Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I CAME BACK FOR YOU
I stared back at Oliver, both of us crying as he dropped to his knees beside the bed. He rested his forehead against my hand as he held onto it for dear life. It took most of my strength to lift my other hand to rest it on top of his head. His hair was soft and I slid my fingers through his waves. Even though I had just lived an entirely different life with him inside my head, I missed him.
He was my Oliver and I was never going to let him go.
I came back for him.
“I have to go get the nurse and your parents,” he said softly as he lifted his head again. His eyes searched mine with desperation. There was fear in his sage colored irises. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“Please don’t,” I whispered the words as I tightened my grip on his hand. My voice was barely audible because of the ventilator, but I knew Oliver understood me when he nodded. “Press the call button.”
“Good idea.” He smiled as he pressed the red button on the inside of the bedrail. One positive about having a trach was that even though I was on the ventilator, I was still able to somewhat talk. It was different from being intubated with a tube down the entirety of my trachea.
Usually, when I was connected to the ventilator, small amounts of air still managed to pass through the tube, even with the cuff inflated. It gave me the ability to talk with it like that. I'm assuming with the condition I was in, they inflated it enough so no air was escaping.
The nurse came rushing into the room less than a minute after Oliver pressed the button. She glanced at me and looked at the monitors before looking back at me with her eyes wide. “Oh my goodness, she’s awake.”
She smiled brightly and stepped toward the equipment beside me. I watched her grab the phone hooked on her pants and she pressed a button before putting it back in place. “I’m Leila, your nurse. I just paged Dr. Wyn and I’m going to do a quick assessment while we wait on him.”
Oliver pulled his chair closer to the bed and sat down as he continued to hold my hand. We both sat in silence and I watched the nurse as she checked over all of the ventilator settings and my vital signs. Oliver’s eyes were trained on me and as I caught his gaze, the look on his face made my heart skip a beat.
He was staring at me as if he couldn’t believe I was real. Not quite like he was staring at a ghost, but almost like I was a figment of his imagination.
The nurse grabbed her stethoscope and began her head to toe assessment of my body. I rolled my head back to the neutral position while she poked around a bit. Oliver was watching, but I fought to look back over at him. If I saw the look in his eyes again, I was fairly certain I would have a breakdown of epic proportions… and I was already teetering on the edge.
Leila looked satisfied as she stood upright and hung her stethoscope around the back of her neck. Her lips parted, as if she were going to say something to me, just as Dr. Wyn walked in. He had been my doctor for as long as I could remember.
Which brought things into perspective for me. This was the hospital I frequented. I don’t know how or when I got here. I don’t remember what happened after the paramedics showed up at the hotel room. At least, nothing from real life. I remember every single piece from the life I was living outside of this world.
“There’s my favorite patient, Luna,” he said with a smile he usually only reserved for me. Dr. Wyn was a peculiar person. He often appeared cold and like he had a black heart. His humor was as dry as it came and he didn’t typically make jokes that were in good taste.
He had a soft spot for me and it had been that way since I was a small child. He was the first doctor who was willing to take on my case and through genetic testing, he actually narrowed down what I had. He had solved the mystery of my diagnosis and was dedicated to trying to save me in whatever way he could manage.
Dr. Wyn treated me as if I was his own and it blew most of the hospital staff's mind. He didn’t get invested or attached to any of the other kids he worked with. I suppose I was the exception.
“You look like you’re feeling the after effects of that nice long nap you took, huh?” he said with a chuckle. My mother would have quickly scolded him, but his words always brought a smile to my face. He wasn’t afraid to talk about life and death and the hard subjects. He didn't sugarcoat a single thing and I appreciated that more than anything.
I nodded. “I’m feeling it for sure.”
The words didn’t come out, and he tilted his head to the side. He glanced over at the nurse. “Deflate her cuff a bit so we can actually hear her.”
Leila glanced at him with a worried look in her eyes. “Are you sure? She just woke up and we haven’t even tried weaning her vent settings yet.”
“Just do it. If she can’t handle it, we’ll know.” He looked at me. “Are you okay with that, Luna?”
