Devotion - Chapter 17
Saturday
Someone pulled me off of him.
Porter bent down over James and ripped his shirt open. I could see the hole in his stomach. I could see the hole right below his chest. There was so much blood. Porter pulled off his jacket and pressed it against both of the wounds as he put his ear to James' chest. "Briggs!" he yelled.
Briggs released me from his grip. His hands replaced Porter's as Porter began performing CPR.
James wasn't breathing. This can't be happening. I felt frozen. I kept blinking, thinking what was happening in front of me would change.
An ambulance screeched to a stop and paramedics burst out of it.
Briggs stepped out of the way of the paramedics and scanned the top of the buildings that surrounded this side of Central Park as Porter shouted instructions.
"West side," Porter shouted. "Check the rooftops."
Briggs cursed and took off running.
I closed my eyes. Please let me be imagining this.
"Penny," Porter said and grabbed my arm. "Get in the ambulance. We'll meet you at the hospital."
"Is he going to be okay?"
"You need to get in the ambulance."
That was a no. James wasn't going to be okay. He was dying. James was dying. Tears streamed down my face. I quickly climbed into the back of the ambulance as soon as they had lifted James into it. I watched them press down on James' body with electrical paddles. James' body jolted.
"James," I whispered and squeezed his shin. "James, you can't leave me." I cringed when his body jolted again beneath my hand. "James, please, wake up."
"Turn it up," one of the paramedics said as the ambulance came to a stop outside of the hospital. His body jolted again as the doors flew open. His gurney was lifted out of the ambulance and he was rolled into the hospital.
I ran after the paramedics. A doctor leapt onto the gurney and started performing CPR as they disappeared behind swinging doors that stated hospital personnel only. I was left alone in the empty hallway, watching the doors swing until suddenly they stopped.
I fell to my knees and let myself cry. I had sensed that something was wrong earlier.
If I had told James that, maybe he would have let us leave.
Maybe we would have stayed inside for the rest of the evening.
My thoughts flooded with maybes. I could sense that she was there somewhere.
Isabella. And she was still out there. She'd rather James be dead than with me.
Someone needed to come back through the doors. Someone needed to tell me what was happening. Tears cascaded down my cheeks and I didn't bother to wipe them away. Someone needed to tell me he was okay.
"Penny."
I shook my head.
"Penny." Rob lifted my face so that I would look at him.
"Rob," I sobbed and I started crying even harder.
He put his arms around me and held me. He didn't bother telling me everything was going to be okay. We both knew that it wasn't. He ran his hand up and down my back. It didn't calm me down at all.
I wasn't sure how long he held me, but eventually he pulled back.
"Come with me," he said and stood up. "Maybe someone will have an update for us.
" His eyes were red too. I had never seen Rob cry before.
And it made me even more unsettled. He was crying because he thought James was gone too.
He was crying because he thought he had lost his brother.
I grabbed his hand and he pulled me to my feet. I turned back toward the doors James had disappeared through. Please, James. Please don't leave me.
Rob put his arm around my shoulders and walked me toward the front desk. I stood there listening to the commotion of the emergency room as Rob was handed forms to fill out.
"No," Rob said. "I asked how he was doing. Not this," he said and slammed the clipboard down on the counter.
"Sir," the woman said. "We will have someone come talk to you as soon as we know."
"Can't you just check?"
"That's not my job."
"How about you get off your ass and..."
"Rob," Mason said and put his hand on his shoulder. "How about you sit down and let me talk to them?"
Rob ran his hand through his hair. "They won't tell us anything."
"Penny." I turned around to see Bee. She was crying almost as hard as I had been. "He's going to be okay. He has to be."
I shook my head. She was trying. But her tears gave her away.
She immediately put her arms around me. "He's strong. He'll pull through." She was one of the few people that knew just how strong James was. But her words didn't calm me down. Nothing could make it feel like I wasn't sinking.
I glanced at Rob in the waiting room. His elbows were on his knees and both his hands were in his hair. When he was distraught he looked even more like James.
