Save My Soul

by K. S. Haigwood

  What was wrong with me? I had never in my life obsessed or ogled over a guy before, and I didn't like doing it now.

  "Yes, we know about your unfortunate accident; that's why we're here. We came to get you," Coen said sadly.

  I couldn't have heard him right. I was going to need a little more explanation than that. "I'm sorry. I don't think I understand what you are saying. Where, exactly, will you be taking me?" I so did not want to hear the answer, but I wasn't sure I was going to have a choice. I was almost positive that I couldn't make them leave.

  "We're here to take you to heaven, Kendra." Rhyan said.

  I was beginning to like Rhyan less and less. "No, I don't think so. You see, Dr. Chamberlain fixed me and I'm all better now. They're just waiting for me to wake up. Then I will heal and go home. Back to my job. Back to my dog, Hercules. Back to my life." The thought of my miniature Chihuahua at home made me want to cry. Who was going to take care of him if I let Rhyan and Coen take me? I couldn't let them. I had too much left to do with my life. Hell, I was only twenty-nine and hadn't even considered marriage yet. I didn't have any children yet, wasn't sure I wanted any, but I wanted the option.

  "The thing is, Kendra, you aren't going to wake up." Rhyan said.

  "Well, there is one way…" Coen said.

  "No Coen, I was sent here to get her, and she is going back with me." Rhyan said.

  I spoke only to Coen. I didn't like how Rhyan was so definite, but Coen clearly had another option, and I wanted to hear it. "What? Tell me, Coen. What can I do to stay here? What can I do to live again?"

  Rhyan tried to speak again, but somehow Coen muted his voice so I could barely hear him shouting at me.

  "I have been Adam Chamberlain's Guardian Angel for the last thirty-two years. Rhyan has been yours. You have listened to Rhyan, or your conscience, should I say, in your twenty-nine years here on Earth. Adam has a lost soul. He is a disbeliever and I need someone's assistance to help him find his way back to the good side. I was the reason you could hear in the operating room. I wanted you to hear what a God complex our young Adam has before you made the decision to take my offer. If you can help me, I promise you will have your life back."

  I was quiet for a few moments. I didn't know what to say, but I knew I had to try. "What do I have to do?" I couldn't see Coen, but I could have sworn he was smiling.

  "I can only give you till next Friday, Kendra, but I have faith in you. You have a very kind heart, and a competitive mind. It's simple; all you have to do is lead him in the right direction."

  "Which direction is that?" I asked.

  "He has to believe in God, Kendra. We are not allowed to mess with free will, and his mind is so closed off that he no longer hears me. I only have one week to get him on the right path before they give me to someone else. Adam will no longer have a conscience. No one to tell him what is right, and what is wrong. He will truly be lost then."

  "How do I do that, Coen? I was raised believing there's a God and that I'm saved. How do you make someone believe who's never believed?" I could hear him smiling again. I didn't know how I was able to sense his emotions, but I could. I wasn't going to question it further.

  "Oh, he's believed before, Kendra. The thing about a conscience is that it's split in two halves; the good and the bad. I'm the good half, and I must warn you now, you will meet the bad half before your week is up. He has a whole lot more power over Adam than I do. I would say Murry has about ninety percent to my ten percent. It will be hard, but if you want to live, I know you can do it and save the both of you."

  "But how…" I knew my mind's voice cracked, because for the first time in a long time, I felt helpless.

  "Perhaps the young doctor needs to remember how it feels to love again."

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  Chapter Three

  I opened my eyes to no pain at all. I could feel my body, but I didn't hurt anywhere. Let's hear it for miracles! I didn't know how Coen had done it, but I was definitely going to give him a big kiss when I met him for real. There was an oxygen mask on my face and an I.V. in my left arm. I had little round white patches on my chest and back, and something clipped onto my right index finger. You would think by looking at me that I was dying or something.

  I took the mask off and sat up. I looked to my left and saw that drool was dripping out of Mason's mouth. His head was bent in an awkward position. How could anybody sleep like that?