I nodded again. Dr. Wyn looked satisfied and Leila looked pissed but she obeyed his command. Just as she was taking some of the saline from the balloon, my parents stepped into the room. Being in the ICU, you were normally limited to only two people, but again… Dr. Wyn ran the unit and always allowed exceptions for us.
My mother dropped the bottle of water from her hand as she let out a loud gasp. Tears instantly flooded my father’s eyes and I watched his chin wobble. My mother reached out and grabbed my father’s arm before they both closed the distance between us.
Oliver backed out of the way, and Dr. Wyn stood over to the side with Leila as they all watched our reunion.
Both of my parents each took turns hugging me. When my mother wrapped her arms around me, she held me tightly as we both cried together.
“Oh, Luna,” she sobbed, stroking the sides of my face as she pulled away. “I can’t believe you’re awake. We’ve waited so long to see your shining eyes again.”
I stared at her as she wiped away my tears. “How long?”
“How long were you out?” She paused for a moment, collecting herself as she swallowed hard. “Three weeks, sunshine. You coded in the hotel room but they were able to bring you back. They took you to the nearest hospital but as soon as they were in touch with Dr. Wyn, we were able to get you airlifted here.”
Leila peered over at my ventilator before looking at Dr. Wyn. “She seems like she’s doing fine with her cuff deflated a bit.”
“As I figured she would,” he said matter-of-factly. “We’ll switch her into assist mode tomorrow. Give her the day to recoup a little more before we really test her. Data from her assessment?”
I tuned the two of them out as I looked back to my mother who was now sitting on the edge of my bed. Oliver was close by and my father was standing behind my mother with his hands on her shoulders. “It was my central line, wasn’t it?”
My mother gave me a look of disapproval. “I’m not even going to scold you now since you just woke up, but I am not happy you knew something was wrong.”
I gave her a small smile. “I really wanted to go to the beach with Ollie.”
“Yeah, well, that infection you had brewing almost killed you. You were in septic shock by the time you got to the hospital. You slipped into a coma and then they put you into a medically induced one so they could properly treat you. They took you off those meds once they were able to get you stable. That was a week ago” She paused, a look of sadness consuming her expression. “We’ve been waiting for you to wake up for a week and weren’t sure you were ever going to.”
The realization of her words hit me like a ton of bricks to my chest. It was a blow I could barely handle. I lost three weeks, but it was only one day that I lived a different life. How did that even translate into one another? I couldn’t imagine what they were going through, waiting for me to wake up and unsure if I would
“I’m sorry.”
My mother shook her head. “Don’t apologize, sunshine. You’re here now and that’s all that matters.”
Dr. Wyn rudely cleared his throat which got a laugh from my mother. “Gregory,” she scolded him, giving him her motherly voice. He was practically an extension of our family and he took it in stride.
“I understand you are all having a little reunion, but we need to talk about some things.” He was curt and to the point, in typical fashion. No one ever seemed to mind. “Thank you for bringing Luna up to speed.”
He inched closer to the bed as Leila disappeared from the room. “Luna, your mother will scold you enough for the two of us, but as your doctor, I will also have to unfortunately scold you. When you’re feeling better, of course,” he added with a small smile. “You need to rest. You’re going to be exhausted and fatigued. You’re going to have a long recovery, but I know you. You are strong enough and will get through it. Tomorrow, we will switch your ventilator to assist mode so it is no longer breathing for you. If you tolerate that well, we’ll start weaning the next day and try to have you back home as soon as possible.”
“How is everything else looking for her?” my father asked.
Dr. Wyn nodded his head slowly. “We’re getting back to her baseline, which is what we want to see. Now that she’s awake, we just need to make sure her lungs are cooperating and then she’ll be on the road to feeling back to normal.”
“Thank you for everything,” my mother said to him with nothing but admiration in her voice. This man had saved my life time and time again. He was the one doctor who didn’t want to send me to hospice for them to just treat with palliative care.
He’s another person who never gave up on me.
Dr. Wyn excused himself and slipped from the room as my parents fussed over me. I let them have their moment, because they had been waiting a long time with my life hanging in the balance. Oliver sat quietly with a smile on his face as he watched the three of us.
