Evan has moved around where he could see me, if he could see. I start to read his body language and facial expression, a chill runs up my spine. This doesn’t feel right. “Did you call her?” he spits bitterly and I begin to pray for my shadows to be watching on the security cameras or nearby. I need to handle this gently so I reply quietly. “Yes, she texted me and I called her. Is that ok?” I answer looking up into his face squinting slightly in the sunlight, putting all my sensory feelers out, trying like hell to stay calm, don’t panic Mia.
“I can’t see.” he says frowning deeply, a furrow between his eyes deepening. “Mmmhmm, you haven’t been able to see for a few days now Evan, don’t you remember?” “NO, I don’t fucking remember, I think I’d know if I fucking went blind!” he yells and I jump knocking my iPad onto the floor causing it to stop playing. I’m positive now…this is evil Evan and I need to get out of here now before he tries something on me again, where the hell are Mr. Saint and Isaac when I actually fucking need them?
Chapter 19
“And I’m telling you I’m not Going”
Jennifer Hudson
My mind is whirling, going ten different places at once. My first instinct is to hop over the back of this chair and run, he is blind after all I could probably make it to the safe room. But as scared as I am I still know this isn’t my Evan but he’s in there, somewhere and I can’t leave him when he’s in trouble, even if it puts me at risk. I just can’t. So I decide for calm rational negotiating as long as I can get away with it or until Saint and Isaac realize this isn’t a friendly conversation. If they are watching I need to signal them, which you would think would be easy when the person you’re hiding it from is blind but this isn’t any ordinary person. I swear he has a sixth sense.
So I soothingly begin speaking to him and slowly casually begin to unfold my feet from under me. “Of course you would know, how stupid of me, I’m sorry Evan. Would you like to sit down? Can I get you anything?” I scoot to the edge of the love seat as quietly as I can so as to be in a better position to run but only if completely necessary. He begins to pace a small path following the edge of a rug, turning at the end of the fringe and using it as a guide to the opposite end and back again. He has one hand wrapped around the back of his neck while he flexes his head back, he’s in pain.
The fingers on his opposite hand twitch and I’m not sure it’s from nervousness or something physiological, either way he’s wound up tight. I’ve taken the last few moments to perch myself on the edge of my seat, ready for whatever he’s got. I’m sure I can make it out if I have to now. “No. I don’t want anything. Why can’t I see?” he's calmer now, irritable and angry but not as volatile…I think. “Well, you have a tumor in your brain.” he stops and stares straight ahead and I continue. “It’s growing and pressing against your optic nerves, the pressure is causing your blindness.”
I’m speaking very softly, using all of my nursing skills, trying like hell to keep him calm. “Why? Why doesn’t anybody help me?” he asks in a completely different tone, one that mirrors my own and my heart constricts in my chest and a bit of nausea hits my stomach out of nowhere. He’s so powerful yet so delicate at the same time. I want to go to him and comfort him but I’m still not sure what’s going on in his head. “I am trying to help you Evan, today I called a neurosurgeon and he’s coming to see you in a few days. I’m doing everything I can to help you. Ok?”
He nods, still holding the back of his neck. “Are you in pain?” “Yes.” “Is it your head?” “Yes.” “Would you like to sit?” I move very slowly to stand and glance around trying to figure out where the cameras are, shit I should have asked him about that. “Ok.” he agrees and I hesitantly reach out to touch his arm and help guide him to the couch. Shuffling like a zombie with me guiding him he sits down and surprises me by laying down on his back.
I grab a pillow before his body meets the cushion and tuck it there under his head. He's squeezing his eyes shut, the pain must be intense. Slowly, as not to disrupt the air around us, I raise my arm over my head and keep it there, wiggling only my fingers, trying to capture someone’s attention on camera. Evan opens his eyes and stares blankly at the ceiling. “What now?” he asks. “Now you rest.”
I take a deep breath and the air that fills my lungs feels cold, the sun slips under a cloud and the room darkens. I feel it like a vibration in my muscles, a chill on my skin and instinctively I attempt to move away from Evan but he grabs my wrist and pulls me to my knees next to the couch. “You think you’re just going to walk away from me, you little bitch?” Shocked, I try and yank my arm away and feel the sting of the carpet burn on my knees where they hit the floor but it’s a futile struggle. He’s got me. Tight.
