Warm tears slide down my cheeks and I smile as he reaches over to hug me. It’s an awkward hug, but I’m in the same boat; both of us unsure how to act toward one another now that everything is out in the open. Closeness definitely isn’t his strong suit, but it’s comforting regardless.
“Can I see Gray?” I pull back to ask him.
He averts his eyes, and my heart seizes. “That’s not a good idea.” My chest constricts with anxiety, and I shake my head. “For the baby,” he adds quickly like it might stop me.
I understand the whole stress concept, but I’m going to be more stressed not seeing him.
“I need to see him.” I harden my voice, throwing the covers off my legs to get up.
He catches my arm, steadying me, but doesn’t release his grip once I’ve leveled myself out.
“Valentina, it’s really not a good idea.”
“You didn’t hear me. I am going to see him. Right. Now.” I jerk my arm out of his hands and this time he lets me go.
Stepping out into the hallway, I walk up and down the hall looking at the patient placards outside of each room. Nowhere do I see his name. Making my way back to my own room, I stick my head in and frantically demand, “Where is he?”
I watch as Jameson swallows, averting his eyes once again before looking back at me. “He’s still in ICU. They’re doing everything they can but they don’t expect him to make it.”
My knees crash into the cold floor as my lungs begin to burn. I don’t even realize I’m hyperventilating until someone offers me a paper bag and tells me to breathe.
Breathe?
They want me to breathe when Gray is on another floor and could be taking his last breath?
I almost want to laugh at the absurdity.
Jameson settles me back onto the bed, and it feels like forever before my panic attack subsides.
“Has anyone called his family?” I ask when I finally push all the black out of my vision.
“His sister is on her way if she isn’t here already. His Dad and Grandma are leaving tonight,” he remarks.
This is bad. This is way worse than I thought.
“Is he on life-support or something?” My voice is tight as I ask the question.
Jameson nods gravely.
“But he isn’t braindead, is he?” I can hardly get the words out.
“No, but Valley, you need to be preparing yourself for the fact he might not make it.”
I shake my head vigorously. “He’ll make it. I know he will,” I leap up again. “I have to see him.” I do my best to sprint through the pain of traumatized muscles, all the way to the elevator before anyone can stop me again. Passing by a map of the hospital on the way, I find the ICU floor. I press the corresponding button once I step inside the elevator car.
When the doors open again, I take a deep breath and walk straight to the desk in front of me. The nurse eyes my hospital gown with concern as she asks how she can help me.
“I need to know the room number of Grayson Knightley,” I reply smoothly.
She shakes her head at me. “No one but family is allowed back.” She starts to turn away but I tell a small lie and interject.
“Good thing I’m his fiancée and am carrying his child! Now, where is he? I was told he’s on life-support and it didn’t look good,” I argue, raising my voice and causing a scene.
She sputters out a room number, apparently desperate to remove all the eyes pointed in our direction due to the outburst.
I take off running again.
When I reach the window, I see the tubes in his mouth and the machine by the bed, and I almost don’t want to go inside. I don’t want this to be real. Pinching my skin hard between my fingers, I attempt to wake myself from this nightmare. When two tiny, angry crescents appear in my skin I’m forced to acknowledge the truth: this nightmare is real life. Steeling myself, I step inside. It seems I’m floating through some fucked-up alternate reality, getting to be a voyeur to someone else’s life as I stare at him. At some point, I land in the seat by him.
With each mechanical rise and fall of his chest, I watch as the machine breathes on his behalf, and the fear inside me grows more concentrated with each exhale. I’ve never seen Gray appear so weak. Even though he takes up the entire bed, his foot hanging over the end, he looks so tiny laying there. His face is completely normal, like he’s sleeping. There isn’t a mark on it.
My gaze lands on his arm hanging loosely at his side, and I place my hand inside his much larger one, squeezing slightly.
“Hey, I’m here,” I sniffle as I speak. Then I add, “I’m here because of you. You shouldn’t have done that. Why would you do that?” A loud, ugly cry of sorrow rips its way out of my body.
At this point, I’m full on sobbing and thinking about the final moments leading up to when he got shot. He was asking about the baby. I was annoyed with him. Then I wasn’t paying attention to make sure there was no one in the lobby. He had already told me downstairs to wait after I opened a door before I just waltzed on inside.
I didn’t listen and it’s my fault he’s lying here.
He got shot because I walked right into Dominic’s line of fire. He got shot because he made the choice to step in my place. I should have been the one shot, not him.
Stupid. So, so fucking stupid.
I lift his hand to my lips, squeezing again as I press a lingering kiss there.
“I love you. So much. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you on prom night when you first said it,” my voice cracks on the words.
I lay my face on the bed, propping my head on his stomach and allow my tears to stain the white sheet that’s currently stretched over him. I keep mumbling unintelligible madness until sleep overtakes me.
~XoXo~
The sensation of someone stroking my head causes me to jolt awake suddenly. Confused, I sit up, attempting to shake away the drowsiness.
“Hey,” a familiar voice says softly.
I glance up to find a pair of green eyes watching me, the apparent culprit for the hair stroking.