  I knew one way to get him on his feet. I slipped my finger out of the plastic device, and the machine went from beeping steadily to flatline. Just as I had thought, he jumped to his feet before his eyes were even fully open.

  He stared at me as if I had an extra nose.

  This was fun. I wondered momentarily how the doctor would react the first time he saw me awake.

  "Hi, Mason." I said cheerfully then looked down at the I.V. still stuck in my arm. "Will you help me take off these sticky things? I could really use a shower. I'm still all dirty from the accident."

  Mason rubbed his face frantically with both his hands, then ran them through his semi-short brown hair. He had very pretty smoky blue, almost gray, eyes. I could tell immediately why the nurse's aide had been interested.

  "Are you just going to stare at me, or help me take this stuff off?" I asked as I yanked off two of the little white patches, simultaneously. It hurt, but then again, I figured it would. I started to grab two more, but he grabbed my hands and shook his head without taking his wide eyes away from mine. He hit a few buttons on the heart monitoring machine, and the solid beep went silent.

  "Stop…" he said as if there wasn't another word in his vocabulary.

  I turned my head to the side and smiled up at him.

  "You died…twice. You should be in pain. You shouldn't even be off the ventilator yet, but I went on instinct that you didn't need it. You do, however, need oxygen and blood and antibiotics." He was talking like he was trying to convince himself more than me.

  I nodded in agreement so he wouldn't think he had gone crazy. There needed to be only one crazy person in this room, and that was yours truly. "Yes, Mason, but as you can see, I am already healed."

  He looked away from my face for the first time to look at my arms. There were no scars, or even any scratches for that matter. His eyes grew wider, and he slowly backed away from me.

  "How? I sewed you up myself. You should still have stitches." He rubbed his eyes again. "I'm still asleep, I have to be."

  I was getting absolutely nowhere with him, and I suddenly didn't want to know how Dr. Chamberlain would react to my miracle recovery. He was good, but he wasn't that good. I just hoped he knew that, or my shoes were bigger than I was going to be able to fill. I ripped two more of the sticky things off my chest and watched Mason as he picked up the phone without taking his eyes from me.

  "Dr. Chamberlain to recovery, STAT…Dr. Chamberlain to recovery, STAT."

  I finished ripping the little stickers off my chest and then began to work on the tape around my I.V.

  "Look, you have got to stop. At least wait for Dr. Chamberlain to get here. I'll get in trouble if I let you do all this." His eyes were pleading with me, and I felt bad that he didn't understand, so I stopped trying to remove the I.V. needle from my arm. "How do you know my name? I forgot my name badge this morning, and I'm sure I haven't met you before." He smiled, sheepishly. "I think I would have remembered."

  I thought for a moment, and then decided the truth would set everything straight. "Well, you may need to sit back down, and if I'm going to tell you the truth, you have to promise to try and understand. Otherwise, I will tell Adam that you fell asleep while you were supposed to be watching me." I gave him my most serious face, and I guess it worked, because he sat in the chair to the left of me, the one he'd been sleeping in.

  "I promise to try and understand," he choked out.

  I heard a loud bang, and both our gazes shot to the recovery room door where a man ran in with five nurses close at his back. They looked like a
S.W.A.T. team in scrubs, ready to take down anything in their path. The man in front was wearing navy blue scrubs; they fit him a little too well. He was about five-ten with broad shoulders that had, "I hit the gym regularly" written all over them. He wasn't too muscular, but he was clearly in shape. Every inch of him was lean and defined. I had to focus on my breathing. He had black hair, cut neat, with eyes so dark brown I wouldn't have been able to swear if they were dark brown or black. I could see the coldness in his eyes, and knew then what Coen had put me up against. This was my doctor, our Adam that I had to fix, or I died again in a week.

  His eyes widened with amazement, and his lips parted ever so slightly. I had a strange urge to touch those lips with my own. I shook my head to clear the thought then smiled at him. "Hello, Adam." His lips opened a little more as if he were about to speak, or maybe he was in shock. Then he closed his mouth and just stared at me.

