by Shey Stahl
“Fuck you, soldier boy. You couldn’t fucking save her or yourself!”
…
It’s amazing to me the strength, the physical power you could have when adrenaline takes over. I could barely walk the distance to get to him after those bastards left but somehow, some way, I knew it was our only option.
I dragged Grayson to his truck, a path of blood followed, but I couldn’t get him inside.
I didn’t have time to wait so I ran to back to the road, covered in both our blood, and flagged down a truck driver.
Once the helicopter landed in the middle of the road, I was rushed to the hospital with Grayson, my own injuries making themselves known.
Everyone wants your story. They want to know what happened in the face of a tragedy.
“Ma’am, are you okay? Are you hurt?” There was a paramedic in a white shirt asking me questions as he helped me inside the helicopter.
“What happened to him?”
I tried to get it out. “He’s hurt…a bat…”
“A bat? What do you mean a bat?”
“Hit…his…head…” my shaking took over before I could get out anymore.
Voices were all around me, but all I have are the memories of a vicious attack. I couldn’t speak, I could barely breathe. All I cared about in this moment was Grayson…my Grayson.
Once inside the helicopter, Grayson came around for a moment. He lifted his head, his eyes dilated to the point you couldn’t see any color, only immeasurable depths of black surrounded by red.
Trying to focus, he blinked again, and then vomited again, it was all I could do to keep from passing out myself.
“How long has he been out?” they asked, but I couldn’t speak. I tried.
The paramedic looked at my dress, blood soaked and ripped, knowing.
“I don’t know…”
Grayson twisted, coming around, and then vomited again, all over the paramedic, blood flowing from his nose and mouth. He slumped to the side, his body still again.
I wanted to die when his heart stopped.
I think I did. That incessant hum of the heart monitor telling me I was losing…losing the battle between good and evil, losing my heart, piece by broken piece. It couldn’t end this way, it just fucking couldn’t. We’d been separated for too long for the selfishness of a select few to take away what we had. They just fucking couldn’t win.
They air-lifted Grayson to Birmingham and it took another four hours before any of our family arrived.
Four hours where I was utterly alone, in a hospital bed unable to process how this day had turned into our worst nightmares, all the while thinking he was gone. They intubated him on the way to the hospital and performed CPR. I sat crammed against the side of the helicopter, crying and rocking myself back and forth, the shock consuming me.
They admitted me and got me hooked up to an IV of antibiotics and medication. Luckily it allowed me to sleep and escape the nightmare.
I wasn’t able to sleep for long before I received test after test, confirming the fact that I had been raped. Something I knew already but voicing the cruel and life altering word was more than I could fathom. Such a simple four-letter word that held so much pain, so much heartache, and took everything I had left.
Raped…
I couldn’t sleep, I just needed to know if Grayson was okay and no one had any answers since he was still in surgery early Monday morning.
My mom arrived first, and immediately crawled in my bed with me, everyone else stayed away or sat in the waiting room. I didn’t mind.
Sometimes you need your mommy. Right then, I fucking needed her. I turned to face her, my head and hers rested on the pillow.
We spoke with that look, but nothing was said.
When we did speak, it was low and slow.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
My chin shook. “I’ll never be okay.”
Her hand rose sweeping my hair from my face. “With time, you will be. It won’t be easy but it doesn’t last forever.” My mom sounded like the voice of experience…I held onto that hope that one day the vicious attack I’d endured wouldn’t occupy my every waking moment.
Another hour went by, Grayson was still in surgery when she said, “You could have told me that Shane was hurting you.”
The tears flowed, endlessly. “I was ashamed.”
She knew the shame.
“Please don’t ever keep this from me again.”
I swallowed, the tears blinding me.
Ethan walked in, his hand and face battered beyond my own, but still, standing beside my bed reaching for me through his own tears. “Fuck, Evie…what the hell have they done to you…?” he cried, sobbing almost.
I’m not sure what I looked like, but I knew it wasn’t good.
“What did you do?” I asked him through shaking words and labored breaths.
“I did what I should have done a long time ago,” Ethan growled, his eyes on my hand he was holding. “He fucking paid for that shit he pulled.”