I stutter a few words in an attempt to defend my reasons for having him lay down. He thinks I’m tricking him so I can run and actually it had crossed my mind but no, I’m not going, and I need to get that message across to him. “I’m not leaving you, no matter what, never, you got that?” I hope that it’s enough. But it’s not and before I can do or say anything else he’s pulled me up onto the couch with him by my wrists and log rolled me so I’m incapacitated under him. I may talk a brave talk but I’m fucking scared as hell.
“You’re a sickly looking little thing but I could still fuck you.” he threatens holding my arms at my sides and I can’t believe this is the same person I was just daydreaming about moments ago. “Please…please don’t Evan. I love you, please don’t hurt me…please...” Flashbacks of being raped and held hostage flicker like a horror movie in my mind.
I beg and shake my head back and forth, tears roll down the sides of my face into my hair and ears. A little sob follows my words and I start to believe I’m going to be subjected to rape again but this time at the hands of my own boyfriend, who is currently not my boyfriend but some horrible stranger. Then I hear the blessed sound of feet hitting the floor in the hall outside the living room coming our way, fucking finally! What is it with these assholes and leaving me hanging when it’s really important?
Evan hears them too though and holds my forehead still pushing my head into the cushions he smashes his mouth on mine banging our teeth together and biting at my lips. A muffled cry escapes me as Saint and Isaac enter the room. I hear them rushing toward us yelling at Evan to stop! Before they reach us though Evans body tenses up from head to toe and all of his weight is suddenly crushing me into the couch, I can’t breathe!
He’s not with me anymore, I can’t sense any mental connection between us…evil or otherwise but his body is convulsing over me, he’s seizing. Fuck he’s having a God damn seizure! I push as hard as my small body can and just then my former shadows and supposed bodyguards are there pulling him off of me onto the floor. I gasp for breath and when I find it I instruct them on what to do because they are both standing there dumbfound and frozen. “Roll him onto his side. Isaac grab a pillow and put it under his head. Mr. Saint, call his doctor and run get that huge fucking medical first aid thing he has.” I speak calmly and with authority as my nursing skills take over.
I’m glad they take instruction well, quickly they burst into action. Isaac helps me move him to his side and Saint takes off running out of the room. All we can do is wait now. Isaac and I look up at each other and our eyes lock. Evan continues to spasm between us and I see regret, horror and concern playing across his face. “We just have to wait for him to stop, keep him from hurting himself.” “That’s always been my job, Mia. I’ve been trying to keep him from hurting himself for years.” “I know Isaac, I know.”
Chapter 20
“Dark Side”
Kelly Clarkson
Saint returns with the enormous medical kit and unbelievably, a gurney and an oxygen tank! What the hell have they been expecting? Do they have an entire hospital here somewhere that I don’t know about? No time to ask questions right now. Evan continues to seize, it’s been at least 5 minutes. Something needs to be done or he could develop further brain damage. I throw open the kit and grab a
mask for the oxygen and tubing, hook it up and carefully apply the mask. “Crank it up all the way.” I tell Isaac and he quickly figures out the gauge and oxygen begins to flow. “Watch him, keep his airway clear.” I instruct and turn my attention to digging through the unfamiliar box of supplies.
God, I hope there’s something here to stop a seizure. “When’s the doctor coming?” I ask while rummaging, a little frantic now. “He’s on his way. How long can he do this?” Saint asks. “Not much longer, fuck isn’t there something in here for seizures, damn it!” Then I see what I’m looking for, it’s the right medication just not in the form I expected it to be.
We usually use IV meds on our patients but this is the same thing in an injection. I snatch it out, great it’s in a pen, even easier I throw the cap aside and jab the damn thing into his thigh, through his jeans and Isaac almost grabs my hand to stop me, instinct I guess. But he pulls back his hand while I push the medication into the muscle. I hear the door open and close, voices working their way toward us. Evan begins to relax and I slump and blow out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. I seem to be doing a lot of that lately. Simone, Gabriella and doctor what’s his name from the E.R. rush into the room and I’ve never been more relieved.