I just felt numb. What if I never got to see James upset again? What if I never got to see him happy again? I pulled away from Bee's hug. Nothing would console me right now. I needed to see him. I just needed to see him.
Mason was now arguing with the same woman that Rob had been.
"You encouraged her!" Rob yelled.
I looked back over at the waiting room. Rob had just shoved his father in the chest. "This is on you. James is dying because of you!" He shoved his dad again.
A security guard started toward them.
"Rob!" I ran over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. "Please calm down. You can't get sent to prison tonight. I need you here. Please, I need you. Please."
He shook his head and wiped under his eyes with the back of his hand. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to the other side of the waiting room, away from his parents. "It's their fault," he said and collapsed in a chair. "They fed her delusional mind. Why aren't you angry?"
"Because I don't have room for that right now. Because I'm upset and scared and..." my voice cracked. "Because I'm trying so hard to be hopeful."
He was the only one that understood. He was the only one that loved James as much as I did. "I'm sorry." He pulled my head onto his shoulder and let me cry again. He kept his arm wrapped protectively around me.
I tried to block out the sounds of Jen yelling at the reception desk.
Apparently they were taking turns. I closed my eyes tightly.
I pictured James saying his vows. I pictured James proposing.
I pictured him running into me at the coffee shop.
And it all just made my chest hurt even more.
It all just made the possibility of losing him that much more painful.
"Pen." I opened my eyes and saw my dad kneeling in front of me. He was handing me his handkerchief. "Melissa brought you a change of clothes. How about you go change into something more comfortable." He put his hand on my knee.
I shook my head. I didn't want to change. I wanted to make love to James in our hotel room because it was our wedding night. I reluctantly grabbed his handkerchief.
"He's in surgery," Jen said and sat down next to me.
That wasn't much of an update. I had assumed that when time started to pass. "Does that mean he's breathing?"
Jen grabbed my hand. "They wouldn't have put him into surgery if he didn't have a pulse. It's a good sign."
I nodded. James was breathing again. That was definitely a good sign. His heart was beating. He was alive.
"Sweetie," my dad said and patted my knee again. "Your mom and I are here. Just let us know what you need."
James. I need James. "Thanks, Dad." In that moment I wanted to be a kid again.
I wanted to go back in time. I wanted someone to fix everything for me.
Because the thought had started to settle on me that all of this was my fault.
Isabella hated me. If James was single, this wouldn't have happened.
If I hadn't flirted with him in class, he wouldn't have fallen for me. He wouldn't be in a hospital bed dying.
Stop. I closed my eyes again. He can't die. He can't leave me.
***
Hours passed. Saturday turned into Sunday. A doctor came out and I again lifted my head in expectation, but he went to another family. I swallowed hard. I was losing my mind. I needed to know if he was okay.
All I could hear was the ticking of a clock on the wall. Seconds passing. James could be taking his last breath, and I wasn't there with him. I needed to be with him. We couldn't end like this.
I ducked out of Rob's arm. Like most of the people in the waiting room, he had fallen asleep. But sleep wasn't going to come for me. Not until I knew. I walked up to the front desk. "Do you have any updates?"
She typed something into her computer. "He's still in surgery."
"Is that a good thing?
She shook her head like she didn't know.
"You must know. You work here."
"I'm just a nurse. I've never even worked in the E.R. portion of the hospital until tonight."
It was her first night. I thought about everyone screaming at her.
But at that moment, I didn't care. She was the only person standing in my way of knowing where James was and how he was doing.
But I didn't have any fight in me. All I felt was this sense of doom.
Of loss. I couldn't shake the feeling. I couldn't stop hearing the clock ticking.
"Please." I could feel the tears forming in my eyes again.
"As soon as I know, I'll tell you. I'm sorry."
"Can't you get someone to go check? Can't you take me to go see him?"
"Once he's out of surgery."
"But what if that's too late?" My voice cracked. What if that's too late?
"I'm sorry."
"Penny," Melissa said and touched my shoulder.
I hadn't known that anyone else was still awake.
"Let's go get you cleaned up, okay? You'll feel better when you change into something more comfortable."
