“Ma’am, he’s in surgery still,” one of the nurses says with a firm but sympathetic expression, “and we’ll let you know as soon as—”
“I know he’s in fucking surgery!” I yell. “But he’s a heroin addict and they need to not give him any opiates.”
The nurse manages to cover her grimace, but not quick enough. And it’s obvious what she’s thinking—this information is way too late.
Of course it is.
“I’ll let them know right away,” she assures me, and scurries off.
The other nurses avoid making eye contact with me. The rest of the emergency room doesn’t seem to have that problem—they’re all staring, and I have this weird sense of being on stage again, but I’ve forgotten what I’m supposed to be doing.
Alec puts his arm around me, and pulls me in for a hug, but he doesn’t say anything, and neither do I.
I see bright flashes of light through the windows. The paparazzi have realized we’re back down here, and are taking pics of me in Alec’s arms, but whatever.
None of it matters. None of it but Felix.
Who I have failed, in every way possible.
A doctor comes briskly walking our way, a tall black woman with her hair in a tight bun, and I step away from Alec to face her, both desperate for news and terrified of it.
“Mrs. Mays?” she asks.
I nod, numbly.
“I’m Doctor Ellison. The nurse informed me you had a concern. We were just about to come get you, actually. We finished the surgery, and it went well.”
My knees are so weak with relief I have to hold the counter to steady myself. “So he’s—”
“He’s stable and recovering. There was some organ damage we needed to repair, but given the type of wound he received, it wasn’t as bad as it might have been.” She gives me a tight smile.
Tears spill out over my cheeks. Felix is going to live. Felix will be okay.
But.
“He can’t be on any opiates, though,” I say. “I should have said something earlier, but I forgot and—” God, they asked me if he was allergic to medications. I should have thought.
“Yes, the nurse told me he’s a heroin addict. Was he on anything when the incident occurred?” Her tone is brisk, no-nonsense, and I feel my hackles rise defensively.
“He wasn’t high. He’s in recovery.” I pause. “But he’s on Suboxone. It’s a maintenance drug that . . .” I trail off, feeling stupid. She’s a doctor. She obviously knows what Suboxone is.
She nods. “And how long has he been sober?”
“About four months.”
“Okay, good. So we did give him some Lortab, which is an opiate, but the Suboxone should cancel out the effects. When was the last time he took it?”
“He takes it at night, I think like eleven or so. After our concerts, anyway. I don’t think he had a chance to tonight, though, before . . .” This time I trail off because I can’t say the words.
Before he was stabbed. Before he nearly died.
The doctor considers this. “He’s been off it for over twenty-four hours.” She doesn’t sound particularly happy about this news, and my fear comes back. She taps her nails on the counter. “Then he may feel the effects of the opiates—it really depends on how fast he metabolizes the Naloxone. We won’t give him any more, but without the Lortab, he’s going to be in some pain. We can give him a combination pill of Ibuprofen and Tylenol, but it may not be as effective.”
I wince at the thought of Felix in any more pain. “But there’s nothing else that will work better that aren’t opiates, right?”
“Right. What we need to do is make a decision as to whether to put him back on Suboxone.”
I narrow my eyes. “What do you mean? He needs that, doesn’t he?”
Now that I think about it, I don’t know the details about what it does, exactly, besides helping to reduce the cravings.
The doctor nods. “Have you heard of precipitated withdrawal?”
I shake my head, wishing I could as easily shake off the guilt. I know so little about the recovery process that my husband is going through. I should have researched everything there was to find about it. I should have asked him every question I could think of. I should never have let fear or discomfort keep me from that.
The doctor continues. “It tends to be worse than normal withdrawal, because of the suddenness of the removal of the opiates from the system. It’s possible that if we give him the Suboxone now, he’ll experience that kind of withdrawal. He probably won’t,” she adds quickly. “For all we know the Suboxone was still in his system when he gave him the Lortab. But I can’t guarantee it.”
“So he might suffer,” I say. My voice squeaks, and Alec squeezes my shoulder.
“It really depends on his sensitivity, we have no way of knowing for sure. However if we don’t give him the Suboxone, he will definitely experience regular withdrawal. Which, since he’s still relatively newly sober, could still be very difficult.” She presses her lips together tightly for a moment before speaking again. “Whether we give him the Suboxone or not, we’ll hold him until he’s ready to leave, or transfer him to a rehab where he can continue to recover. What would you like to do?”
Me? I am the least qualified person to make this decision. I am the reason we have to make this decision in the first place.
“I—I, um.” Panic makes my chest tight. Whatever I choose could cause Felix more pain. “What would you recommend?” I finally manage.
The doctor gives me a sympathetic smile. “I’d recommend that we give him the Suboxone. With only one dose of the opiates, there’s a good chance he won’t have the precipitated withdrawal. Without it, well—that’s a guaranteed rough time.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to sound even a little confident, and failing. “Okay, let’s do that.” She nods again, and turns to go, but I grab her arm. “Wait, you said he’s out of surgery. Can I see him yet?”
