Chapter 11
During that first week, Shelby hardly left the hospital.
Sick with regret and anxious to be there if and when Jared woke up, she showered at the hospital, ate all her meals from the hospital cafeteria, and told all her Columbia professors that she had a really awful flu and she’d be back as soon as she could.
She felt the lies, piling up around her, and she didn’t care.
All she cared about was Jared. When she slept, which was not often, she dreamed about the beautiful months they’d spent together on Nantucket.
She remembered swimming and laughter. She remembered sun-drenched beach days.
She prayed that they would have them again someday.
By the beginning of week two, Jared’s parents had become accustomed to Shelby's refusal to go.
Sometimes when they went for food, they brought Shelby back something: a burrito, a sandwich, sometimes entire bowls of fancy pasta.
The food they bought was much better than anything Shelby could buy at the hospital, and she often went outside and wolfed it down on the bench near the parking lot.
Midway through week two, Shelby called two of her professors to confess that she was struggling with the course load due to her “sickness.” One of them was understanding, but the other, Professor Margaret Thames, told her that she needed a note from a doctor.
“It’s campus policy,” she explained flatly.
And then she said, “There are rumors about where you actually are, Shelby. If you’re lying to me about this, I need you to fess up.
We can handle anything, you and me. I genuinely believe in you and your abilities, and I understand you’re at a difficult age. Please communicate.”
Shelby was stricken. “I, um,” she began, searching her mind for a better excuse.
“Come back to New York and meet me in my office next week,” Professor Thames urged her. “We can work something out. Together. All right?”
Shelby told her she would.
When Shelby told Jim and Monica that she had to head back to the city for a day or two, they seemed confused.
It was as though they’d decided that Shelby was a part of the hospital furniture or the wallpaper.
Shelby squeezed Jared’s hand, tears in her eyes, as she told him, “I love you. I’ll be back as soon as I can. ”
Monica followed Shelby out to the waiting room. “Wait, Shelby,” Monica said. Her blond hair wasn’t as shiny as it usually was, and Shelby wondered if her son’s coma was finally getting to her. “Shelby, you don’t have to come back. I mean, I’m sure you have things to take care of.”
Shelby searched Monica’s face for signs that this was a trick. “I didn’t want to break up,” she stammered, thinking of that impossible day in August when Jared had still been conscious. “I wanted to do long distance, but Jared refused.”
Monica closed her eyes. “Jared is… particular. I mean, he has a vision for how things are supposed to go, and if things deviate from that plan, he struggles.”
“He’s brilliant,” Shelby told her. “I know it’s a struggle for him to be so brilliant.”
But his mother gave Shelby a look that meant, That isn’t what I’m trying to say to you.
Shelby couldn’t talk to Monica a moment longer.
She turned on her heel and hurried through the rain, all the way to the bus station, where she took a smoggy and ominous bus to Manhattan.
There, she took the subway back to the apartment she shared with Molly.
She found Molly and Molly’s new boyfriend on the sofa, tangled up and eating pizza.
When Molly saw her, she sprang up and asked, “Is Jared alive?”
“Yes, he’s alive, Molly,” Shelby said, rolling her eyes. She hurried into the bathroom to shower, wondering what Molly was telling her boyfriend about her. She decided she didn’t care.
But Molly wasn’t going to let her get away without speaking.
As Shelby tried to get out of the apartment for her meeting with her professor, Molly followed her around, trying to give her a slice of pizza, trying to figure out what was going on.
When Shelby got too annoyed with her, she turned around and blared, “I don’t know, Molly, all right?
The love of my life is in the hospital, somewhere between life and death.
Sorry I’m not that concerned about my schooling right now. ”
Molly clenched her jaw and seemed to want to say something.
“All right. Come on. Say what you want to say,” Shelby told her.
Molly grimaced. “It’s just that you didn’t date him that long, Shelby. He should have been a summer fling!”
Shelby flared her nostrils. “I don’t need to listen to this.” She stormed out of her apartment and back into the rain.
That afternoon, Shelby met with Professor Thames to discuss what was going on. From one look at her, Professor Thames knew that Shelby was emotionally lost. She made Shelby a cup of tea and ordered her to sit down. “Tell me everything,” Professor Thames said. “Don’t leave anything out.”
Shelby explained that Jared—her fiancé, she called him—was in a coma, and that she didn’t want to leave his side, for fear that he would wake up or die.
“I understand. You’re under a great deal of strain,” Professor Thames said quietly, contemplatively.
“I didn’t realize you were engaged, Shelby.
That’s quite a status for a woman of your age, especially in the time we’re in.
But I understand. Life happens. When I was your age, I was engaged, too.
Of course, I ended that as soon as I got into grad school. ”
Shelby bristled. The last thing she wanted was more advice. But it seemed she was about to get it.
Professor Thames narrowed her eyes. “Shelby, you’re so young. You’re so brilliant. You need to be thinking about yourself in all this. You need to be thinking about your future.”
Shelby swallowed. “I am thinking about my future. I’m thinking about my future husband, and the life we want to build together.” Her vision was blurry, and her voice sounded distant.
Professor Thames rubbed her temples. “I understand. You’re under a great deal of stress. How can we work through this? How can we have a proper semester of school for you, while you go through this difficult time?”
Shelby raised her shoulders. She had no idea how to help this woman. She had no idea how to help herself. “Maybe I should go on hiatus,” she suggested.
“No,” Professor Thames said sternly. “That won’t do. You’ll get behind, and you won’t go to grad school at the right time, and you’ll let yourself slip out. I’ve seen it happen over and over.”
“What makes you think I’ll be like everyone else?” Shelby asked.
“It’s a chance I’m not willing to take,” Professor Thames said. “Because I believe in you, Shelby.”
