SEVEN
HAYDEN
BOSTON
DECEMBER
“We repaired her punctured lung and inserted a chest tube to help it re-expand. She has multiple rib fractures on the left side. Her jaw was fractured. It’s secured now with wiring, but she won’t be able to speak or eat solid food for quite some time.”
The words blur together into a heartbreaking jumble, mapping out all of the pain my wife is in.
Chest tube. Broken ribs. Fractured jaw.
“She was hypothermic,” Denise says gently. “Her body was starting to shut down from the cold. We’re warming her slowly and carefully.”
Jesus Christ.
Emerald.
“She took multiple hits to the head and face. Her lateral incisor and canine teeth are broken. CT showed no brain bleed, which is good, but we suspect she has a concussion. Her face is heavily bruised, as is the rest of her body. She has fractures in two fingers on her left hand. Those types of injuries are commonly seen when someone tries to shield themself—”
A sob tears out of me before I can stop it, cutting off her words. I press my palms into my eyes to keep the tears back.
Denise’s eyes soften in sympathy, and she lays a hand on my shoulder .
My brain catches words, not sentences.
Concussion. Bruised. Broken.
When someone tries to shield themselves.
“Emerald...” I whisper.
“She’s alive, Hayden,” Denise says, firmer now. “And she’s going to stay that way. I’m going to make sure of it.”
“Is she...” I start, dragging my hands down my face. “Is she in pain?”
Denise shakes her head. “No, she’s heavily sedated right now.”
“But she was...”
Denise nods, not beating around the bush, which I appreciate.
“I believe she lost consciousness fairly quickly.”
It’s a small mercy, but I hold onto it because I have nothing else.
Denise’s face turns serious.
“I need you to be prepared for how she is going to look. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. She has oxygen on, she’s hooked up to many wires,” Denise holds my gaze. “I need you to not panic when you see her.”
“I won’t,” I swear, suddenly desperate.
Denise studies me for a long moment before softly opening the door behind her. She nods for me to walk in first.
I take one step into the dim room and then stop.
“Oh, baby ...”
Whatever image was in my mind cannot compare to actually seeing her.
Nothing could have prepared me for this.
For an awful moment, I can’t reconcile that my bright, sunshine girl is the same woman lying battered in the bed.
“If you need anything, press the button beside her bed,” Denise tells me, keeping her voice quiet. “They’ll bring in blankets for you if you need them. I’ll text DeMar to bring you a change of clothes in the morning.”
“Can I touch her?” I ask, my voice breaking on the question.
“Gently,” Denise says, her voice even softer now. “Her right hand is uninjured. You can hold it.”
Denise dims the lights a little more, patting my shoulder once before she leaves. The hissing of the oxygen connected to the cannula under her nose and the rhythmic beeping of her heartbeat are the only noises in the room.
I move toward Emerald slowly, and the closer I get, the more I want to cry.
They’ve cleaned most of the blood from her face. That only exposes the darkening mess of black-and-blue bruises around her swollen, shut eyes. Her jaw is braced, her cheeks puffing out in a way I would think was adorable if it were any other circumstance.
They’ve changed her into a hospital gown, the bloody jersey she wore cut off and forgotten somewhere. The middle two fingers of her left hand are wrapped in a splint. Her torso is puffy in a way that tells me they’ve bandaged and secured her ribs.
Punctured lung, I remind myself, feeling sick.
I collapse onto the chair next to the bed, taking her right hand in mine and burying my face against it. It’s cold, and limp, and too fucking pale. Tears spill over my eyes and splash onto her skin.
“Emerald... my baby,” I sob, pressing kisses to the soft skin, breathing in the scent that’s still there under hospital antiseptic. “I’m so sorry... I didn’t mean it... I didn’t mean any of it, Emerald. I’m so fucking sorry. ”
Whether I meant it or not means nothing, because I said it.
I could say that I was frustrated from the loss, from lack of sleep, from the pressure I placed myself under, and it won’t change a fucking thing.
We could have been home safe in our bed by now if I had just stopped and thought about my words for a fucking second.
My voice tapers off until I’m just repeating sorry over and over. My eyes catch onto the window in her room, the snow falling, the Christmas lights lining the streets.