The image of him from my coma dream flashed into my mind. Him and I on the sidewalk with Tank. He had a football jersey on. Suddenly, it hit me like a flash of lightning. I tried to sit up, but I didn't have the strength. I whipped my head to the side to stare at him head on.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
Oliver’s eyebrows pulled together. A pained look mixed with the confusion in his expression. “Should I go?”
“Yes. No.” I paused and closed my eyes for a moment. My body wanted to rest, but there was a part of me that was afraid to go back to sleep. I didn’t want to leave this world again. I opened my eyes and met his gaze again. “What are you doing here?”
“Come on, Erin,” my father said as he pulled my mother to her feet. “Let’s go call Eli and Jackson and give them some time to talk.”
My mother nodded and followed after them. I should have said something to them, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Oliver’s. Part of me was mad, part of me was sad, and a bigger part of me wanted to break down and cry tears of joy.
Oliver sat on the edge of the bed, caging me in as he planted his hands on either side of me. “You are the only thing that matters to me, Luna Truly. Fuck football, fuck college. You really think I would leave when you were in a coma? There’s not a chance in hell.”
I stared at him, my eyes filling with tears as everything came crashing down at once. “I saw it all, Ollie,” I breathed as tears streamed down the sides of my face. He lifted his hands to cup my cheeks as he caught the salty liquid with the pads of his thumbs.
“What did you see, love?”
“We were married. We had a house and three kids.” I paused for a moment feeling the emotion threatening to pull me under. “I didn’t have any medical issues. Everything was literally perfect.”
Oliver gave me a sad smile and shook his head as tears filled his own eyes. “Everything is perfect the way it is. You are perfect, Luna. It was just a dream.”
“But it felt so real,” I whispered, not fully trusting my voice. “I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay in that world with you forever.”
He swallowed roughly, his eyes desperately searching mine. “It wasn't real, love. This is real. You would have left me alone in this world so you could live with a different version of me in another life?”
His words felt like a blow to the chest. He was right. I knew nothing about that world except for the day I spent in it. And all it took was a moment of second guessing for it all to fall to pieces.
“No.”
Oliver stared directly into my soul. “What made you come back if it were so perfect there?”
“I heard you.” I paused for a moment as I slid my hand up to hold the side of his face. “I saw the real us and I knew I couldn’t stay there.”
Oliver’s eyes shined brightly at me and they glistened with the tears that lingered in them. “I’ve only left your side to shower and get food. I have been begging you to come back since you left.”
“I came back for you. I came back because this is the life I want… with you.”
“You mean that?” he questioned me as his eyes bounced back and forth between mine.
I smiled back at the boy I loved with my entire heart. “Always and forever.”
Oliver pressed his lips to mine, but he quickly pulled away. “I don’t want to make it any harder for you to breathe. And we don’t want to start something we can’t finish,” he added with a wink. “Be mine, Luna Truly. You’re all I’ve ever wanted and the only person I could ever imagine spending my life with.”
“Do you know what you’re asking for, Ollie? You know life will never be easy. I’ll always have restrictions. And we will never grow old together.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking for.” He said it with such simplicity like it was a known fact. “Will you be my girlfriend?”
“Are you sure you want to do this before you go off to college? I don’t want to ruin the experience for you.”
Oliver rolled his eyes so hard. “You’re absolutely impossible,” he said with a soft chuckle. “You don’t ruin things—you only make them better. Now, answer the question, Luna.”
I smiled back at him. “I’ve always been yours, Oliver. Since the moment we first met and you invited me to come help you dig for worms in your backyard.”
He didn’t stop himself as he pressed his lips back to mine. He was careful not to linger and slid his arm under the back of my neck as I rolled onto my side to face him. We laid on the hospital bed, surrounded by the beeping of monitors as we held each other and got lost in our gaze.
“I love you, Luna Truly,” he murmured softly as he linked our pinkies together. “Always and forever.”
I stared back at him as his love filled my soul with light.
“I love you, Oliver Hart.”