I drop back away from Evan’s body and lean against a chair behind me watching as things seem to unfold in slow motion. Gabriella is kneeling beside me in seconds with her arms around my shoulders in an embrace that I don’t return. I feel hollow, disconnected somehow but grateful the seizure has stopped. Simone and doctor, damn I can’t remember his name, surround Evan and roll him to his back, checking his pulse, listening to his heart, looking into his pupils.
It’s an assessment I’ve seen a million times but this time is different, this time I’m emotionally invested, hell I’m not simply emotionally invested, I’m all in. Where he goes I go, nothing can separate us, not even death. I’m snapped back to reality when Gabriella shakes me and gently takes ahold of my chin to look me in the eyes. Things shift back to real time and the men lift Evan to the gurney that Mr. Saint brought from, well I don’t know where. “Mia, Mia, honey are you ok?” “Huh?” “Let’s get you up so we can go with them, come on.”
Gabriella pulls me to my feet but my legs feel like jello and I stagger. She supports me and we begin to follow the group. “Wait, I need my shoes.” I stop to go back but Gabriella continues to pull me along. “You won’t need shoes just come on.”
It’s cold out, what’s wrong with her? I do need my damn shoes but I’m not getting them I guess. I’m expecting them to take a right toward the front door where I assume they have an ambulance waiting in the driveway. I stop and watch as they continue down the hall. “This way Mia, just come with us. We have everything we need here in the house. Evan’s never been in a hospital before his car accident, and he wouldn’t have taken you to one either but for the fact that it was closer to Aunt Sophia’s house. You have no idea what it took for him to go into that hospital, he wouldn’t do it for anybody but you, believe me.” “Oh…” I’m confused now.
“So where are we going?” “The west wing has accommodations, you’ll see, let’s just go.” Accommodations? What? Walking briskly now Gabriella asks “What happened back there? Mr. Saint said you were signaling to them and then he went down.” “Well, sort of.” “Sort of? What do you mean?” “He was having an, a…episode of sorts.” “An episode? He didn’t hurt you again did he?”
She stops to spin me to face her checking me up and down while Evan is rolled to the end of the hall where an elevator opens. I don’t remember that, I don’t remember this part of the house at all actually. Fucking mansions. “I’m ok, come on I don’t want to get separated.” Satisfied with no visual injuries she releases me and we hustle to close the gap, sliding into the very crowded elevator. I don’t think this thing is meant for seven people and a gurney but we squeeze.
I glance down out of the corner of my eye at Evan’s pale face next to me. I can’t be separated from him but I also don’t want to see him this way. It was different when he was my patient in the hospital. I didn’t know him then. I felt the invisible thread that holds us together but no memories were attached to him, no love, no adoration or desperate need to have him beside me forever. No, those came along quickly like a tsunami when he woke from a coma and pierced me with his fierce commanding psyche.
Now the panic really takes over and my body starts to shake from the shock. That was a hell of a seizure and what lead up to it…well, I don’t know what the fuck that was. “Mia!” Isaac says sternly and I turn wild eyes in his direction. “He’s going to be ok, you hear me? I see it on your face and you have to stop. I mean it. Get a grip…for him. I know you can do it, shake it off.”
Deep breaths in and out in and out. I shake my arms at my sides like a boxer before a fight. I can, I will…for him. Get your shit together Mia, breathe, go to a calm place, warm beach, no, no this isn’t working. Fuck it, I can’t be here for him and be in shock too, I’m only human after all! The doors slide open and Simone pushes Evan into…well, what the hell?
Pretty much a hospital room, not any ordinary hospital room though. I look around, you could do surgery in here if you needed to. “What the hell is this?” I whisper mostly to myself but Gabriella is next to me. “Evan…well, he has a…colorful past. He had this put in years ago just in case.” “Just in case what?” “Um, I’ll talk to you later about it.”
