by Paris Hansen
“I’m sorry. My name is Gabriel Archer. I own Arrow restaurant in the Junction. I’m really sorry for my behavior, but I’m sure you can understand. I won’t be leaving the hospital until she wakes up so you can find me there or here’s my card with all my contact information on it,” Gabriel said as he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.
Pulling a card from the worn leather, he handed it to the officer who then gave him the go ahead to collect Savannah’s things. As soon as he’d gotten everything loaded into Brooklyn’s car, he climbed into the driver’s seat and pulled out his cell phone. These were the last calls he ever wanted to make again and yet here he was. His first call went to the St. James’. Hearing Rebecca’s hysterical cries through the phone tore him up. It reminded him of the night his mother heard about Jonathan’s accident which had been one of the worst nights of his life.
After getting Michael’s assurance that they would meet him at Harborview, he hung up and dialed Finley. She was more difficult to get a hold of since she rarely answered her cell phone when she was at the club given the shitty reception, but he knew he had to try because she would want to be with Savannah during this. After getting no answer at one number, he tried the other one he had for her. After five rings, she finally answered the club phone sounding out of breath.
“Fin…there’s been an accident.”
“Dumbass, what are you talking about?”
Gabriel sighed before going into the gory details. Finley swore and cursed the fact that she had let Valerie leave his office that day in anything other than a body bag. Gabriel felt the same way. There were so many ways he could have stopped this entire thing from happening. He had brought misery into Savannah’s life and he wasn’t sure that the love they shared was going to be enough to overshadow that. As soon as she agreed to meet him at the hospital, Gabriel started the car and maneuvered his way out of Brooklyn’s parking spot. He had to work around the people that were still milling around the scene. He had a hospital to get to and he didn’t want to let them waste his time. More than once he laid on the horn to get people out of his way, which he thought was a far better plan then nudging them with the car given what had happened.
Once he was free from Savannah’s street he sped through West Seattle until he reached the West Seattle Bridge and then sped across that and the short span of I-5 that he had to be on. The drive that normally took at least fifteen minutes took him only eight. While he parked the car, Gabriel was more than surprised and very thankful that he hadn’t gotten pulled over on his way to the hospital. He ran full out from his parking spot to the emergency room entrance.
“Sir are you okay?” a woman behind the counter asked when he stopped inside of the sliding glass doors. She looked him up and down, her eyes lingering on his hands. He glanced down to see what she was looking at and that was when he realized that he was covered in blood. His hands, his clothes and god only knew what else.
“My girlfriend was just brought in. Savannah St. James. Her sister Brooklyn rode in with her. Where can I find them?” he asked as he wrung his hands together.
“The hit and run victim, right? She’s been taken into surgery. Her sister should be over in the family waiting room,” she told him, the look on her face had gone from concern to pity. “If you’d like to clean up, the bathroom is to the right of the waiting room.”
“Thank you. Her parents should be here soon and her best friend. I don’t think there was anyone else I was supposed to call,” he muttered as he walked to the bathroom.
Shock started to set in while he scrubbed his hands with soap and the hottest water he could stand. Pink tinged water swirled in the bottom of the sink. Seeing Savannah’s blood made his stomach lurch and before he could stop it, he was bending over the garbage losing every ounce of liquid he had in his stomach. His throat and eyes burned while he continued to dry heave and cry until he had nothing left in him. He sank to the floor, his head falling to his bent knees. He had to get a grip, get himself together before he could leave the bathroom. Out of everyone waiting for Savannah he had to be the strong one. Her family would need to lean on him. He needed to get everything out of his system before he could face them.
When he was able to control his breathing after a few minutes, he got up off of the floor and walked back over to the sink where the water was still running. He splashed water on his face and then gargled with some to try and rinse the taste of bile out of his mouth. When he looked at least somewhat presentable, he shut off the water and dried his hands. Taking one last deep breath, he left the bathroom and headed to the family waiting room. Brooklyn sat in a chair alone, her head in her hands, her body shaking with each loud sob. Gabriel was actually glad that he’d gotten himself together before her parents and Finley arrived. He wanted to be there for everyone from the beginning.