  "Kendra was just about to explain how she is already healed, and also how she knows who we are," Mason said nervously.

  Dr. Chamberlain licked his lips uneasily as he stared at me. "She was, was she?" His voice was just like I remembered it. It may have had a little nervous quiver, but it was still beautifully strong in my book.

  I nodded at him, glanced at the nurses, then moved my gaze back to meet those dark eyes of his again. "If you don't mind, Adam, I would really like to get the rest of this stuff off of me and take a shower. Then we can talk more about this in private. I would prefer only you, but I told Mason I would try to explain, and I will keep my word. So, only you and Mason if you don't mind."

  Adam stood there and finally blinked at me. He turned to the nurse on his left. "Debbie, will you please help Ms. Larkin to a shower and help her get cleaned up." Mason began to unravel the tape around the I.V., and the petite older woman to Adam's left came to my right side and began removing the sticky patches from my back.

  When everything was removed from my body except for my hospital gown, Mason rolled a wheel chair to my bed. I just looked at it and raised an eyebrow at him. I threw the sheet off my legs and set my feet on the floor. Everyone looked on edge, as if they would all jump to catch me if I fell.

  Mason took my left arm and looked at me. "I know you think you can do it, but until I hear how this is all possible, let me escort you for my benefit."

  I nodded as I smiled up at him. He wasn't that much taller than me. He had me beat by a few inches maybe, and I was five-six. Mason was handsome in a high school baseball guy sort of way. You knew he played sports by the way his upper body was built, and by the way he walked and stood. He still looked like a kid to me, but I was twenty-nine, so a kid to me was twenty-eight and under.

  I looked at Adam. He was still in shock, and I didn't think he looked like a kid at all. If I ever swooned, I would have been swooning right then. I wanted it to be him escorting me to the shower so I could catch a whiff of the cologne or aftershave he was wearing to see if it smelled as good as my imagination had let on earlier, but he had only blinked once that I had noticed. I had better let Mason, or I may be the one holding up the good doctor, instead of the other way around.

  "I'm going to need clothes," I whispered to Mason as we walked toward the double doors of the recovery room. I was a little embarrassed asking him for such things, but it wasn't as if I had planned to go pin wheeling down a rocky cliff face, landing myself in the trauma center.

  He laughed a little then looked behind him at the other gawkers. "Any of you ladies have a change of clothes you are willing to part with for a little while?"

  A very pretty nurse with short brown hair stepped up. The look on her face wasn't of amazement or shock like the others. She looked upset about something, and I could tell she was trying to hide it behind that fake smile of hers. "I'm about the only one close to your size. Follow me to the women's locker room, and I'll give you what I have."

  I noticed the voice instantly. It was Sherri, the girl Adam had shouted at and kicked out of his operating room. I nodded in agreement then Mason and I followed her through the door.

  "Bring her to my office when she's finished with her shower, Mason," Adam said from behind us. I had to turn and look at him. The urge was too strong not to. Yep, he was still perfect with that confused look on his face and that cold look in his eyes. I took a quick mental picture so I could compare it to the one I would take after I took that coldness out of his eyes. I had one week, one week to make him believe in God. God help me.

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  Chapter Four

  Sherri handed me a pair of black scrubs from her locker. "I don't have an extra pair of panties, and I'm sure my extra bra wouldn't fit you." She looked at my chest and I looked at hers. She couldn't have been any bigger than a "B cup" and I was a solid "D." I could go without any panties, but I very much disliked going without a bra.

  I smiled. "Was my bra totally ruined in the accident?"

  She nodded without looking at me. "Adam, I mean, Dr. Chamberlain, cut it off of you before the operation began." She seemed to look at me for the first time, and realization crossed through her eyes. "You don't have a scratch on you." She absentmindedly ran her fingers down my arm. I didn't pull back. It wasn't like she was coming on to me or anything, but for the first time, I saw amazement in her light brown eyes. "You aren't going to tell us how this happened, are you?"

