85. This sucks ass
Chapter 85
This sucks ass
Ariana
T he DeVilles go to the hospital about as often as they go to the police station.
Which is almost never. None of us have been since I got arrested after starting a bar fight and beating the crap out of a guy who was harassing Lil when we were seventeen.
Dad showed up, and I was un-arrested quickly. And apologized to.
As for the hospital, obviously I spent a lot of time there once. Then Doc had Dad take me and Lil after she totaled the Porsche and my head went bouncing around.
There’s no question about whether or not to take Luca there now. Ford drives a big black van over. The large doors and seatless back make getting my husband into it a lot easier than into a car, but it’s still not exactly an easy task. Dad, Anthony, Lil, Doc, and I all jump in the back, and Ford takes off. I cradle Luca’s head in my lap, running my fingers through his hair and whispering to him. Over and over, I tell him the things he’s told me when I’ve been lost. “I’m here. I’ve got you. I love you.” My tears fall onto his cheeks. “Stay with me, Luca. Don’t you dare leave me.”
I focus on his face—his swollen, bruised, and bleeding face. But his shirt has been cut away, and I can see his torso out of the corner of my eye. Everyone else tries to stop the bleeding from the stab wounds. I have no idea how long it takes to get to the hospital. It feels like years have gone by when we pull up to the ER doors. It’s the same ER as seven years ago. I look up and meet Dad’s gaze, the agony in my heart reflected in his eyes.
But this time is different. Luca’s breathing. His heart is beating. He already has a better chance than I did. Within seconds, he’s on a gurney and being wheeled into the building.
Usually, being Marco DeVille’s daughter opens doors for me, but today, being Luca DeVille’s wife does. I follow behind as they take him to a room in the ER and start working on him. But when they whisk him away to surgery, I move to the waiting room where our family is.
Lil sits on my left, our pinkies locked together. The spot on my right becomes the musical chair, and if I wasn’t scared out of my fucking mind, I might find it funny how often a different person is sitting there. Dad was at first but then went to get some of the terrible coffee from the machine down the hall. I drank it because it’s coffee, and he loaded it up with sugar for me. As soon as Dad stood up, Anthony sat down with a sigh, taking my hand in his. When Anthony got up to pace, Mom sat down. Becca took the chair when Mom went to the bathroom, then Ford was there, and then Sully. They cycle through as if no one can stay in that chair for more than twenty minutes.
But Lil doesn’t move. My best friend, my sister, one of my soulmates, sits in an uncomfortable chair next to me for an eternity.
I lean over and rest my head on her shoulder. “We should have brought a flask,” I whisper. I’ve had two cups of the shitty coffee but could really use a shot of something in the next one.
“Right? We brought a fucking sniper rifle we didn’t end up needing, but neither of us thought to grab a flask.” My gaze collides with Dad’s a few feet away. His jaw is clenched, and his arms are crossed. He doesn’t know whether to be pissed at us or proud of us. Which is pretty normal for him where we’re concerned, but never on this grand of a scale. He looks away when Mom walks up to him.
Lil and I fall back into silence, the sounds of the hospital echoing around us.
“Lil—” I start, but she interrupts me.
“He’s going to be okay, Ari.” She brings our joined hands up and kisses mine.
“What if he’s not?” The words are painful like they get stuck on the way out of my throat.
“He will be. But if somehow he’s not, I’ll be right here with you. Forever.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be fine if he’s not okay.”
“I don’t think any of us will be.”
We sit like that, pinkies hooked together, my head on her shoulder, my hand held by people who love us, who love Luca, until the doctor finally comes in. Lil, Anthony, and I jump up from our chairs, our hands connected like a chain. Everyone else rushes over from wherever they are around the room.
“He’s out of surgery, and he’s stable.”
We let out a collective sigh of relief. I allow my eyes to drift closed for a second and force myself not to break down. Not yet. I have kept my shit together while fearing that my husband is dying. I won’t lose it now that he’s stable. I think of him, of the words he uses to calm me, of his voice wrapping around my heart and soul.
“He lost a lot of blood but should make a full recovery. He has a lot of healing to do. There are a few cuts and minor burns. His nose and four ribs are broken, his face and torso have a significant amount of swelling, and he has multiple stab wounds we closed. By luck or design, nothing serious was damaged. A couple came close, and his spleen was nicked, but we repaired it. It’s just a matter of letting his body heal now. We’ll keep him here until it’s safe to send him home, but he’ll have to take it easy for a while.”
I can finally breathe again. “Can we see him?”
“He’s in recovery and still unconscious, but I can let one of you in for now. Once we move him to a room, visitation will be much more open. It might be a while before he wakes up, though.”
