by Kahlen Aymes
“I can help. This is what I’m trained for,” I replied urgently. I couldn’t stand there helpless when I was as equipped to work on Julia as any of the med students here, probably more, since trauma medicine was my focus. “Someone let me the hell in there!”
I couldn’t breathe and it felt as if my heart was going to break free of my chest. My whole life was crumbling in front of me and I couldn’t stop it. If Julia was dying, then I was, too.
An irresistible sneak peek into Book II of The Remembrance Trilogy as Ryan and Julia’s story continues in Don’t Forget to Remember Me…
~1~
I was sitting in my own personal hell. I was weeks from becoming a doctor and yet my hands were tied as Julia lay on a gurney in the next room. She was my whole world and she could be dying while I was helpless of the outcome; unable to do a Goddamn thing.
My mind raced with questions. Were they ordering blood gases? Was she in shock? How much blood had she lost and did she need a transfusion? Could she breathe on her own? When the hell were they going to do the scans that would determine the extent of her internal and head injuries? I thought my head would explode along with my lungs.
“What was she even doing in Boston?” I didn’t realize I’d said the words aloud.
“What the fuck is happening in there?!” I yelled as panic seized my chest and made my voice unrecognizable.
Min shook her head sadly. “We don’t know yet. Dr. Brighton is heading up the team. I know how much you respect him, so just let him do his job. You can’t work on her, Ryan. You can’t be impartial about someone you love this much. This is what’s best for Julia.”
Aaron put his arm around me to urge me toward the waiting room, but I shrugged him off impatiently. I felt claustrophobic; beginning to hyperventilate.
“Can you just tell me something? Go find out? They need to get her to radiology. When the hell are they going to order those tests?” I asked, turning back to Min. I was still trying to figure out how I was going to get in there. If I were a resident, I’d have just walked in, but not as a student. Even one who was graduating with Cum Laude honors soon.
My friend nodded and placed her hand on my shoulder before disappearing through the doors of one of the trauma rooms.
I tried to look in, but all I could see were a bunch of doctors and nurses scrambling around the room at a frantic pace. My heart stopped when I saw Julia’s arm hanging off the edge of the table, still as stone. Someone was intubating her and someone else was cutting off her clothes. Jenna was hanging up an IV bag near one end of the table and then inserting some medication into a port with a syringe, while Dr. Brighton conducted an examination. My whole body felt like it would explode into a million pieces, my skin crawling so much I wanted to rip it off.
“Let’s go to the waiting room,” my brother said softly. “You know they can’t take her anywhere until she’s stabilized. Can I get you some coffee?”
I shook my head and went to gaze out the window, out at the night and the lights of downtown. “I can’t, Aaron. I can’t sit around in there and do nothing! My God, what am I going to do?” My voice cracked and I cleared my throat. “I have to do something! Tell me what you know about the accident, and don’t bullshit me.”
“Uh, the cops who came in with the paramedics said that the cab driver was trying to get on Starrow Drive from Leverett Circle and it was plowed broadside on the rear passenger’s side. The driver is here too, but his injuries are minor. The guy driving the other car was killed; dead at the scene. The police said they found empty booze containers in his car and he was traveling at least 50 miles per hour. We’re lucky Julia wasn’t thrown from the car at that rate.”
I closed my eyes and put my hand up to rub the back of my neck. I didn’t know what I was feeling. I wanted to scream and cry at the unfairness of it all, yet I was numb, frozen. My knees were weak and I fell into a chair in the small waiting room. I dealt with this shit on a daily basis and it didn’t faze me in the slightest. But this was my baby and I couldn’t handle it.
There was a woman playing in the corner with a small child and I watched them build something with Legos. I stared at them, wanting something, anything, to focus on. My vision blurred and I felt a sob rise up in my chest but I struggled to keep it from bursting forth. I clasped my hands in front of me and hung my head in defeat. Aaron was sitting next to me and placed a hand on my back.
What was she doing here? I pulled her engagement ring off of my finger and rolled it around in my hand with the bracelet. Please, God. I’ll do anything. Anything!
I drew in a shaky breath and leaned back in the chair. “Aaron, I can’t just sit here.”
There was a commotion and the doors opened. I jumped up and rushed toward them. Several doctors and nurses were pushing the gurney out of the room along with an IV stand, a ventilator, oxygen and EKG. I saw Dr. Brighton and Jenna with them as I strained to get a look at Julia.
“Uhhh…” A groan ripped from my chest at the site. “Dr. Brighton…please. Can I see her? Is she conscious?”