She removes my hand from her arm, but not unkindly. “Not quite yet. Why don’t you go back up to the upstairs waiting area—” here she looks pointedly at the emergency waiting room, at the people standing on the other side of the glass, some with their phones out and directed at us, and at the bursts of light still flashing through the windows “—and we’ll send for you soon.”
I see the wisdom of her advice, but if I can’t go in to see him yet, everything in me wants to stay here, which is at least closer. But Alec pulls me away from the nurses’ station and the watchful crowd, and I let him.
In the silence of the elevator back up, I start to sob.
“Hey,” Alec says, putting his arm around my shoulders. “Hey. He’s going to be okay.”
I know this now, or at least that he’ll recover from the stab wound. And a huge part of this bursting of emotion is relief for that. He’ll live.
But some of it is still fear, and guilt.
“This is my fault,” I say, when I can speak again, when we’re out of the elevator and walking towards the waiting room. “I should have told them about his addiction immediately when we got here. I should have—” My voice breaks.
Worthless bitch, Grant’s voice echoes in my mind.
“You made a mistake,” Alec allows. “You forgot. You were freaked out, and it slipped your mind. It was just a mistake.”
“But he’s going to suffer even more, and it’s all my fault,” I say. “God, I’ve already been making things miserable for him, and now—”
“Jenna.”
“—and now I just made it worse.” I don’t let him stop me. “You were right, Alec. You said I’m messed up, back before the VMAs, and you were right. I am. And Felix has enough to deal with, he doesn’t need me making things even more difficult for him.”
“Jenna,” Alec says, almost in that tone I hate where he’s going to tell me I’m screwing up my life
. “Stop.”
I slump against a wall, beside some poster about whooping cough vaccinations.
“So you’re messed up,” Alec says. “So is he, if you haven’t noticed. But here’s the thing, Jenna—Felix is a good guy. And he loves you. A lot.”
“I know, but—”
“But nothing. Look, you and me, we’ve been through a decent amount of shit, yeah?”
I nod, miserably. I don’t exactly need him to tell me all the ways I screwed up his life, too, though I’m sure he has a running tally.
“I know you, better than most people,” he says. “You’re like a sister to me.”
I shoot him a baleful look. I know very well how he feels about his actual sisters.
He rolls his eyes. “Okay, fine. A sister I can stand to be around for more than five minutes. And used to sleep with.” He pauses. “Maybe sister isn’t the best—”
“Alec!”
“Whatever. You get the point. You’re my friend. And you’re one of the best people I’ve ever known. And I can tell you, no matter what you think he’s putting up with for you, you’re worth it. You’re worth that, and a hell of a lot more.”
I don’t feel that. Not even a little. I sniffle, and wipe the tears from under my eyes with the back of my hand. “You think so?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I do. And if I feel that way about you, imagine how Felix feels.”
I’m not sure I can believe him, not fully, but the truth is, I know Alec, and he doesn’t just say things to make people feel better. He means it.
I realize then, that even though things have been weird between us, he’s still my friend in all the ways that matter. Which means that probably he always will be.
“Thanks,” I say, and manage a tentative smile at him.
He smiles back. “Anytime. Just don’t be surprised if you find a get-well card waiting for you guys back home with a couple giant FU letters attached.”
I elbow him and we make our way back to the maternity ward waiting room, and now that I can move again, now that I’m no longer pinned in that chair, I finally go to the restroom.
I wash the blood from my hands, and stare at myself in the mirror. I barely recognize the face looking back at me. Running makeup, yes, and splotchy, tear-streaked cheeks. My hair, which I’d barely gotten out of all those damn pins when I first heard the shouts, falling down around my face, but stiff and crunchy with hairspray.
Guilt and terror and exhaustion set like age lines around my eyes.
I use some paper towels and at least rinse the makeup off. Then I use one of my stretchy silver bracelets like a hair tie and pull my hair back into a ponytail.
When Felix wakes up, I’m not going to look great by any means, but I at least want to look like Jenna. His Jenna, not some post-hurricane stage-diva Jenna.
I go back out to the waiting room, just as a nurse walks in and says that I can go see Felix now. Just me, not Alec—not that Alec seems to mind. I have to hold myself back from sprinting ahead of her.
“He’s not awake yet,” she warns me. “He may not be for a few hours.”
But I don’t care. I just need to see him, alive and whole. I need to be with him.
And then she shows me into the room, and I am.
Felix is lying in the hospital bed, one of those thin hospital blankets pulled up to his chest, and a tangle of cords snaking from him to various machines and IV fluid bags. His face is pale, and his closed eyelids have a grayish hue to them.
My chest constricts, and the tears are back, seeing him like this. And yet, he’s my Felix, who I love with everything in me, and he’s here and his chest is moving up and down, and the heart monitor beeps a steady rhythm.
I take his hand in my own, feeling its comforting weight. It’s his left hand, and I trace the wedding ring on his finger, and then the callouses on the pads of his fingers from years and years of playing the cello. I trace the lines of his palm and the peaks of his knuckles.
