Chapter 36 Jericho
JERICHO
Everyone has said their goodbyes, filled with tears and sobs and why why why?
If we had the answer to that, though, I still wouldn’t be standing here beside his bed, my hand gripped tightly around his.
Waiting for something. Anything. A flinch, a jolt, a twitch.
Whatever the fuck comes that will show the Doctor that we can’t take him off life support yet.
He’s still in there, somewhere. We just have to give him time.
Normal people have more time than this, I’m sure of it. Because how can a family make the decision to end someone’s life? Especially someone who they love. It isn’t fair, nothing about this situation is fair.
My lower back aches from my hunched position, but I refuse to move.
I’ve been talking nonstop to Raiden since Ema and Rodney stepped out to go down to the cafeteria two hours ago.
It’s too much for them to take now. But not for me.
I’ll be here until his last dying breath.
He’ll move on from the world with the knowledge that I never left him.
And in the next life we live, I’ll find him. I’ll always find him.
The tears have come to stay, and no matter how many times I think I’m done crying, I never fully stop. The knowledge that there’s nothing I can do to keep this from happening pounds at my battered soul, splintering the fragments even farther.
How am I supposed to go on when my heart exists inside a person who will no longer be here? How can anyone expect me to go on?
Hollis claps me on the back as he passes, visiting hours are almost over and he’s taking Connor home.
They’ve spent every moment the past week up here with me when they can manage and Ace has been working around the clock to help since they’ve been off.
Ema and Rodney have been as well, calling off work to soak in every minute they can get with their son.
Sophie has been back but left Damon with my parents.
My parents have been here when they can, but they’ve mostly been giving me and Ema and Rodney privacy.
I appreciate it, because nothing they can say or offer will take away the extreme pain growing in my body.
When they’re gone, I stare down at Raiden’s hands.
Tracing the protruding veins on the topside.
The needles that are inside of him are coming out tomorrow.
The tube down his throat will be removed.
He won’t be hooked up to any more machines, and that was my one hope.
I just didn’t realize what would truly come when it happens.
It’s just the two of us right now. The silence grows with every beep of the one thing keeping him alive. And tomorrow it’ll be gone.
“You told me you wanted to dance,” I whisper, brokenly. The words are shards of glass, cutting my throat on their escape and leaving me battered and bruised. “You told me all you wanted to do was dance. And you didn’t even get to do that.”
I wish he was awake so I could shake him. Ask him the same question I’ve begged for an answer for. Why did he leave on Halloween? Why couldn’t he just wait for me?
“I built you a dance studio at our house. It was a little presumptuous on my part, but the thought of watching you spin around in your ballet tights while you let the music carry you away was too good of an opportunity to pass up. If I look out of the window in our bedroom, I have a direct line of sight into the studio. As long as you would have had the curtains open.” My chuckle is wet and all the plans I made for us were gone in a flash.
Before I could even experience them with him.
“I put up a fence too, it was a pain in my ass but I did it. I thought we could finally get that dog you’ve always wanted. ”
There were so many plans I had for us, crafted in moments of silence and built on the thought of a future together. And that’s been stripped away from us.
“What about New York City? You know I’ll never be able to go there on my own, not without you. Christmas time is supposed to be beautiful. We could have ice skated. Eaten at all the famous restaurants everyone raves about. Eaten cheap pizza. We could have done so many things.”
For the rest of the night, I hold his hand and tell him every detail I had planned for us. Even when Ema and Rodney come in, I never stop talking.
Vacations to Osaka so he can see where his mom grew up. Dinner parties at my parents house. Teaching Damon how to dance in Raiden’s new ballet studio. Getting married and him wearing a pink suit with a daisy crown adorned on his head.
All of it. All of it that I’ll have to keep to myself.
Because I’ll never find a love like this again. His love for me was as soothing as a cool breeze on a hot summer day and as chaotic as the storms that seem to bend and break at his mercy.
My voice is hoarse as the sun rises, lighting the room in its yellow glow. Yellow is supposed to represent happiness, joy, the chance at a new day. Now it feels like a death sentence.
Ema and Rodney look like zombies, the bags underneath their eyes are black and deep. The sorrow they carry is palpable, I can hold it in my hands. I wish I could mold it into something better, something happy and joyous, so that they can be happy again.
I don’t know if any of us will ever be happy again after today.
The clock ticks, dwindling down the final minutes we have until all we have is seconds.
A bell outside dings, probably from the church around the block. A death note of its own.