Simone is taking his blazer off and he looks to me. “Do you think you can get an IV in him?” Uhh, well, of course I have the skills to do it, but I’m kind of a mess right now. “Might give you something to focus on.” he says when I hesitate and I agree. “Ok yea, I can. Where’s everything at?” Isaac begins opening cupboards to show me what I need. How does he know what I need anyway? And why does he seem so familiar with this set up? I grab a pair of gloves and start looking for a vein.
Evan’s in pristine physical shape despite his brain condition and usually has awesome bulging nurse porn veins but not postictal. All his blood has been shunted to his vital organs during the seizure so starting an IV is going to suck. We all worked as a team however and Evan is starting to look better, still not awake, but better. He has some color to his skin now, his lips aren't ashen and blue but I won’t be satisfied until he opens those green scolding eyes of his. “Ok, his vitals are stable, he’s just got to wake up now, nothing else to do for a while.” Doctor what’s his name says and Simone agrees. “You can all go, I got this. I’m not leaving him.” “Mia…we aren’t leaving you, either of you.” Gabriella says “And hey, let me see your lip, what happened here? It’s swelling and it’s been bleeding.”
I raise my hand and touch my sore lip, will this shit ever end? What the hell am I going to say? Well Gabriella, your brother freaked the fuck out called me names, threatened to rape me and bit my lip, uh nope. “I must have bitten it when Evan fell.” She wasn’t there, she doesn’t know he didn’t fall but she’s suspicious narrowing her eyes she leans forward to look closer. I cover it nervously. “Is there any ice in this place?” I ask and Isaac moves to a fridge I hadn’t noticed to retrieve some ice, which reminds me to ask about this mini hospital again.
“What’s the deal with this hospital slash O.R. in the house? You told me you would explain later, and it’s later.” I stand with one arm around my own waist and the other still over my mouth. Gabriella is sitting across the room nervously fiddling with a ring on her finger, twirling it around and around. Simone is sitting with her and turns a surprised face to his girlfriend. Doctor what’s his name is packing up to leave. Good, he kind of creeps me out, I don’t know why just something about him. I turn when Isaac hands me an ice pack and then return my focus to Gabriella.
Now she’s biting her lip and I know they are keeping something from me, something big. “What? Why isn’t anybody talking?” Isaac sighs, taking my hand, leading me to another chair, we sit and he keeps my hand in his. “Ok, Mia we’ve all wanted to tell you the truth bu
t Evan has been so different since the accident, he’s changed, you’ve changed him.” He looks over at Gabriella and Simone as if for confirmation to continue and she looks, well, she looks horrified.
“And we thought if it were a permanent change, for the better, then no need to talk about it. But this personality change leads me to believe you need to know at least the basics of who he used to be.” “Ok. So, you’re kinda scaring me with all this hand holding and cryptic talk. Let’s have it.” Being sassy is a cover up for what I’m really feeling and that’s petrified.
Chapter 21
“Bring Me to Life”
Evanescense
I’m waiting as Isaac searches for the words I’m not sure I really want to hear but he doesn’t get the chance to say them. “Mia…” Evans soft gravelly voice halts the conversation. He’s finally coming around and as he’s done before, the first thing from his lips is my name. I drop Isaacs hand and step across the chilly sterile floor in my bare feet to his side. “You’re here” he says with a tone of disbelief. I wonder if he remembers anything about this afternoon. “Yes of course I’m here, how do you feel?” I ask while Simone is busy assessing and taking vitals.
“Tired, really tired.” “Are you in any pain?” Evan turns his face to me and reaches up to touch my arm. I think he’s reaching for my face but isn’t able to reach from his prone position on the gurney. “You’re so beautiful my Mia, so, so beautiful.” he whispers. “You can see me?” “Yes, I thought I’d seen you for the last time, but here you are…”
Now this I didn’t expect, why do I expect anything anymore? I’m overjoyed his sight has returned and that he is awake but what does this mean? Could this be that span of time when a terminally ill person becomes well before death? God please don’t let it be that. “Come closer.” Now there is my bossy man, I lean over him and he raises both hands to cradle my face. “What’s this?” he asks when he sees the IV in his hand.
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