping that he could hear me and feel me kiss him. Hoping that he would come back to me. Even though I didn’t deserve to have him come back to me. I’d been so selfish, letting him risk his life for me. But he’d said that this was his dream, so maybe he was the one being selfish all along.
“You’re going to pull through this,” I said firmly. If I said it enough times, maybe I could will it to be true. “You’re going to pull through this, and then we’re going to sit down and have a really, really long talk about our future because I love you, Trethan. I always have, and I always will.”
There was a knock on the door, and I turned to see who it was. It was Brent, his face pale and grim. “Hey,” he said, coming into the room. “I came as soon as I could.”
I nodded at him, searching for words, but they wouldn’t come. Instead, I finally just nudged a seat toward him, inviting Trethan’s best friend to come sit beside his hospital bed in vigil with me.
“You make him really happy, you know,” Brent said suddenly, his voice quiet. “All he ever did was talk about you.”
I jumped a little, surprised at how loud his voice seemed amongst the now-familiar sounds of the humming machines. I looked back at him, trying to think of something to say in response. “Didn’t do him a lot of good,” I finally managed, looking back down at Trethan’s motionless form.
“Hey, he did something stupid,” Brent said, shrugging. “That’s on him.”
“I should have stopped him.”
“You wouldn’t have been able to,” he told me, shaking his head. “You know that. Once Trethan got an idea in his head, he was going with it. That’s the way that he’s always been.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I know that. But maybe he would have listened to me, just this one time.”
“Or maybe he would have resented the fact that you told him not to do something that he felt like he had to do,” Brent reminded me gently. He paused. “You look like you could stand to get out of here for a few hours. Maybe get a little sleep. If you want, you can borrow my car.”
I shook my head. “I can’t leave him,” I said, my voice sounding miserable.
Brent reached over and clasped my shoulder, his hand a warm and comforting weight there. “Come on; I’ll text you if anything changes. But probably, he’s just going to keep lying there for a while longer.”
I shook my head. “I can’t leave him,” I repeated.
Brent nodded to me. “Then I’m going to go get you some coffee,” he said. “You look like you could use it.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, unable to peel my eyes from Trethan’s face. I stroked his hand. “Please,” I pleaded once more as Brent stepped out of the room. “Trethan, we all need you to wake up. I need you to wake up. I’m begging you.”