The Doctor prepared us for what to expect. They’re going to take the ventilator out first, he explained the steps and the technical name for it but I had to tune him out when the bile rising in my throat almost made an experience.
If Raiden can breathe on his own, they’ll keep the feeding tube so he can still get the nutrients he needs.
But after the Doctor told me he didn’t know if Raiden would ever wake up, I lost all hope.
The brain damage that Raiden suffered was extensive, and even if he does wake up, would it be the kind of life he wanted to live?
Would it be easier to let him die peacefully rather than keep him around for my own selfishness?
Josh struts in looking immaculate. Like he got a full night's rest while all of us have been in different stages of mourning the man we might lose.
I want to punch him in the face. I have nothing to lose.
I stand up, feeling my prosthetic wobble underneath my weight from the quick sift. An ache ricochets up my thigh and I have to fight back my flinch. Pain is the least of my worries right now.
Hollis sees my intent and steps in front of me before I can put my hands on Josh. “Don’t, Coco. He’s not worth it.” Connor warns, grabbing my shoulder and pushing me to sit back at Raiden’s side.
Josh’s smile is smug. The asshole. He won’t be so smug when I catch him outside the four walls of this hospital. He won’t know what hit him.
“Listen to your guard dogs, Jericho,” Josh taunts.
Ema and Rodney look disgusted at their son-in-law and I wish that there was a time machine where we could go back in time so Ema and Rodney could warn Raiden how big of a piece of shit Josh is. Maybe we could have saved ourselves a lot of heartbreak.
The Doctor walks in and Josh immediately drops the asshole acts and flips to the grieving husband. What a crock of bullshit.
I move backwards, letting Connor and Hollis guide me to the seat beside Ema and Rodney. Ema and Rodney are going to be the closest to Raiden, and I’ll be right beside them. My parents, Connor and Hollis are going to wait in the hallway. Waiting for us to tell them the time of death.
Fuck.
The Doctor goes over with us one more time what we should expect and prepare for. It’s not enough. We haven’t been given enough time to truly reconcile the fact that we’re going to lose him. Josh is taking him off life support and it shouldn’t have been his decision.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to scream, to riot and cause a scene, to hopefully delay the inevitable.
But that won’t work. They would just escort me out and continue taking away the one thing keeping him alive. And I wouldn’t be beside him.
The nurses come in, pushing their carts with everything they’ll need. The sight makes my stomach roil and tears stream down my face.
It’s happening. It’s happening and I can’t stop it.
“I’m so sorry, tiny dancer. I’m so fucking sorry,” I whisper and hope that wherever he is, he can hear me and know that this isn’t what I wanted. I would have waited for him until my last dying breath.
The Doctor and the nurses are quick and efficient as they set everything up. A flurry of activity as they set the wheels in motion. They’re actions are cold, unfeeling. How hardened they must be from seeing this all the time that they can do it with an unflinching hand.
“Do you want a minute to say your goodbyes?” The Doctor asks, examining the room. A minute won’t matter. It won’t make a difference.
“No,” Josh claims loudly, speaking on behalf of people that he has no right speaking for.
“Okay…” The Doctor doesn't say anything else as he gets to work on pulling the tube. It’s sickening to watch.
A gross, high pitched sound echoes in the otherwise silence of the room as everyone holds their breath.
The Doctor explained to us that sometimes there will be a sound produced from the airways contracting after the tube is removed.
Nothing could have prepared me for that.
The heart monitor attached to him still beats. His heart didn’t stop.
His heart didn’t stop.
That means he still has a chance.
Raiden still has a chance. Even when the Doctor didn’t believe he would ever recover, even when Josh wanted to end Raiden’s life. Against all odds he still can wake up.
If he can breathe on his own, that’ll clear one of the hurdles. The next thing would be him opening his eyes.
He can do it.
I believe in him. He’s the most stubborn man I know, and he would not want to go out like this. Someone else choosing his destiny for him.
“Now what?” Josh asks the Doctor. The Doctor glances at me sitting beside Ema and Rodney, the three of us clinging onto each other as our hope grows the longer that Raiden breathes on his own.
“Now, we wait.” The Doctor says, matter of factly. “We’re going to keep a nurse in here to watch his vitals, but we’re hoping for the best right now.”
Josh’s face burns red and the scathing look he sends me has me hiding a smile through my tears. He thought he won. He thought he would have the last laugh.
Now, all we have to do is exactly what the Doctor said.
Wait.