30. Emma
Days had passed. I almost forgot what the outside world looked like, I spent every waking moment in the hospital as Chase underwent several surgeries. When he was brought in he was alive, but barely. He’d been shot three times, the one in his arm had pretty much torn his muscle to shreds. The entrance and exit wounds were tattered and uneven.
It was the other two that nearly cost him his life.
The one in his back tore through his kidney.
He was rushed into surgery immediately to stop the bleeding that was entering the surrounding tissue, removal of the bullet and the kidney itself happening at the same time was risky enough. The last one went through his side landing somewhere in his stomach. When talking to me, the Doctor told me there was only a 10% survival rate and to prepare myself and our families for the worst. The cold lack of compassion in his voice told me he’d seen this many times.
I sat in the waiting room, the pop music blasted loudly through the speakers, the intake nurse sat behind the desk humming the words. It had been three days. And this was the last surgery that would make or break everything. Chase was in a medically induced coma. His body looked like a wax sculpture, fragile and eerie when they rolled him back.
The image would outlive me.
The hours whittled by slowly, painfully, mockingly, before the surgical team came out to give me the news.
“The surgery, while successful, was tough on his body,” the doctor started as my mind focused on the only words that mattered to me, it was successful. I would do anything to make sure Chase had the best recovery, anything.
The medical terminology was lost on me as he described the organs he repaired, the internal bleeding that they stopped, as well as the road to recovery Chase had. But he made it through and would be taken out of the medically induced coma in the days to come.
“What questions did you have for me?” the surgeon asked. I barely listened to a single thing he’d said. My thoughts were still on making Chase the happiest, the same way he made me. I was determined for this to be the start of our lives together. Not the end.
He lived and he was going to be okay, relief crashed over me, tears overflowed stronger than the current of the Monongahela river.
I’m determined to make him forgive me.
Then, I was going to make him mine.
Forever.