  I nodded, a little embarrassed that Adam had seen me naked. "I will tell Adam and Mason, but I don't expect them to believe me. Hell, I wouldn't believe it if it hadn't personally happened to me. I'm not a freak or some immortal creature that can magically heal my wounds by wishing it so. Stuff like this just doesn't happen." I lowered my gaze from her eyes and looked at my bare unpolished toenails. "It was just a miracle, I guess."

  She was silent for only a moment before she spoke again. "The showers are through there. We all keep it stocked with the items you will need to get clean. Help yourself. I'll be out in the hall with Mason. You look capable of washing your own body." I could tell she was irritated with me for not sharing the reason for my rapid recovery, but I didn't want everyone to know. It was truly a miracle what Coen had done, and I didn't want to be caught up in the lights of camera crews for the next week. I had a mission to complete.

  As I walked away from her to the showers, I heard the door open and close behind me. The shower room was large and didn't have stalls. That was fine, I was alone. There were ten shower heads, four on the left, four on the right, and two on the narrower wall in front of me. I laid my scrubs on a dry bench outside of the shower room and went to the nearest shower head that was stocked with shampoo, conditioner and body wash. I took the hospital gown off and let it fall to the floor before I stepped up and turned the spray on. The water pressure was perfect. I stood for a moment with my eyes closed, soaking in all the heat from the water.

  How was I supposed to convert someone to Christianity? Coen said that Adam had believed before. What had happened to change his mind? I didn't know, and I wasn't going to find out until I talked to him face-to-face. I quickly washed my hair and body then used one of the white towels I found folded on the bench to dry off.

  I dressed quickly and wrapped my long, dark brown hair in the towel I had used to dry my body. I walked barefoot to the door and opened it to about twenty people standing in the hall. Mason moved quickly to me, put his arm around my shoulder and pushed through the crowd of onlookers. There were shouts from a few of the nurses, but I was too stunned to understand what they were saying.

  Mason got me in an elevator and hit the fourth floor button. He sighed and rubbed his eyes again as he leaned back against the elevator wall.

  "I thought you had a date?" I said.

  He slowly opened his eyes and looked at me like I was crazy. "What are you?"

  I smiled. "I'm just a girl who's getting a second chance."

  The elevator dinged, letting us know we had arrived at our destination. The doors opened and Mason walked out without waiting on me. I followed him. We didn't h
ave to go far. A brown and white nameplate by the third door on the right read, "Dr. Adam Chamberlain, M.D." Mason walked in, and I followed. He shut the door behind me and locked it. I turned around, giving him a confused look.

  He shrugged. "It's for your safety. You're building up quiet a fan base here at the hospital and they all want to know how you healed so quickly."

  I nodded at him then looked back at the desk. Adam was sitting behind it with his face in his hands and his elbows propped on the solid wood. There wasn't any one particular thing that made him handsome. He had a nice body, nice eyes, nice hair, and a nice symmetrical shape to his face, but nothing stood out and screamed beautiful. Everything that was nice about his body worked together to make him beautiful.

  He removed his hands from his face and motioned for me to sit in one of the two chairs in front of his desk. I did, and Mason took the other. I was suddenly aware that I wasn't wearing a bra, so I crossed my arms over my chest.

  Adam sighed. "Where would you like to begin, Ms. Larkin?"

  "Call me Kendra, please."

  He nodded once. "Fine…Where would you like to begin, Kendra?"

  I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I could hear you talking the whole time you were operating on me."

  Adam and Mason both sat up a little straighter in their chairs. "You are saying that you heard everything that happened? Could you feel anything?"

  I shook my head and lowered my gaze. "No, I couldn't feel or see anything." I waited a moment then continued. "I heard you arguing with Sherri. I heard when I died…twice, and how persistent you were to save my life. I heard Mason, and other nurses, trying to stop me from bleeding to death. I remember hearing my body flap against the table when I was seizing. I heard you and Mason talking about my medical history, and then he sewed me up and took me to recovery." I glanced at Mason. I wouldn't get him in trouble by telling Adam that he fell asleep in recovery. That would just be mean.