“Brook…” he said softly trying to get her attention before he sat down next to her. He didn’t want to startle her or make anything worse so he walked to her slowly and said her name until she looked up at him. Her eyes were swollen and rimmed with smeared mascara. Black streaks trailed down her cheeks. There was blood on her clothes and hands, but nowhere near the amount that had covered Gabriel. Before sitting down next to her he waived down a nurse and asked if there were any wet wipes or anything that she could bring them so he could help clean her up. He knew there was no way he could get her to the bathroom, but the blood wasn’t helping Brooklyn and it wouldn’t help her parents either.
Sitting down next to his girlfriend’s sister seemed strange. Wrapping his arm around her seemed even stranger. He pulled her against him and let her continue to cry against his shoulder. His shirt was soaking wet in no time, but he didn’t care. She needed to cry until she couldn’t cry anymore and Gabriel planned on being her shoulder until she no longer needed him. When the nurse returned with a container of cleaning wipes, he silently thanked her.
“Brooklyn, I’m going to clean some of this blood off of you okay? I want to get rid of as much of it as I can before your parents get here,” he told her before removing his arm from her shoulders and grabbing her hands. He carefully and methodically scrubbed her hands and arms, then cleaned the make-up from her cheeks. By the time he was done, her parents were rushing into the room followed closely by Finley. He stood up, helping Brooklyn to stand; her legs were shaking as her parents barreled into her nearly knocking her over. The St. James family hugged and cried together for what seemed like forever while Gabriel stood awkwardly to the side. He looked over at Finley who had her arms wrapped around herself, her face also stained with make-up and tears.
“Have you heard anything yet?” she asked, her voice so quiet Gabriel barely heard her.
He shook his head before opening his arms and motioning for her to come to him. Finley didn’t hesitate to rush into his arms allowing him to comfort her while she cried. Time ticked by while they waited for an update. Although, he knew that Finley was still pissed at him, she never left his side. Savannah’s dad paced the room, leaving his wife and other daughter to hold onto each other as they cried in the corner. Gabriel wasn’t sure how they had any tears left by the time the doctor finally walked into the room asking for Savannah’s family.
“That’s us,” Rebecca said jumping up from her chair and hurrying over to where the doctor stood. Brooklyn held her mother’s left hand while Michael held her right. Gabriel and Finley stood off to the side, both unsure if they should join the family to find out Savannah’s fate. Before the doctor started to speak, Brooklyn motioned for them to come forward reaching out to wrap her left hand in Gabriel’s right.
“Miss St. James should have suffered considerable damage when she was hit by the car and then again when she was thrown to the ground, but she was luckier than most. She has a lot of scrapes and bruises and a couple of broken ribs which caused some serious internal damage. When she hit the ground, she hit her head which is where most of the blood came from. We don’t see any swelling of the brain just yet, but we’ll be
observing her for the next few days as a precaution. It was the internal injuries that we had to rush her into surgery for. Both her spleen and her liver were lacerated and we had to go in to repair those,” the doctor paused and looked at all of them, his face looking even more solemn then it had when he started.
“Just tell us, doctor,” Gabriel said urging him to continue.
“When we did the initial ultrasound to see what was damaged and where we needed to go during surgery we discovered that Miss St. James was pregnant. From what we could tell she was about 7-8 weeks along. However, there was some bleeding in the uterus, not as much as in other areas of her body, so we triaged the uterus as the last place we would work after we stopped the bleeding elsewhere. About halfway through the surgery, her vitals dropped and we searched for the source of the crash and discovered that her uterus had started to hemorrhage. We patched her up as quickly as we could, but I’m really sorry, we were not able to save the pregnancy, she miscarried while we were trying to save her.”