It’s two weeks until Christmas. Emerald always loves Christmas—the music, the movies, the traditions that have become non-negotiable in the last eight years.
I missed the first part of December on the road, and when I told her we could pick out our tree when I got back, she just nodded and gave me that tight little smile.
I thought she was just going to miss me, but I see it for what it is now.
Hurt. Disappointment.
“Do you remember our first Christmas?” I whisper. I know she probably can’t hear me, but I still want to believe that she can. That I can guide her back, and maybe good memories will do that.
“Freshman year. You didn’t want me to spend Christmas alone. You invited me to your home and I...”
I can’t help but smile, remembering Emerald’s shock when she found out I was staying on campus because my parents were spending the holidays on the yacht.
“That was the best Christmas of my life... until the next one... and the one after that. Every day with you is better than the last, but not better than the next,” I look up at her face, still my beautiful Emerald. “That’s how I feel about you, baby.”
My free hand reaches out to her face, the backs of my fingers hovering, but not touching. I can still feel her, though, a humming on the skin centimeters from hers.
“We still have tomorrows, Em,” I plead, dropping my hand and losing the battle with my tears. Emerald doesn’t move, besides the slight rising and falling of her chest as she breathes. “So many of them. We’re not done yet. Please, come back to me. Please. Please...”
It feels like I’m being dragged under.
I lay my head down on the bed, right next to our still joined hands, and I repeat over and over until the dark drags me under.
“Come back to me, Emerald...”
A muffled cry jolts me awake.
I blink disoriented, realizing something is tugging at my hand.
Wait, no, something is trying to tug free of my hand.
It all hits me at once.
Emerald.
Emerald’s moving.
Emerald’s awake.
Oh, thank God.
Thank fucking God.
Joy detonates in my chest until I see Emerald’s wide eyes.
They’re terrified.
She’s terrified.
Of me.
My body goes slack, allowing her to pull her hand from mine. But that’s when she starts trying to shuffle away from me, her face showing that she’s in pain as she does so. I move toward her to stop her, reaching my hands out.
“Emerald, baby— ”
She makes a noise, sounding more like a frightened animal than a human, and flinches away violently.
From me.
It feels like I’ve been hit.
The closer I move, the more she shrinks into the bed. Her swollen eyes are only cracked open, but they’re focused right on my chest. When I glance down, all I see is my jersey on, a couple splatters of blood—some mine, most hers—but it’s just my jersey.
“Emerald, it’s just me—”
She screams—as best as she can—the veins on her neck erupting under her skin from the force. Her split lips open, giving me a flash of the wiring keeping her jaw locked closed. The muffled, shrill sound she’s making guts me.
My wife looks so lost, so goddamn small and confused in the bed as her eyes dart around for an escape. The combination of helplessness, confusion, and fear on her face makes me want to scream myself.
“Baby, it’s me—it’s Hayden—”
When I catch her from falling off the bed, she flinches away and then cries out in pain, holding her side.
The room is suddenly a flurry of movement, with doctors and nurses rushing in. The chaos only seems to make Emerald even more terrified, as she flinches away from everyone on all sides. My instinct to protect her propels me forward before Dr. Rossi bursts into the room and takes control.
“Mr. Sawyer, please leave the room—”
“What? I can’t, my wife is—”
“Incredibly stressed, and your presence seems to exacerbate it!” Dr. Rossi snaps, cutting me off. “Please leave the room!”
Nurse Robby is suddenly there, probably the only one in this hospital who’s my size, who could move me, but I’m not going to fight him. Not with how Emerald is twisting and screaming on the bed, trying to put as much space between us.
Two male doctors come closer to her, but that seems to only ramp up her terror as she cries out and raises her hands up to shield herself.
“Alright, every man out of this room now!” Dr. Rossi says as she and a female nurse steady Emerald on the bed. She looks right at me. “Sir, you are pushing your wife toward a cardiac event. Leave. Now.”
The two male doctors and Nurse Robby guide me out. They murmur reassurances— this is normal, patients sometimes wake disoriented, fear and confusion are common after trauma, she’s in the best possible hands.
I barely hear them.
Not over Emerald’s terrified scream still echoing inside my skull.