For more than an hour, Shelby sat in Professor Thames’s office, aching to leave it.
She made promises about writing papers and reading novels that she knew she wouldn’t have time for, especially if she were in the hospital with Jared and his parents, and especially when Jared woke up and needed her attention.
She agreed to a looser schedule for the next few months and to keep Professor Thames updated on everything.
She hardly felt even a stab of guilt, because, maybe, she didn’t care.
“You need to come to campus once a week,” Professor Thames told her. “It isn’t far from Cambridge. I know you can make it work. Please, consider yourself in all of this.”
Shelby promised she would, although she knew she would break the promise immediately.
After her meeting, Shelby walked back to her apartment, where she packed a bag of toiletries and clothing, preparing herself for another week or two at the hospital.
Again, Molly tracked her down, but Shelby slammed the door between them, telling her roommate that she didn’t have time.
“I want to be back in Cambridge as soon as I can,” she called.
“I’m going to call your sister,” Molly said.
“Do whatever you feel you need to do,” Shelby said. She didn’t care anymore.
When Shelby left, she could hear Molly talking on the phone down the hall. She sounded panicked and lonely. Shelby wondered if Molly felt she had anything to live for, the way Shelby did now.
On the bus ride back to Cambridge, Shelby fell into a sort of meditation.
In her mind, she told herself that if Jared woke up, she wouldn’t ask for anything else.
I’ll do whatever he asks me to do. I’ll drop out of Columbia.
I’ll marry him. I’ll have his babies. I’ll spend the rest of my life making him happy.
Maybe a part of her knew how foolish she sounded. But she reminded herself that love was often unbelievable, that some of her favorite love stories were about people who fought the odds to be together. How lucky was she to have such an incredible love story?
The following morning, her mother and Lily again found her at Jared’s bedside. They asked to go for a walk. Shelby agreed, but told them she had to be back in a half-hour.
It was clear that Rebecca and Lily were even more worried about Shelby’s well-being than they’d been before. To ease their minds, Shelby told them that she’d created a plan with her professors, that she wouldn’t get off-track that semester. This was, of course, a lie.
“I hate that you’re living at this hospital,” her mother said. “I mean, what if he wakes up and…”
“He’ll wake up and realize that I love him.” Shelby shrugged. “It’s what he needed to know before, and it’s what he’ll always know in the future.”
Rebecca and Lily looked pale and nervous.
They begged her to go out to eat with them, but Shelby insisted on staying at the hospital, so they went out and came back with food.
They ate in the waiting room, with Shelby feeling anxious to get back to Jared’s room.
She ate quickly and made herself feel sick.
Rebecca and Lily seemed unsure what to say.
Shelby wondered if they’d practiced their dialogue on the drive from Nantucket, only to find it failing them.
Soon, Monica and Jim were there.
“Your daughter has been an angel for our son,” Jim said to Rebecca.
Rebecca stuttered. “I really am so sorry about your son,” she said.
“What are the doctors saying about him?” Lily asked, as she knew that the doctors couldn’t tell Shelby anything.
“They still don’t know when he’ll- I mean,” Monica said. “He hit his head really hard. Even if he does wake up, they’re not sure if…”
This was something Shelby hadn’t heard before. Her ears rang. “What aren’t they sure about?”
Monica and Jim exchanged worried glances. It was clear they’d previously decided not to share whatever this news was with Shelby.
“His personality might be slightly off,” Monica said finally, her gaze to the ground. “But they don’t know. There’s so much they don’t know.”
“How could they know that?” Shelby asked, shaking her head. She thought the doctors were useless.
“Maybe we should call my sister,” Rebecca said, speaking of Aunt Bethany.
“She’s not here,” Shelby said, raising her shoulders.
Rebecca sucked in her cheeks. “I know, but maybe she could tell you what’s standard with a head injury like this.”
But Shelby didn’t want to hear more bad news. She also didn’t want to hear any more advice from family members. She could already guess what Aunt Bethany’s stance was.
All Shelby knew to do was keep herself upbeat and sure.
When she finally convinced her mother and sister to return to Nantucket, she burrowed into meditation and prayer, asking the universe to let Jared wake up.
“I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” she said to the sky over the hospital, which seemed unable to stop spitting rain.
Everything felt permanently dreary. “I’ll be the wife of his dreams,” she told the sky.
On the day of their next meeting, Professor Thames emailed her, asking why she wasn’t in her office. Shelby deleted the email right away.
The dean wrote her not long after that, suggesting that they meet to discuss what was happening with her this semester. He wrote: There is always a possibility that you can press pause on your academic career this semester and begin again in the spring, but you need to communicate that.
Shelby deleted that email, too.
After Shelby had spent three weeks at the Cambridge hospital, three weeks at Jared’s bedside, three weeks avoiding her assignments and her books and her emails, Jared finally opened his eyes.
Shelby could hardly believe it. She called a nurse right away and squeezed his hand.
“Can you hear me, baby?” she asked. “I’m here.
Don’t talk. There’s a tube in your throat. ”
Jared’s eyes flicked back and forth, as though he were trying to make sense of where he was.
Slowly, Shelby filled in the blanks about the accident and the hospital.
A minute later, a bunch of nurses arrived, as did his parents.
Shelby, Jim, and Monica were asked to step outside so the staff could properly assess Jared and remove his feeding tube.
In the waiting room, Shelby and his parents wept openly and hugged one another.
Shelby felt more connected to Jared’s family than she did to her own now. They’d been through this together.
When they were finally allowed back into Jared’s room, he was able to talk in a small, raspy voice. “You’re here,” he said to Shelby, blinking slowly.
“I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” Shelby told him. “I love you, Jared. I’m sorry about everything, but we won’t be apart again.” Her throat was tight with sorrow.