“Hey,” I repeat back, my voice still raw.
“The nurse said only one of us could be in here at a time, but I ignored her. Then when she started to wake you, I pointed out how messed up it would be to do so seeing as how you’d just gone through such a traumatic event.” Lyra gives me a weak smile.
“Thanks,” I reply, getting the feeling she expects me to leave now.
“If she comes back in, just pretend to be asleep again.” She winks at me half-heartedly.
I grin in conspiracy back at her, before glancing at Gray, who looks very much the same as he did last time I studied him. My smile slips away instantly.
“Still the same prognosis?” I ask.
She just nods, her face crumpling as she stares at him. “The odds aren’t in his favor. They asked not long ago if I wanted them to call in the chaplain. I told them, HELL NO. My brother is going to be fine.”
“I’m sorry we lied to you,” I say out of nowhere. It’s a lame apology, but I feel the need to at least say something.
She sighs, turning her gaze back to me. “I was so mad at the both of you, but I understand why you did. Gray told me the night they tried to take me…He told me a lot more than I knew before.”
“The night who tried to take you?” I inquire out of confusion, the hairs rising on the back of my neck as I begin to recall the events leading up to when I awoke in my hospital bed just hours ago.
“Two men showed up outside my work a few days after you were taken. Luckily, I noticed them in time to slip inside my car and lock the door.”
I shiver as I consider what it would have been like for her to go through the same hell I just survived. It angers me, but I’m also grateful she was able to get away.
We sit in uncomfortable silence for a long time, all the while lost in our own thoughts.
I’m sort of stuck on the chaplain thing.
What’s a chaplain going to do? Pray with us probably. G
ray was always the one to lead us during the dinnertime prayer. It was like a southern tradition-family tradition thing in the Knightley home.
“Hey,” I say, grabbing her attention, “the mention of a chaplain has got me thinking. Remember how Gray always said grace at the dinner table?”
She looks at me expectantly.
“Maybe he’d like us to be the ones to lead the prayer this time. I bet he’d appreciate that. If you want.”
She nods as moisture clouds her eyes. We both reach for one another’s hands, then bow our heads at the same time. I’m the one to begin.
“Dear God, I’m not very good at this whole praying thing, but the man who’s laying on this bed between me and Lyra—he’s the reason I have any familiarity with it all. He’s a pillar of strength for those close to him. He’s fiercely loyal, and he has this way of making everything right when I feel like the world is crumbling beneath my feet. He’s a life saver, and I mean that in every sense of the phrase. Gray has gone out of his way, risking his own life in the process, just to make my life better. He’s created a world that’s safe for me to be myself in for the first time in forever. Most of all, he’s the most decent human-being I know.” I pause for a moment, working my way through a crack in my voice. “Before, I couldn’t imagine a life without him in it, but now… Now I’m willing to relinquish my rights to a life with him, if it meant he was able to live at all. When I was captured I promised not to ask for anything else if you would just save me and my child, but I’m asking you for just this one thing more. One more miracle…”
I pause to allow Lyra a chance to add her own words to the prayer, but only make out a few broken sentences here and there. When she squeezes my hand, I know she’s finished.
“Amen,” we both say in unison.
Instantly, I feel a little better. It’s comforting even if it is just because it makes me feel like we’re back in Central Valley, getting ready to dig into a delicious meal he’s prepared us. As we sit across from each other, flanking Gray, we begin to talk. It starts as small talk, about what we've been up to the past few years, but it eventually snowballs into heavier topics. I tell her everything, starting at the beginning. What else is there to do while we wait for a miracle? At the end of it all, a weight feels lifted off my chest, and it’s all in good faith that maybe one day, after everything works itself out, Lyra and I can be friends again. We just have to get through this.
Gray just has to make it through this.
Chapter Thirty-One
NANA ROSE AND Mr. Knightley finally make it here to visit, and I eventually have to leave the room. I don’t want to. It’s an irrational notion, but I feel like the moment I’m not by his side, everything’s going to go to shit. Something bad is going to happen. But they’re his family. They have just as much of a right to see him as I do.
I decide to visit Mom again while they’re with Gray. Just like Gray, she’s still unconscious.
Unlike Gray, her prognosis is a positive one.
She’ll open her eyes when she’s ready, but Gray might never open his again at all.
The thought of never getting lost in his gaze again is disturbing, to say the least. What a bleak life that would be. There are still so many things left for us to do and far too many things left unsaid.
He saved my life. He risked his, not just by stepping in front of a bullet, but by getting himself involved with my mother’s husband. Uncle Jameson—er Jameson—explained some of that to me as well, how he came to Gray’s doorstep and gave him a test of sorts—although he wouldn’t give much in the way of details as to just what that test entailed. All he said was Gray passed with flying colors, and that Jameson knew he could trust him.
I sit with mom for a spell but she remains asleep the entire time. Even though I know she probably can’t hear me, I read her a couple of articles out of Cosmopolitan until Jameson finally interrupts me. I still can’t bring myself to call him Dad, but I’ve at least dropped the Uncle from his name.