He turned sad brown eyes on me and shook his head. “I don’t have time to talk right now Ryan. We need to do a chest X-ray, probably a CT scan of her head and torso. I’m fairly sure she has a pretty bad fracture on the left side of her skull. The blood is from a superficial laceration on her hairline which we’ve got under control, but we don’t know if there is internal bleeding yet. I can’t waste time talking now, son. I’m doing my best for her, I promise, but she is critical.”
I started shaking again as I looked on and they wheeled her away from me. Her clothes had been cut off of her and a white blanket placed over her, leaving bare skin visible below its edge. Her hair was matted with blood and she had so many machines connected to her and over her face I couldn’t recognize her. “I want to see her.” I knew it would be impossible. To save her life, time was imperative.
“As soon as we get these tests and know more, Ryan. There is no time to waste.” Jenna came forward and put her arms around my waist to in a quick hug.
“Here is what I know,” she said as she stepped back and looked up into my face. “We intubated her, but she is still struggling to breathe. We think she has a pneumothorax on the left side, maybe some fractured ribs. Her left shoulder is dislocated; she has lacerations and contusions to her face and scalp and the left side of her body. She probably has a head injury and some internal bleeding and, as you know, that is what the scans should tell us. I have to go with her, but, I’ll let you know when I know more details. I’m…so sorry, Ryan,” she said before she turned and hurried down the hall after Julia and the rest of the team, disappearing behind the double doors leading to radiology.
Aaron’s arms came around me, under my arms to catch me as my knees started to buckle. This couldn’t be happening. The dislocated shoulder and broken ribs weren’t life threatening, but if she had a head injury or internal bleeding, time was of the essence. Even the collapsed lung could be dealt with, but all of it together…I could lose her. I fell into Aaron’s arms and began gasping for breath and clutching at his shoulders.
“Aaron,” I cried brokenly. “This isn’t happening. Tell me this isn’t happening. Jesus…I love her so much. I can’t lose her.”
“We have some of the best doctors in the world here. We have to have faith, Ryan. We have to believe she’ll be okay.” His arms tightened around me and lifted me enough to get my feet under me. “She’ll be okay. We all love Julia. We all love her, man.” His voice broke on the last sentence as he hugged me. If Aaron was crying, then he didn’t believe she’d be okay. He never fucking cried. In all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen him shed a single tear.
I pushed away from him and pulled out my phone. I dialed the familiar number, pacing back and forth in the room that Julia and the medical staff had just vacated.
“Hello?” my father answered and I felt a new wave of emotion overcome me.
“Dad…”
“Ryan? Is that you? Did
something happen?” His voice was anxious and I could hear my mother’s distressed voice in the background as well.
“I need you to get to Boston right away. Julia’s been in a car accident. Her cab was broadsided and it looks like she has a serious head injury. Please. If she needs neurosurgery, I don’t want anyone else touching her. I’m going out of my fucking mind. Just…please come.”
“Oh my God! Yes, we’ll come, but if she does have a head injury, you have to let them treat her. Don’t wait for me, do you understand? You know as well as I do that treatment must be immediate. Waiting could kill her or leave her with serious brain damage. The first hour or two are critical! Ryan!” Dad yelled when I didn’t respond.
Fresh tears were forming and I couldn’t get the words out so I just nodded. Aaron ripped the phone from my shaking hand.
“Hey, Dad. Yes, okay. Call me with your flight details and I’ll pick you up at the airport.” Aaron turned his back to me and kept talking into the phone. “No, he’s not handling it well. Not at all. He’s really losing it. Are you sure? Okay. Yes, I called, but her mother didn’t answer. Yes, I’ll call again. Love you guys. Bye.”
I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor and rested my arms on my bent knees. Aaron closed the door and sat down on the one chair in the now empty room. The symbolism of it shook me to the core. Stark, empty space, where Julia used to be…cold and sterile.
I put my head in my arms and let the emotions I couldn’t contain wash over me. My shoulders shook in silent sobs until I finally had to gasp for breath and Aaron touched my shoulder.
“Mom and Dad are on their way. Ryan, I’m so sorry. She’s going to be okay.”
“She has to be, Aaron. She has to, or I won’t survive,” I whispered brokenly. “I won’t survive without her.”
“You need to try to pull it together, Ryan. You have to be strong for Julia. She wouldn’t want to see you like this.”
“Hmmph,” I let out my breath heavily. “Julia would want me to be honest about my feelings, and I feel like I’m falling apart…helpless; like I’m dying myself. I want to be in there and take this all away for her. I’d take her place if I could,” I choked out and I fisted my hands over both eyes.
Aaron was right. Unless I wanted her parents and Ellie to freak out, I needed to get control of my emotions. Even more importantly, when they let me see Julia, I had to be calm and reassuring. If she was conscious.
