Chapter 25 #3
“He hit me with the car.” She tried to move beneath the blankets as pain showed on her face immediately.
“Don’t move,” I said, pressing the call button. “You just had surgery.”
Her eyes filled with panic. “Why can’t I feel my legs?” she slurred groggily.
The question hit exactly where I knew it would. I looked toward the door, hoping Lulu would walk through it or at least a doctor, damn, anybody who knew how to tell her without making the truth sound like it was nothing.
Navy watched my face. “Lev.”
“I need you to stay calm.”
“Why can’t I feel them?”
“navy, the medicine—”
“Don’t lie to me.” Her voice rose despite how weak she was. “What happened to my legs?”
I gripped her hand, but I couldn’t make the words come out.
It wasn’t my place to tell her. That was what I told myself, even though the real reason was that I couldn’t stand to be the face she associated with hearing it.
The door opened and Lulu walked in carrying a paper cup of coffee.
The second she saw Navy’s eyes open, the cup slipped in her hand, spilling hot coffee across the lid and onto her fingers.
“Oh, thank you, Jesus.” She set it down without caring about the mess and hurried to the bed. Tears immediately filled her eyes as she leaned over and kissed Navy’s forehead.
“My baby. Thank you, Lord.”
Navy looked between us. “Lulu.”
“I’m right here.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
Lulu brushed her hand over Navy’s hair. “You’ve been through a lot, baby.”
The tears were in her eyes. “Why can’t I feel my legs?” Navy’s face crumbled before anybody answered. She had already understood there was something we weren’t saying. “Lulu, what happened?”
Her grandmother closed her eyes for a second, gathering whatever strength she needed. When she opened them again, tears rolled freely down her face. “The doctors did everything they could.”
“No.” Navy started shaking her head against the pillow. “Tell me what happened.”
Lulu took her hand from mine and held it between both of hers. “Baby, they had to amputate one of your legs.”
The sound that came out of Navy tore through the room. It wasn’t a normal cry. It rose from somewhere deeper, raw enough to make every muscle in my body lock. She jerked against the bed, trying to sit up while Lulu struggled to hold her shoulders down.
“No! No, no, no!”
“Navy, you can’t move.”
“My leg!” She threw the blanket aside with one hand before I caught it. “Where is my leg?”
“Please, baby—” Lulu pleaded.
“Give it back!” she screamed, with tears pouring down the sides of her face. “Give me my leg back!”
The heart monitor sounded an alarm. I pressed the call button again and grabbed her shoulders carefully, trying to stop her from tearing the IV from her hand. “Navy, look at me.”
“Get off me!” She shoved weakly at my chest, but the panic giving her more strength than she should’ve had. “I want my leg! I want my fucking leg!”
The door flew open and two nurses rushed in with the doctor behind them. One nurse moved toward the IV while the other tried to calm Navy, but she was crying too hard to hear any of us. Her whole body shook beneath my hands; her face was twisted in a grief I couldn’t do a damn thing to fix.
“We need you to stop moving,” the doctor said. “You’re going to injure yourself.”
“I don’t care!”
“We’re giving you something to help you relax.”
“No!” She turned her head toward me, with her eyes wild and pleading. “Lev, don’t let them. Please, tell them to fix it.”
That nearly broke me. I leaned over her and held the side of her face, forcing myself not to look away. “I’m right here.”
“They took my leg.” She sobbed. “I can’t…” Her breath caught between sobs. “I can’t live like this.”
“Don’t say that.”
A nurse pushed medication through the port in her IV and Navy fought it at first. Her fingers clutched the front of my shirt, holding on as if I could keep her awake through it. The panic slowly drained from her body, though the tears continued rolling into her hair.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“You ain’t got nothing to be sorry for.”
Her grip loosened and I covered her hand with mine and kept it against my chest until her eyes began closing.
“Don’t leave me,” she said.
“I’m not going nowhere.”
The words came out before the medicine pulled her under, but I didn’t know if she heard them.
Her breathing eventually settled in. The alarms stopped, and the room returned to that same dreading ass quietness it had before she woke up.
Lulu stood on the other side of the bed crying into both hands.
I lowered myself into the chair and kept Navy’s hand wrapped inside mine.
Navy had awakened long enough to learn that the life she knew was gone.
I looked at her face and let the anger move through me again, only this time I didn’t allow it to pull me away from her.
There would be time for Rome. Right now, she needed me sitting exactly where I was.
People would be surprised at much life could change in eleven days.
But now, I made a promise I wouldn’t ever leave side because I was here for a reason.