Maybe one day…after all the dust has settled around us.
“I just passed Lyra on the way up from the cafeteria. She said you could come on back down whenever you're ready. They’re wanting to talk about his prognosis, if anything’s changed, and possible options according to how he does the next few days. Apparently they seem to think he’s improved in the last 24 hours. The family wants you there for all that.”
I pause, speechless for a moment, before clearing my throat. “Okay.” Sitting the magazine back on the bedside, I lean down and kiss Mom’s cheek. “See you later, Mama,” I whisper.
Before I leave the room, Jameson picks up the magazine and asks, “Where’d you leave off at?”
I smile, walking back over and taking it from him to flip to the page I was on. Passing it back, I leave the room slightly amused to hear his deep timbre reading out loud about the newest fashion trends and which stars are sporting them.
When the elevator doors open for Gray’s floor, I step out, only to have my shoulder clipped by a doctor I recognize as being one of the two overseeing Gray’s care. A few other hospital staff and hot on his heels as they rush past. It’s like I can feel the urgency rippling off them as they make their way down the corridor the corridor to my left—ironically, or not, the same one Gray’s room is down.
My skin prickles with an uneasy sensation. Nurse June—who is an angel in disguise—seems to notice me standing here, her eyes meeting mine with a fleeting look of sympathy.
And that’s how I know.
My feet, feeling like they’re made of lead, are as good as useless when I attempt to run after them. A deathly concoction of adrenaline and fear slides through my veins when I make it to Gray’s room just as his family is being ushered out the door.
And that’s how I know.
My feet, feeling like they’re made of lead, are as good as useless when I attempt to run after them. A deathly concoction of adrenaline and fear slides through my veins when I make it to Gray’s room just as his family is being ushered out the door.
I barely register the, “I’m sorry. You’ll have to stay outside,” being issued by one of the faculty members, because all I can focus on are Lyra’s gut-wrenching sobs. Then, all I can see, is the scene unfolding before me as I watch through the open window—the staff seemingly having forgotten to close the curtains in their haste. It’s like watching one of those angst-filled television shows on a big-screen television, like ER or Grey’s Anatomy.
More like Gray’s Anatomy. Fuck, how I want to let out a humorless laugh at the irony, but I’m too numb to do anything other than watch helplessly. The team works together in organized panic, and while I don’t recognize much of what they’re doing in the whirlwind of chaos, I do recognize the device placed between his lips as being on used for resuscitation. Several people are working over top of him to perform CPR, the Doctor’s hands pressing down repeatedly over top of my tattoo, Gray’s inked heart.
How could everything go downhill so quickly?
My eyes land on the monitor at his side, at the random jumble of lines that seem to have no rhythm at all when they should be steadily zig-zagging up and down. And my own heart sinks in my chest.
Lyra’s sobs get louder and louder, and Nana Rose wraps one arm around my shoulder, snaking her hand around my head and pressing me against her protectively. She does the same to Lyra with her other arm. I glance over a Lyra for a split second, and it hits me, the loud sobs I’ve been attributing to her—are actually coming from me.
And then, the medical team brings out something else I recognize…the defibrillator.
My entire body stiffens when I glance back to Gray’s motionless body, his chest exposed where the doctors have ripped the hospital gown off him further. Slowly, the paddles come down to zap him. Everyone outside inhales in unison, holding their breath as one. Time seems to stop, crawling by like the universe isn’t satisfied with all the torture and torment that’s already been thrown in his direction, in my direction.
And sure enough, I’m right…from the way the team is still moving around urgently, it’s not difficult to decipher things didn’t go the way the should’ve.
The doctor prepares the mechanism again, all the while I’m begging God with a desperate chant whispered over and over.
Please don’t take him from me.
The paddles come down again.
The universe shouts out to me in victory, “I’ve won!”
But the universe should know, being boastful over winning usually comes back to bite you in the ass.
The monitor comes alive again; the tangled mess of lines settling to a strong and steady beat, one I can somehow hear even through the closed door due to my body being in a state of hyperawareness. My eyes shift to Gray’s chest, and so far, seconds later, he’s still breathing.
Minutes later, the Doctor emerges from the room. His eyes are tired and weary, his face filled with apprehension.
I know I should be listening to everything he says, retaining every bit of information and storing it away. But I’m too in awe of watching Gray’s chest rise and fall, at the beautiful pattern of his heartbeats lining the screen. I do pick up a few phrases like “seems okay for now” and “monitor him more closely,” and it’s enough to give me a sense of relief for the time being.
Squeezing us each hard one time, Nana’s arms fall away. He might not be awake, but something about the excitement in the Doctor’s voice leads me to believe this was much more than they hoped for. It’s a step in the right direction and reason for hope to continue.
~XoXo~
With each passing day, Gray seems to improve. Three nights after the incident, when the rest of the family has headed back to Gray’s apartment to stay the night, I sneak into his room. I’m sure I haven’t successfully “snuck” anywhere, but at this point, the nurse doesn’t argue; she just turns a blind eye.
Love on the Rise: Book Two of The Against All Odds Series Page 29