Chapter 35
The phone at the nurses’ station kept ringing. Over and over again. Even when they’d answer it, a few seconds later, it would start up again. I leaned my elbows on my thighs, hands grasped in front of me as another ear-splitting trill of the phone blared to life.
Everything smelled like disinfectant and death.
I’d been in enough hospitals to last a lifetime.
It never got easier to be the person sitting in the waiting room.
Desperately clinging to hope that the next doctor to waltz out from behind those double doors would be the one giving you the news you wanted to hear.
My head popped up when they opened. Heart kicking up a notch.
It flatlined when a pair of nurses wearing grey scrubs appeared, smiling and talking in soft voices.
My knee bounced as I fixed my gaze back on a spot on the faded blue carpet.
Unconsciously, my fingers rubbed at my palms, trying to scrub away the phantom echo of my father’s chest beneath them.
His face was pale when I fell to my knees beside him.
His phone resting limply in his hand. With his last breath, knowing something was wrong, he’d tried to call me.
I hadn’t fucking answered. Too wrapped up in my own bullshit.
I twisted my hands together. I’d already washed them three times since we’d entered the hospital. It wasn’t enough.
I called the paramedics and immediately started chest compressions. For the first time in a long time, I prayed. Begged any god in the universe to fucking do something. Save him. I couldn’t go through this again. As fucking selfish as that was to think. I couldn’t watch another parent die.
When the paramedics arrived, they took over. Calmly working their magic whilst I hovered, running my hands through my hair as I waited. Hearing that first beep of a rhythm on the monitor as they sent an electrical current through his body had my body falling backwards in relief.
They’d taken him into surgery straight away, the doctors pushing me out of the way and shunting me into the waiting room. In the chaos, I’d left my phone in my car, which was still outside Dad’s as I rode in the ambulance with him. So, I used the hospital phone to call Oliver.
He and Fallon arrived an hour or so ago. I wasn’t even sure what the time was or how much of it was slipping through my fingers as I stared blankly at the floor.
How could things get so messy, so quickly? Everything had been perfect less than a week ago. I finally had Rosie, chipped through that ice wall she kept erected around her heart and let myself foolishly believe that that was it. That this thing between us would start growing into something more.
A week away from that bliss, and everything starts coming apart at the seams.
I’d gone to call her after I let Oliver know. But I didn’t have her number memorised. A flash of anger zipped through me at that realisation. I wanted to know everything about her, and I didn’t even know her fucking number?
Even if I had known it, what would I say?
I need you.
You’re the only thing I want.
I love you.
How could I ask her to drop her life and come here when I didn’t even know where we stood with each other? It felt selfish. Needing her this way, needing her presence, when she had no obligation to do that for me, felt—wrong.
‘Here.’ A paper cup of brown liquid that looked like mud came into my vision. The smell had the faint aroma of coffee with a side of burnt toast.
Oliver lowered himself to the seat beside me, taking a sip of his own cup.
I held the warm drink in my hands.
He smothered a cough, swiftly plucking the coffee back out of my hand.
‘Jesus, don’t drink that. It’s sewage. Fucking hell.’ He put them on the seat next to him, making a disgusted noise.
My throat worked, trying to get words out, but nothing would come.
Oliver placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s gonna be okay, man.’
I shook my head. ‘He was so fucking pale.’ My voice croaked. The image of Dad on the floor of his living room, phone in hand, utterly lifeless, would be etched on my memory for the rest of my life. My shoulders drooped, head falling as I lifted my hands to cradle my head.
I need Rosie.
Fuck, I’d do anything to be near her right now. My eyes pinched closed as I tamped down the urge to ask Oliver for his phone to call her.
‘He’ll be okay,' he said, imbibing his tone with all the confidence I wished I could cling onto. That hope felt as elusive as smoke.
A door banged open down the hallway and a loud chatter of people sounded, all talking at once. I didn’t have the energy to lift my head and look. Oliver’s hand on my shoulder flexed. The comfort was nice, but it wasn’t what I wanted. She was the only thing I needed right now.