For the second time that day Gabriel felt like he had been punched in the stomach. Finley’s hands tightened around his bicep and Brooklyn’s hand tightened around his, but he barely felt them. His entire body felt numb as his mind tried to process the words that the doctor had just said. Pregnant…Savannah had been pregnant. Did she know? If so, how come she didn’t say anything to him? How would she feel about him once she realized that not only had he broken her heart, but he was responsible for her losing her baby…their baby, as well?
“Oh god,” Rebecca said, her sobs starting all over again as she curled into her husband’s side.
“Miss St. James is resting now, she looks good at this point, but we are still keeping a close eye on her brain and her vitals just in case. We’ve moved her into her own room upstairs. There’s a waiting room up there that’s a little more comfortable. In a little while you can go in and see her, but please keep your visits short and to one or two people at a time. She needs to rest and may not be awake when you get up there, but I assure you, she was lucky and definitely looks a lot worse than she is.”
The doctor gave them directions to Savannah’s room and then left them huddled together in the waiting room. Rebecca was still sobbing into her husband’s shoulder muttering about her baby and her baby’s baby. Gabriel’s heart hurt. He had done this to them and they didn’t know it. They welcomed him into their family, shared their pain with him, yet they had no idea that he was the one that had brought it on them. He was sick to his stomach and he knew that if there was anything left to throw up, he would be crouched over another garbage can.
“I have to get some air,” Gabriel whispered to Finley who was still holding onto his arm.
“Gabriel…”
“Just go up. I’ll meet you up there. I just…this is my fault Fin. I need some time to process.”
“I get it. Just don’t be too long. I know, despite everything that’s happened between you, she’ll want to see you. She’s not the only one who lost a baby today, Gabriel. You don’t have to mourn that loss alone too. Please don’t make that mistake again.”
Finley sighed before squeezing his arm and then walked over to join Savannah’s family near the door. They were heading up to the other waiting room and although Gabriel wanted to go with them, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not yet. He might have lost something too, but it was entirely his fault and as soon as Savannah realized that, she would want nothing to do with him. Hell, he was pretty sure she wanted nothing to do with him already, given what had happened prior to the accident. He would go up and see her, but he needed some time to process what happened and decide on what to say now that things had changed even more. The speech he had prepared after leaving Arrow would no longer work and it no longer mattered. Gabriel had to make her see that although he loved her more than anything, it was probably better that she left him behind since all he seemed to bring her was pain; even if getting her to realize that was going to break his heart.
Chapter 11
God she hurt. Every single piece of her body was bruised, broken or cut from the inside out. And her heart…her heart was torn into a million pieces that she wasn’t sure she could ever put back together again. In a way Savannah was glad that with every millimeter she moved, her body cried out in pain. Physical pain overshadowed her wounded heart at least enough to almost ignore it, but every time someone mentioned what she had lost that day, the ache in her chest got worse. She hadn’t just lost Gabriel; she had lost the life that they had created together. The life that she hadn’t even known about until it was gone.
Savannah bit her lip, trying to hold back the sob that would only cause her more physical pain. She’d cry later, when it didn’t hurt so much. Maybe by then all of the emotional pain would be lessened and she wouldn’t need to cry, but she had a feeling that hoping for something like that was foolish. There was no way that the anguish that she felt now would ever go away, let alone become dull enough to ignore. Not if she had to face it all alone. She understood now what Gabriel had meant when he told her that she couldn’t understand what he was feeling because she had never experienced the losses that he had. Now he was the only one who would get how she felt and he wasn’t with her. Sure her family and Finley sympathized with her, but they didn’t know how torn apart she felt.
She could never express to them the guilt she felt because they would never understand. To everyone else the accident was Valerie’s fault. But Savannah felt differently, she felt responsible. She didn’t understand how she never realized she was pregnant? If she had known, she would have done so many things differently. She would have fought harder for Gabriel. She wouldn’t have let Valerie win. If she had only known, her baby…Gabriel’s baby would still be growing inside her.
