I slowly wake as I’m being lifted from a gurney into a hospital bed. The doctors are firing questions at me. What’s my name? Can I tell them the date? What happened? My mind is foggy, and all I can focus on is that I can’t see Ethan anywhere.
“Please, where’s my boyfriend? Is he okay?”
“I’m not sure yet, miss. Just please lie back while we check you over,” a doctor replies as I attempt to sit up, and he gently takes hold of my shoulders and presses me back down onto the bed.
“No stop, please I need to find Ethan.” I move to climb down and again he pushes me back. “He wasn’t breathing; I need to know he’s okay. Let me go!” My words are distorted by my desperate sobs, and more people have gathered around me and are now trying to hold me in place. I feel a sharp jab in my leg and watch as the nurse struggles to give me a shot while I’m flailing my arms and legs around trying to slip from her grasp. My body starts to feel heavy as I struggle. Everything begins to move in slow motion and blur until I can’t keep my eyes open any longer and begin to lose consciousness.
I feel as though all I did was blink, but the darkened room I’m in tells me that’s not the case. I move and shuffle around on the bed, trying to relieve the discomfort I’m feeling around my stomach and realize I’m hooked up to IV’s. I have cannulas in one of my arms that look to be leading back to a small blue machine. The steady beep, beep, beep is the only sound breaking the otherwise silent ambiance. I reach down and realize I have a dressing over my stomach. It hurts to move, but I need to find out what’s happening. I press the call button beside me and a nurse appears in the doorway almost instantly. After she explains that I’d been suffering from a ruptured spleen, which subsequently has just been removed, the nurse leaves to go and get a doctor to authorize more pain relief.
My mom walks slowly through the door with a coffee in hand, looking exhausted. She glances at me in the bed and then halts momentarily. I wait as the recognition sets in that I’m awake, and she rushes towards me, placing the cup on the stand beside the bed.
“Sweetheart, how are you? Gosh, you had me scared, baby girl.” Her words are spoken in a loud exhale, like the weight of the world has just been lifted from her shoulders. She looks beyond tired, and her eyes are glassy and rimmed red. I can tell she’s trying to hold back tears. I’m hoping like hell that they are tears of relief and not anything more sinister.
“How are you here? I don’t understand,” I say, squeezing my eyes closed as I shake my head in confusion. My voice feels all scratchy, and I ache from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
“I was already on my way to come collect you. Frank called me and told me about you and Ethan being arrested. I was only an hour away when I got a phone call from the hospital letting me know you’d been brought here. Goodness Blair, I thought I was going to lose you.”
She squeezes my hand lightly and finally loses the battle to keep her tears at bay.
“What’s happened to Ethan, Mom? Have you heard anything? No one is letting me know if he’s okay. You have to go find out,” I plead and then pause as I notice a somber expression move across her face.
“Oh god no, please tell me he’s okay. He has to be okay!”
“Shh, calm down Blair,” she says in a hushed tone, wiping the tears that are now racing down my face with her thumbs.
“He’s in the ICU; he’s in a coma and that’s all that I know, honey. Frank is in the ICU, too.” I stiffen at the mention of him.
“This, this is his fault,” I stammer trying to calm my breathing. “He just stopped in the middle of the road to pick a fight with Ethan. Who does that?” Her eyebrows pull together as she’s about to reply to my accusation, when the nurse returns with more pain relief. A milky white liquid is being injected into the drip at the side of the bed; within a few seconds I feel the aches start to lessen in their intensity. It makes my body feel strange, like somehow it's not my own, and I’m witnessing everything that’s happening from somewhere else. Mom goes out into the hall to speak with one of the doctors, leaving me with the knowledge that my boyfriend is in a coma. I’m not sure if I should be terrified of that, or thankful. I know it’s bad to be in a coma, but for a moment I thought she was going to tell me that he was dead. I’ve experienced my fair share of loss already; I don’t think I could bear anymore. If Ethan dies it will break me. I’ve already lost two people I love.
It dawns on me that Mom said that Frank was in the ICU too. I’ve never been someone that wishes bad things on other people, but I’m struggling at the moment because although I know it’s terrible to admit, I hope that asshole dies.