52. Natalie
Natalie
Istay with Luke for hours. When he wakes up, I’m still in the chair beside his bed. He’s more alert than when I first saw him. His voice is stronger. A nurse comes in to check his vitals and administer pain medication. When we’re alone again, I help him sip from a water bottle the nurse brought in.
“Do you want anything else? Are you comfortable enough?” I don’t know what else I could do for him, but I can’t help worrying over him, desperate to make him as comfortable as possible.
“As long as you’re here, I’m fine.” His eyes bounce over my face, seeing all the things I want to hide from him—how scared I was of losing him.
Tears heat behind my eyes. “When the hospital called, I didn’t know what to do.
I was spinning, freaking out, I was just …
in a fog, and I didn’t know how I’d get to you in time in case something hap—” The sentence breaks off on a sob.
I press my teeth against my knuckles and lean my face onto the bed beside our entangled fingers, my body quivering with sobs.
Luke squeezes my hand weakly. “I’m fine, baby. I’m alright. I’m sorry you were scared.” His voice is still hoarse, but no longer slow. “And you’re here now. We’re together. I’m glad you made it.”
My head turns, my cheek resting against the back of his hand. “I had to make it here on time. I had to be here when you woke up.”
He grins, the cut on his lip lifting. “You’re so beautiful. Even when you cry.”
I roll my eyes, the corner of my lips twitching. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m serious.” Luke rests his head back against the pillows, watching the ceiling. “All I could think when I got hit was how much I wanted to see you. How I couldn’t let that be the way I went, without getting to say goodbye.”
I bite the inside of my lip, shaking my head. “Don’t say that.”
His eyes find mine. “I didn’t know how it was going to play out out there.” An unbidden image of him on the road flashes behind my eyes, crumpled and broken, waiting for help, not knowing if that was the end for him.
“And now you’re here,” I say, trying to give him a brave smile. “With me, just how it always should be. The doctor fixed you up, and he said you’ll make a full recovery. I’ll be your in-home nurse and take care of you. Our summer in Maple Lake was almost over anyway. I won’t go back.”
“I meant what I said about us visiting your family. I want to be a part of that family as much as you’re a part of mine.”
I flip his hand over and kiss the sensitive skin on his palm. “I’d like that,” I say.
“And I want us to have a baby.”
I look up at him, unsure if I heard him correctly. “You what?”
“When I was hit by that car and I was flying through the air, I saw it all—my life the way it is and how it could have been. It was so fast—just a flash of images and thoughts, but I saw it. I saw the kids we talked about having. I saw the big backyard and the swing set and the laughing children. I saw you and me.”
A tear rolls down my cheek to land on the white sheet. “What were we doing?” I ask him.
“We were smiling, watching our kids. And they looked just like they did the first time I saw them.” The angry red skin on his cheek and jaw stretches as he speaks, but even with his cheek scraped raw, he’s still the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.
Having kids with Luke is what I’ve always wanted; being a mother and raising children was my ultimate desire. But now that I have it in my reach, I know it’s not the most important thing in my life.
“I don’t want you to say you want kids if it’s only coming from a place of fear,” I say.
“You won’t lose me anymore. Kids or not, I’m not leaving you.
You mean too much to me for me to run away anymore, and I’m so sorry for telling you I wanted kids more than I wanted you.
” He frowns, but I put up a finger to quiet him before he says anything.
“Almost losing you, falling into a darkness where I couldn’t see you—” I shake my head.
“I didn’t want to go there. I wanted to jump out of the pit and chase you.
I’d do anything to get to you. So no, I don’t want you to give me kids if you’re doing it because you’re afraid of losing me.
I’m not going anywhere. I don’t need a baby to make me happy—I just need you. ”
He thumbs the tears away from my cheek. “I’m not afraid of what might happen anymore, Natalie.
I’m not scared of the future, the pregnancy, or being a father.
We’ve gone through fire with each other, and we keep coming out stronger and sharper than ever.
I don’t want to be afraid of what might happen by getting pregnant.
I’m only afraid now of what we might be missing if we don’t.
“I realize now that my love for you, coupled with my fear of losing you, was, in reality, caging you in. It was keeping you in my fear with me. But I shouldn’t have let my fears of what happened to my mom write our future.
God willing, you will never have to deal with the things she did.
We have all this love between us, and I want us to share it with someone else.
I want us to be partners and friends and lovers and parents. Together.”
“You’re sure?” I ask, worried about getting my hopes up and accepting it yet.
“I am,” he murmurs, his voice breaking. “Let’s have a baby, Nat.”
I laugh, happy tears falling now, replacing the anxiety-driven ones I shed before, and I nod like I’m one of Tyler’s bobbleheads in his Jeep. “Okay. Let’s have a baby.” I lean forward and kiss his lips ever so gently so I don’t hurt his cuts and bruises.
When I move away, he frowns. All business. “It’s going to take me a long time to heal from this accident. At least six to twelve months, according to Dr. Carlton. I propose we both heal together.”
I open my mouth to speak, but he doesn’t let me just yet, jumping to continue his thoughts.
“While my leg and my lung heals, I want you to go back to therapy. And I’ll go, too—for my own stuff.
You need someone to talk to, someone who can help you through the way you feel.
I wish it could be me, but you know I can’t get you through it every time.
It’s up to you to learn how to cope with the nightmares, the anxiety. ”
My eyes search the room, wandering from the computer monitor to the bed, down to the off-white tile floor. I want what he’s saying. I want us to get better together so we can move on from this summer and all the difficulties it’s put us through.
“Okay,” I say finally. “I’ll start therapy again. I want us to start over, like all the bad parts of this year didn’t happen.”
He tugs my hand forward and kisses the inside of my wrist, his lips tickling my skin as he smiles. “I’m glad you’re on board. Just promise me you won’t jump ship again.” The hint of a smile plays on his broken lips.
I lift a brow, teasing him. “You’ve been hanging out with Ty too much. His terrible jokes and puns are rubbing off on you. If you weren’t in a hospital bed, I’d push you overboard.”
He gasps playfully. “Oh, you can push me. Push me down and kiss me senseless, that is. I won’t tell the nurse.”
My eyes widen, and I laugh as he grins up at me.
It will be a while before Luke can walk or even sit up without pain, but I’m looking to the future. For the first time, I feel like I really know what the next part of my life looks like.
I was born in Maple Lake, Pennsylvania. I met a boy and ran away to Florida to be with him. Little did I know it would take running away from him to make us stronger than ever.
I wouldn’t recommend running away from a caring, loving husband. I also wouldn’t recommend waiting until he’s in a life-threatening accident before discovering that loving someone is the most important thing you could ever do.
Life isn’t linear. It’s a tangle of threads twisted around in complicated paths. The choices you make either make or break those threads, pulling you closer and knotting your life to that of another’s, or, quite the opposite, they’ll squeeze too tightly and cut you off from someone you once knew.
Love is a choice. The heart-fluttering sensation in your chest is simply a feeling that follows the choice.
Or maybe sometimes the feeling comes first, twisting around in your tummy before you’ve even given it thought.
But either way, we choose to love the people we love.
For some it might be easy to give up, to run away, to start over.
But it’s hard to try again, to persevere, to keep going.
I choose to love Luke, like he’s chosen to love me.
Not because he’s chosen to love me, but because I want to.
Our marriage was always good, but it was never perfect, especially this summer.
I did things wrong, again and again. But our threads pulled us closer, the knots got stronger, and I’m looking forward to our future more than I ever have before.