Heavy breaths echoed as another scurry of footsteps sprinted down the squeaky floor.
A pair of white trainers stepped into my line of sight. The heels scuffed and laces done up in a triple knot. I blinked, barely able to process anything right now.
Then I heard her voice.
A broken exhale of my name.
My head lifted. The bright fluorescent light above made me squint as the blurry vision before me came into view.
Blonde hair piled into a messy bun, cheeks flushed red. Her chest was rising and falling with heavy breaths, like she’d just sprinted from somewhere. She was here.
‘George,' she said my name again, combined with the slap on my back that Oliver gave me, seemed to shake me out of the haze I was in.
Her hand reached out to my cheek. Icy fingers brushing against my beard.
When she slipped her hands into mine, it was like getting shocked with the same electrical current that brought my dad back to life.
I sprung out of my chair, knocking her hands out of the way, and crushed her body to mine.
Her sweet vanilla scent filled my nostrils.
Tears pricked my eyes as she wrapped her arms around my neck, holding me as tightly as I held her.
I buried my face in her neck. Needing to soak up as much of her as I could get, still not believing it was real. That she was real.
‘How…how are you here?’ I croaked, not letting her go.
She threaded her fingers around the base of my skull, running another hand up and down my back in soothing motions. God, I loved her.
‘Your brother,’ she whispered into my ear.
‘I’m gonna go find Fallon,’ Oliver’s voice called out. He slapped me on the back and his footsteps retreated down the hall.
‘You’re here,' I said. ‘You’re here, you’re here,' I repeated it over and over again. Letting my hands trail up and down her body, feeling her solid and safe in my arms.
‘I’m here.’ She chuckled lightly. ‘You think I’d be anywhere else?’
Finally, we pulled away, and I got my first glimpse into her eyes. They shone with tears that trickled down her cheeks. I reached up to swipe them away with the pad of my thumb. ‘Why are you crying?’
She sniffed. ‘Because—’ she started, but shook her head, deciding against whatever it was she was going to say. Her hands reached up to cup my cheeks, saying resolutely, ‘I’m here. I came as soon as I heard. I-I tried calling you.’
More tears kept falling down her cheeks, making her eyes sparkle. It shouldn’t have been beautiful, but anything this girl did, no matter what she wore or where she was, she shone.
‘My phone is in my car. Didn’t have it on me,’ I explained, unable to tear my gaze away from her. Afraid she’d disappear into thin air if I so much as blinked.
She nodded in understanding. ‘Have you heard anything?’
Stepping back, she took one of my hands and tugged me down to sit in one of the plastic chairs. Sitting next to me, one knee propped up on the chair as she twisted to face me head-on. Her hand still resting in mine.
Focusing on not hauling her out of the chair and into my lap, I ran a hand down my face. ‘Uh, not yet. He’s still in surgery.’ Another nod.
‘What do you need?’ she asked, searching my face.
You. Always you. Everywhere, all the time.
I cleared my throat. ‘I, uh—’
She tugged gently on the end of my beard, forcing me to look at her.
‘George, what do you need?’ I needed to feel her. To know she was real and alive in my arms.
‘Can you…’
Fuck. I wasn’t used to this. I was the one people came to for help. Not the other way round, so voicing that I needed to feel her body, that she calmed something inside me. How could I articulate that?
Turns out I didn’t need to. Rosie leaned over to press a quick kiss to my lips. Standing up out of her chair, she shuffled over, lacing her fingers behind my neck, and placed her butt on my lap. Shifting to get comfortable.
I wrapped my arms around her waist as she tucked her head between my shoulder and jaw, holding herself against me. Letting me hold her.
And it clicked.
I knew for the rest of my life if she’d let me hold her this way, I’d do it forever. She might be too scared to admit that whatever is between us is real, because if I can even have a fraction of her in whatever form, I’d take it.