“Go on, sweet girl,” Anthony says from my right side, patting my hand. “There’s nobody in the world he wants to see more than you when he wakes up.”
Lil squeezes my pinky, then lets it go. I can hardly feel the damn thing.
“Doctor, a moment,” Dad says. I look at him, frowning. They speak quietly for a minute before the surgeon nods, and Dad turns our way. “Ford, Sully, I need you both to stay outside Luca’s room. Ari, if you leave it for any reason, one of them will go with you.” Silently, both men move to stand behind me.
Dad steps over to me. He kisses my head, then leans and whispers, “Parker’s keeping watch on the cameras here. Do you have a gun with you?” I reach into my purse, which Mom brought for me, and nod when my fingers brush the metal. “Good. Right now, I trust far fewer people than normal. If you have any reason, don’t hesitate to use it.”
I nod again and wrap my arms around him. He does the same to me. “And don’t think you and your sister are getting out of this without a serious discussion. What you did was brave and stupid. Took fucking ten years off my life.”
“Sorry, Dad. But not really.”
I pull away and follow the doctor down the hall, Ford and Sully a few steps behind me. We stop in front of a set of glass doors, and I take a deep breath at the sight of my husband in the hospital bed, hooked up to machines, his face bruised, and covered in bandages. I want to shoot those mother fuckers again. I should have left them alive so Dad could take them to the shed and make them suffer.
“Press the nurse call button if he wakes up.”
The tears don’t start to fall until I sit in the chair next to him and take his hand in mine. “I’m here, Beefcake,” I tell him, brushing a lock of his hair from his forehead. I kiss his hand, then lay my cheek on it. “I love you so much. You can wake up any time now, Luca.”
They move him to a more private room when they’re sure he’ll remain stable, and everyone piles in to sit with me again. We’re probably over the normal visitor limit, but DeVille’s don’t have one.
When it gets late, Mom, Dad, Becca, and Anthony stand to head home for the night.
“If you need anything, just give me a call. I’ll probably be awake for a bit, looking over the video logs some more,” Anthony says, his eyes on his son.
“When you come across the part where Ari and I snuck out a few weeks ago, just ignore it,” Lil tells him with a shrug.
“Troublemakers,” he says fondly, kissing the top of my head, then Luca’s, and lastly Lil’s before leaving.
Lil stays with me.
Luca doesn’t wake up for five days. So I don’t leave the room for five days. Lil only leaves the room to go to the cafeteria and coffee stand. For a hospital, they have some decent choices that would disappoint Luca. We tell him what we’re eating, hoping the mention of pizza and nachos will jolt him awake.
Every time Mom comes to visit, she brings stuff. Food, energy drinks, bathroom supplies, clothes, books, and random activity shit. We keep the TV on almost all the time, and after the first day, Dad brought a DVD player in with a bag full of movies for us to put on. We basically use it as background noise, but it keeps us from only having the beeps of the machines to listen to.
I try crosswords, word searches, games on my phone, and even a diamond painting thing, but nothing holds my attention long. Mostly, I watch Luca’s chest rise and fall as my mind swirls. The doctors say it isn’t overly worrisome that he hasn’t woken up, and it’s probably just his brain trying to help his body heal, but it’s still a fucking coma.
I want nothing more than to put on one of Luca’s big hoodies and curl up in bed, but instead, I wear his t-shirts.
We all talk to him. Anthony tells him terrible dad jokes he finds on the internet. Becca promises to try out a bunch of different recipes she finds online for him. Mom explains board games we haven’t played with him yet. Dad talks about starting a fantasy football league and new beers they should try, keeps Luca up to date about the business stuff I don’t really pay attention to, and rambles on about random thoughts that cross his mind.
Lil talks aloud constantly, responding to movies and shows like he’ll spontaneously answer her. “Holy crap, did you see that? That guy came out of nowhere.” And, “Oh no, she’s going to go up the stairs like a classic horror movie victim!” She tells him to wake up and roll his eyes at the amount of caffeinated drinks we drink, the amount of pasta we eat, and the lack of sleep we get.
I tell him I love him, that I miss his voice and his arms around me. I want him to give me shit about veggies and water and driving like a dick. Sometimes, I break down and cry, begging him to wake up. When Lil ventures out of the room, I tell him I miss our kisses, his tongue, his cock, him pinning me to the shower wall… I miss falling asleep on his chest and waking up with him wrapped around my body.
Every night, I listen to the beeps of the machines, the sounds of the TV, and Lil’s soft snores from the cot in the corner that Dad brought in. Even though she tries to get me to sleep there, even for short naps, I never do. I rest my head on my arm on the mattress next to my husband while holding his hand in mine and fall asleep.