We sat there for what seemed like an eternity. Aaron left a couple of times to get coffee, but I didn’t move, praying that she would be okay and reliving so many of the wonderful times we’d shared. The day we met, the first time I kissed her or when we made love, when I put the engagement ring on her finger, the many Sunday coffee dates we were forced to spend apart, the move to New York. In all of my memories she was beautiful and smiling…whole. Not broken and bleeding. “Oh, my God,” I ground out brokenly. “No, please.”
I ran my hand through my hair and stood up to answer my phone. It was Julia’s dad.
“Hello, Paul.”
“Oh, thank God. Ryan, what do you know?” His voice was panicked, the catch in his voice giving away the level of his emotion.
“Not a lot right now. They took her to radiology for some scans. She probably has a skull fracture, but we won’t know the extent until after these films. She has a pneumothorax and a dislocated shoulder, contusions on her head, face and torso and probably some broken ribs.” My voice had taken on a clinical tone, on autopilot, as I rattled off the list.
“You sound like a doctor, Ryan. What is a pmeumothorax?”
“Oh, sorry. Um, a collapsed lung.” He gasped on the other end of the phone and my strong facade fell by the wayside when my voice thickened. I put my hand over my eyes and took a deep breath. “Paul, I’m really scared. All I want to do is get in there and help take care of her, but they won’t let me. They…won’t let me. I feel…so incredibly helpless.”
“Jesus.” Paul sighed. “Ryan, I’m sure you’re doing all you can. I’m glad you’re with her. I’ll get there as soon as I can. I’ve changed planes in Chicago and I’m already onboard. Ellie called and said she was going to meet me at the hospital and Marin is on her way, too.”
He was trying to comfort me when his baby girl was fighting for her life. I wished I could be that strong, but then, I’d seen her. I’d seen the blood and the machines and despite the fact I was around it all the time; but because it was Julia, it wrecked me.
“Yeah. My parents are on their way as well. If her head injury is serious, I want my father here to consult or…God forbid, operate, if it’s necessary.”
“I hope it’s not that serious, but I’m thankful that Gabriel is coming. I’ve made my bargains with God already. I’ll see you in a couple of hours. My little girl is lucky to have you, Ryan.”
It’s that serious. I closed my eyes in silent prayer.
“I’m the lucky one. She means everything to me, Paul.” I could feel my chest constrict again as I hung up the phone.
“Ryan?”
I turned to a shaken Jenna re-entering the room. “They’ve taken her to ICU. She has a fracture to the left side of her skull. We were able to re-inflate the lung, tape up her ribs and pop her shoulder back in. There is some slight swelling to her brain but radiology didn’t see any bleeding on the CT scan.”
“Is she breathing on her own?” I asked, fearing the answer with everything I had. “Did you need a chest tube or did the lung re-inflate on its own?”
Jen came forward and hugged me. “We were able to suck the air out with a big syringe so we didn’t need to tube her. She’s on a vent and hasn’t regained consciousness,” she said quietly.
I hugged her back. “No doubt due to the edema. All we can do is watch her now and make sure we catch any bleeds or fluids. We’re not out of the woods until she wakes up. Have they got her on blood thinners? Is the coma induced or not?” I asked wearily. I was exhausted and started rubbing the back of my neck. The next three or four days would tell the story. If she didn’t wake up before that, then chances were she never would.
“Ryan, stop trying to be a doctor. You’ve got enough to deal with,” Aaron began, but his words upset me. My jaw tightened and I bit back the words I wanted to retort.
“I want to know what is happening,” I said instead.
“She’s on several meds. She didn’t wake up on her own, but Dr. Brighton did order barbiturates to keep her asleep so her brain can heal and to help reduce the swelling. I don’t need to tell you the particulars,” Jenna said. She looked as exhausted as I felt and her eyes were red and swollen.
She moved back from the embrace and took my hands. “Thank you, Jen. I appreciate all you’ve done. Can I see her now? Is Dr. Brighton still with her?” The array of questions fell from my lips like rain.
“I’m sure they’re watching for hemorrhage. It’s common with traumatic brain injury,” Aaron interjected quietly and more contrite than before.
“I know that!” I shook my head and started walking out of the room, my intention to go straight up to ICU, but Jenna put a hand on my arm to stop me.
Her voice shook and she cupped my face with her palm. “Ryan,” she said hesitantly, her blue eyes full of sadness. “Julia had some vaginal bleeding and it was quite excessive.”
“She had internal bleeding?” I asked in panic. My heart started racing again but Jenna shook her head.
“Ryan, um…” She raised her tear-filled eyes to mine and brushed my hair back from my face.
“Jen, what is it?” I asked shortly. “What is it that you’re not saying?” Fear, even more prevalent than before, engulfed me.
“Did you know that Julia was pregnant?”
Until that very moment, I thought it couldn’t get any worse. I was wrong.
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