Feel better? Nothing would make me feel better except rewinding time. What if our first kiss as husband and wife was one of our last kisses? What if our first dance was one of our last?
"Come with me." She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the restroom.
I didn't want to change. James was supposed to take off my wedding dress. We were supposed to be sharing one of the best nights of our lives. Keep breathing, James. Please keep breathing.
I stared at my reflection in the restroom mirror.
No wonder everyone kept asking me to change.
I looked like I was a bride from a horror movie.
Blood was splattered on my dress and chest. It had seeped into the bottom of my dress when I had tried to apply pressure to James' wounds.
It was on my hands and arms. I was a reflection of everything bad that had happened tonight.
A walking memory. I couldn't bear to look at myself.
I pulled down the straps of my dress and reached behind me to unzip it. My fingers were trembling and I couldn't undo it. "Get it off me."
Melissa's hands replaced mine.
Tears streamed down my cheeks and I turned away from the mirror. "Get it off!" I croaked. As soon as it was unzipped I pushed the straps down my arms and let it pool around my ankles. I bent over the sink and began scrubbing the blood from my skin. Get it off.
"Penny, stop." Melissa said from behind me.
I continued to wash my hands.
"Penny, stop, you're hurting yourself." She turned off the water.
I looked down at my arms. My skin was red from where I had been scrubbing it.
"Put these on." She handed me a pair of leggings and a tank top.
It was what I almost always wore to my college classes. I'd do anything to go back to those days. I thought about James in my dorm, asking me to marry him in Vegas. Why did I say no? If I had said yes, he'd still be beside me. This was the wedding I had wanted. He was dying because of me.
"It's my fault."
"It's not your fault."
"He's dying because of me."
"He's not going to die." There was no doubt in her tone. Melissa was strong. She always believed what she believed. And she was usually right.
I needed to be strong right now. I needed to borrow some of her strength. I looked up at her.
"He's not going to die," she said again.
I nodded my head. He's not going to die.
He can't die. I slowly changed into the clothes she had given me.
She placed a pair of flip flops on the ground as she folded my dress and put it into the bag she was carrying.
I wanted to tell her to throw it out or burn it or cut it into a million pieces.
I never wanted to see that dress again. I wanted to pretend that today had never happened.
I unstrapped my heels and slipped my feet into the flip flops.
"Good," Melissa said. "Now you're dressed so that we can run around and try to find him."
"What?"
"If no one's telling us, we'll go find out ourselves."
"Melissa?"
She turned toward me.
"Thank you." I put my arms around her.
"It's going to be okay." She rubbed her hand up and down my back.
Her confidence was exactly what I needed. I almost believed that what she was saying was true. I wanted to believe it was true.
"Come with me," she said and looped her arm through mine. She turned right toward the swinging doors. Someone crying made me turn my head back toward the waiting room. It was my mom. My family and friends were standing in front of a doctor.
My mom was crying. Why was my mom crying? I let go of Melissa's arm and ran toward them. It felt like my heart was beating out of my chest. "Is he okay?" My voice sounded strange and high pitched.
The doctor turned to me. "He's stable," she said. "But we had to put him into a medically induced coma."
"What does that mean?"
"One of the bullets punctured a lung. We were able to repair it.
We probably avoided the need for a transplant, but the next few days will tell us for sure.
Another of the bullets ruptured his spleen and there was internal bleeding.
He's had a blood transfusion. We've removed his spleen without further complications.
The third bullet was just a flesh wound on his bicep. It only needed stitches."
"Is he going to be okay?" None of what she was saying made sense. I didn't know the severity of any of it. I just needed to know if James was okay.
"We've done everything we can. We induced the coma because he was unresponsive."
"What does that mean?"
"It means he needs to fight."
I swallowed hard. James was a fighter. He'd always fight to be with me. He'd wake up. He had to. "Can I see him?"
"Immediate family only, two at a time."
"Okay." I grabbed Rob's hand. I needed him with me. I needed him to keep me calm. Because I couldn't afford to break anymore. If I wanted James to be strong, I needed to be too.