“Ethan! What if you’re arrested? I didn’t want you involved!” And then I broke, right there in front of my mom and brother, the rest of me broke away, a shattered soul beyond repair. “I didn’t want you guys hurt! I couldn’t save Grayson! I…”
Nothing I said from then on made sense but I was screaming and crying so bad that they had to sedate me again after I ripped out my IV.
…
“Where else would I go?”
…
“Please baby, stay with me…”
…
“I love you…Evie…”
…
I woke up in a clouded haze, knowing this would be how I would feel forever. I took note of everything I felt, trying to prepare myself. But I felt nothing but pain. Unbearable pain I couldn’t imagine ever dissipating.
Grayson was out of surgery around ten that morning with a depressed skull fracture, eight broken ribs, a broken hand, and one of his ribs had not only punctured his lung, but his spleen. He required another surgery that same night, and then finally, on Tuesday, I was able to see him. I didn’t care how bruised or bandaged he was, all I cared about was that he was alive. A heart beating and a heart healing. We’d get through this together, just like we did everything.
The doctor looked over the monitors and charts then did a neurological exam, talking me through everything.
“He’s being sedated so he can heal. You can talk to him though,” he said, standing back to give me room but stayed close.
The tears started to flow, loose and quiet, uncontrolled. Standing, an uncontrollable shaking deep down in my bones, I walked over to him with weak legs. He was black and blue anywhere skin was exposed, more notably, his beautiful face. A thick white bandage covered the left side of his head, his golden brown hair buzzed short before his surgery this morning.
His eyes were swollen shut, his lips and nose much the same. The bruises, if possible, becoming an even deeper shade of purple and black.
“We will perform some tests tomorrow. If they come back okay, we will then discontinue the medicine. Then he’ll will wake up on his own. He’s strong. He’s fighting. We don’t know exactly how much damage has been done or even how much of his memory was lost, if any. With a head injury this severe,” he shook his head. “It’s too hard to tell this soon. He needs time and then we can see how it goes.”
“Is he going to be okay?” my words came out strained, my stomach twisting into pain and resentment.
I turned when I saw Frankie slip inside the private room in the ICU, her arms around me instantly.
The doctor frowned at my question and ran his hands through his thick mess of black hair once. “It’s hard to say but I would guess that if anything it would be his short-term memory and maybe just this incident or he may remember everything up until he was unconscious.” He placed his hand on my shoulder rubbing it.
Oh God, what if he remembered me being raped? Knowing Grayson, that would have been unimaginable to see.
> The waiting was torture, but, it was possible he would be fine.
They say you can’t live without a beating heart. You can’t. I should know. I’m trying and it’s not working. Grayson is my reason for living right now, my pacemaker sending his own signal to my heart to keep moving, breathing, living. Without him, I’m not sure where I’d be.
Though I wanted to cry and scream, I had these moments right now, and he was here, alive. I would deal with the rest.
I’m giving him the beat in my chest and the breath in my lungs. I’m fighting for him when he can’t fight on his own. My Grayson…he has to come back to me.
“I’m sorry I let this happen to you.” I cried into his chest.
And then, as one would expect, I was angry.
“I’m so pissed at you! I hate that you left me! I hate that this happened!”
I wondered if he heard me. If he did, the Grayson I knew would have listened.
Wyatt came into my room Wednesday night, they were releasing me on Thursday. He looked somber and sad, exactly how I would expect a father in his position to act.
We hugged, he kissed my forehead and said Frankie and Kelly brought me some fresh clothes for when they allowed me to change out of the gown.
Wyatt was struggling. He looked very much like Grayson that night. I saw the resemblance in ways I didn’t before. It’s in the way he bit the inside of his lip when he was thinking. It’s the nervous twitch they both had. It’s in the way he tried to hide his sad eyes too.
He looked at me, blinking slowly. “Thank you for saving his life.”
I let the tears flow again, shaking me as I looked at my battered hands, scraped and scarred. “He saved mine.”
“No, you save him in more ways than one.”
I didn’t quite understand his words. He looked at me, and then away.
“If it weren’t for you, he would have given up a long time ago.”
“I feel like it’s my fault he left in the first place.”