Savannah hated that it would have taken knowledge of the baby to get her to fight harder for her man. Gabriel should have been worth the fight on his own, but she let things go too far. She let the situation get away from her and it ended exactly how she knew it would. The fact that she failed Gabriel and their relationship just added more guilt to the pile that was resting on her shoulders.
“Sweetie, we’re going to stay here with you tonight. Do you need anything?” her mother asked breaking her from her thoughts.
“I feel fine mom. You heard the doctor. Everything is looking good so far, they just want to keep me a bit for observation. You don’t need to stay. Go home, get some rest and come back tomorrow. If anything happens, they’ll call you.”
“God, if anything happens, Michael…no, Savannah, we can’t leave. I don’t want to not be here if something happens. I don’t want you to be alone.”
“Mom, nothing’s going to happen,” Savannah tried to reassure her mother, but she wasn’t sure it was going to work. The last thing she wanted was to have her family hovering over her. Even if visiting hours were over or the doctors made them leave the room, knowing they were right outside in the waiting room made her antsy.
“She won’t be alone Mrs. St. James. I’ll be here and I’m sure Gabriel will sit with her as soon as he’s done straightening things out with Arrow and DD. You all look dead on your feet and Brooklyn needs a shower and a change of clothes. Go home, take care of yourselves, then come back in the morning. Your daughter will be fine, I promise.”
Savannah was thankful for her friend’s intervention and for her parent’s obliviousness to the fact that Gabriel had been gone for hours. From what Finley told her, Gabriel had walked out of the hospital when they were given the all clear to come up to her floor nearly five hours earlier. She had no idea what he was doing, but using the restaurant and Savannah’s business as an excuse was a brilliant idea. After another fifteen minutes of cajoling, her parents finally relented and agreed to go home for a few hours. At this point Savannah was willing to take whatever she could get. With any luck by the time they came back she’d be asleep and her worries about Gabriel would be over. She needed to speak to him, to see him. She needed to make sure he was a
lright.
“Why hasn’t he come up here Fin?” she asked as soon as her parents were out the door.
With a sigh, Finley threw herself down into the chair next to Savannah’s bed. “I don’t know sweetheart. All I know is that he loves you so much and knowing that Valerie’s the one that did this…”
“What if he blames me? What if me losing the baby…”
“You stop right there,” Finley interrupted. “There is no way that man will blame you for any of this. And you losing the baby will not change the way he feels about you. I promise you that. You should have seen him this afternoon when I told him what happened with Valerie at his house. He said to me earlier that all of this is his fault. I don’t think he was just talking about the accident, Savvy. He’s being eaten up by guilt right now.”
“So am I.”
“You have nothing to feel guilty about. None of this was your fault. Not the accident. Not the baby. Not anything that happened before. All of this is on Valerie. She will get what’s coming to her, even if I have to take care of it myself. You and Gabriel just need to hash things out, get everything out on the table. I know that you won’t believe me until you hear this from him.”
“God, I need to talk to him Fin. Can you go find him please? Make him come see me. I want to hear what he has to say, good or bad. I just need him.”
“He’s probably still sitting outside. I’ll run down and see if I can find him, I just don’t like leaving you alone.”
“You’re as bad as my mom Finley,” Savannah said with a laugh that made her body throb with pain. “I’ll be fine for the short amount of time it’ll take you to find him. Call him if you have to; just make him come up here please.”
Finley nodded and then left Savannah alone in the cold, sterile hospital room. The room was thankfully a single occupancy that had enough space for the bed and a few small pieces of furniture. On the left of the bed were two uncomfortable looking chairs and a maneuverable table that she could pull over her whenever she needed it. There was a tiny box TV bolted into the corner of the room across from her bed that she hadn’t bothered to turn on. To the right of her bed she had a private bathroom and a small sink. The only noise in the room was the sound of her heartbeat on the monitor, although every once in a while sounds from the hall filtered into the room through the door that Finley had left slightly ajar.