All of it so familiar to me, even after so short a time.
Soul mates, he’d said, so soon after we’d first met, and I knew then that he was right.
I still know.
I pull up a chair right next to the bed and am just about to sit when my phone rings. I pull it from my purse and see the time—5:06 AM—before I see that it’s my mom. She apologetically explains that Ty is up, that he overheard them talking and demanded to talk to me.
“We had to tell him,” she says, her voice sounding about as exhausted as I feel, and she puts Ty on the phone.
“Mom?” Ty’s voice is small and panicked and my heart lurches to hear it. “Mom, is Felix okay?”
“He will be,” I say. “He got hurt, but the doctors did surgery, and they fixed him up.”
“Can I talk to him?”
I wish so much that he could. “Not yet, honey. He’s still sleeping from the surgery. But he’s going to be okay, and—”
“Will he be able to come back to the hotel today?” Ty’s voice is slightly muffled, like he’s pressing the phone too tight against his face.
“Probably not,” I say with a small sigh. “The doctors will need to keep him here for a little while, make sure his body is healing up okay.”
“But today is the Fourth of July!” Ty wails. “I made a Statue of Liberty crown for him out of foam, and I wanted to do sparklers like we always do, but New York City doesn’t like real sparklers, so I made some out of construction paper, and he needs to be here!”
The grief in his voice goes way beyond Felix missing some misdated holiday. He’s scared to lose his dad, so soon after he finally found him. Just like I was.
Just like I still am, if I’m being honest.
“You’ll get to show him all those things,” I say gently. “I don’t know if it’ll be today or not, but as soon as the doctors say it’s all right, you and Nana and Pops can come to the hospital and show him. And he’ll love it. He’ll love it so much.”
“Really?” His sniffle reminds me of mine when Alec was comforting me, not that long ago.
“I promise. He’s your dad. And you’ll get to see him very soon, okay?”
That seems to mollify him. I tell him I love him, and he says it back, and I update my mom on Felix’s condition, and then I hang up and put the phone away.
And it’s just Felix and me again, and the beep beep beep of the heart monitor, which echoes my mental begging from before.
Please please please.
I take his hand again and press it to my lips.
“I love you,” I whisper. “Please don’t ever leave me.”
And I close my eyes and hold his hand and wish to never leave his side again.
Eight
Felix
The first thing I’m aware of is a song. It’s far away at first, like someone left their window open and has it softly playing in the background. There are no words, just the hum of a woman’s voice, and though I’m cold and achy, the voice makes me feel safe.
And then I realize I know the words.
I open my eyes. Jenna is sitting next to me in a hospital chair, holding my hand. Her eyes are closed and her head rests on the bed beside me, her dark hair spreading out over the blanket that covers me.
She’s quietly humming “You Are the Story.”
I squeeze her hand, and she squeezes back and looks up at me. She looks like she hasn’t slept in a year, and she’s still wearing her black dress from the concert.
And that’s when I remember. Grant. The pizza. The knife, and my blood.
I’m not dead. It didn’t occur to me to think I could have been until this moment, but—
“How long was I out?” I ask. I look down, but I’m covered up to my armpits with a blanket, so I can’t see what’s underneath. I don’t hurt, exactly, but that chill and that dull ache has spread over my
whole body.
My fingers are trembling.
“Almost twelve hours,” Jenna says. “They had to do surgery. Something about organ damage.”
Surgery. Twelve hours. As I become more aware, I realize that my arm has an IV taped to it, and there’s sweat on my forehead. That’s why I’m so cold, I’m sweating, and the achiness is—
“Shit,” I say. “Did they give me—”
Jenna grips my hand, tears shining in her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she says. She babbles something I have a hard time following, about anesthesia and Lortab and precipitated withdrawal.
“They gave you your Suboxone,” she says. “And they said that the whatever it is in your system lasts longer than twenty-four hours, so you might be fine. But I forgot to tell them until after you were out of surgery and—”
“Jenna,” I say, squeezing her hand back. “It’s okay.”
She sniffles. “Is it?”
I stretch out a little, and I can feel pain in my gut, and a tightness, maybe from the stitches. The sweat is clearing now, so maybe it’s just from regaining consciousness or the regular wearing off of the anesthesia.
“A doctor came in a little while ago and said that now that you’re back on the Suboxone, they can give you more pain killers, and that should be fine. But I didn’t know if you would—”
I shake my head. “No,” I say. “No, I don’t want any.”
She nods. “They say your pain will increase then. They said if you don’t take something for it you might self-medicate.”
Jenna looks terrified, and my own mind is spinning through all this at a frightening and somewhat dizzying speed.
They said self-medicate, but they mean go back to heroin. That if the pain is too bad I might crave drugs, if I don’t take the ones that are prescribed.
But if I do take the prescription, how will I know when to stop?
Shit. I’m missing something important. “Grant,” I say. “It was Grant, wasn’t it?”
Jenna nods. “Yeah. They caught him at the stadium, and they’ve arrested him.”
The Jenna Rollins Real Love Tour Page 8