“It’s not.” And then came the hard part. “Evie, there’s a lot Grayson hasn’t told you about what happened to him over there.”
“I know.” And I did. I knew something happened. I just didn’t know what. And I didn’t think anyone did. If something happened, I thought for sure he would have told me about it, wouldn’t he?
“Grayson was honorably discharged from the Army when he was captured as a prisoner in Iraq. He was found some three months later by the Navy, and transported back to the states once he was stable.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked Wyatt, wondering why he would keep something like this from me.
“It wasn’t my place to say.” Wyatt’s voice was wavering. “He went through something unimaginable, I couldn’t tell you that.”
He had a point, I know he did.
There was a reason why Grayson didn’t tell me. Maybe he thought I couldn’t handle it.
“I don’t know the details, I just know that they contacted Julia and I when he went missing. Three months later we were notified he was found and in a hospital in New Mexico. I flew out to see him and then they told me he was being discharged. I couldn’t say anything because I honestly didn’t know if he’d come back.”
I knew why he came back. Me. It’s why I ran to him.
Everybody deals with stress and his or her problems or fears differently. To say one way was the right way is bullshit. It’s your way. Don’t judge someone for finding their own.
Grayson found his own way of dealing and now, together, we’d have to find our way of dealing with this tragedy. All I know is that Grayson is and will always be all I have left, even when I there’s nothing more.
On Thursday, they did a Glasgow Coma scale on Grayson. His was eleven. That was good, but not great.
They did say the higher the number, the better. It was all confusing to me.
All of it.
They told me Shane was arrested that morning, as were his friends, and so was my brother.
It turned everything into a big mess because Shane was pressing assault charges against Ethan now. But Shane was wanted on a string of charges that included attempted murder, rape, assault…you name it and he was being charged with it.
Aiden heard about what happened and got Jameson to help us with a lawyer who knew his shit.
All I cared about was Grayson though. My strong fighting boy was holding on for me.
He was out of it for four days after they performed surgery on his brain. On Friday night, he started to wake up. He would come around and then go again, mumbling and distant.
It was slow. Painfully slow as another three days passed and he didn’t talk.
If he did, we didn’t understand him.
It was hard to watch, but even harder knowing he was struggling. He didn’t understand and I could see it in his eyes that he didn’t.
Nine days after the accident, he was able to communicate with us more, but it was more like two or three words at a time that he would string together.
Wyatt, who sat beside me at Grayson’s bedside, handed him water. “Are you in pain?”
“No.” He mumbled, his eyes distant and on the ceiling, refusing the water his dad handed him.
“Grayson?” he looked into my eyes for the first time, just me. Since he’d woken up, he hadn’t really focused on anyone. He didn’t seem to want to.
My breath caught at the golden brown looking back at me silently, looking for answers. I couldn’t help as the tears once again fell from my eyes.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” I asked him softly, gently rubbing his hand.
Grayson’s eyes locked on mine, but I could see their sadness and I knew what he remembered. I watched his chest, the rise and fall, the warmth of his hand, it all reminded me of that day in his truck. I don’t know why, but it didn’t.
When he spoke, his voice was full of hesitation and pain. “You…being…” his eyes drifted south, and I knew what that meant.
The cry that came from me was muffled by my hand covering my mouth. I saw the tears in his eyes and the beating of his heart in mine. He blinked, more tears falling.
His dad stepped out, I think he knew this needed to be a moment between us, and only us.
Grayson tried to draw in a deep breath, but couldn’t. Neither could I. We stared at each other, crying, as I’m sure he was reliving that horrible experience.
Our gaze stayed locked, and the way he looked at me made me feel like he’s making it all better. Like his eyes in this moment could take the pain away. Because he’s feeling it.
He’s in just as much pain as I was but together, we share something. Another piece of my heart, maybe all of it, shattered right then. But with the golden reflection from his eyes, I know that it’s being put back together and given all to him.
Sometimes you’re so severely broken, just sure that nothing in this world can fix you. And sometimes, it’s easy to be healed with the beating of a heart that has nothing left to give.
It doesn’t stop the anger though.
August 2003
Grayson was able to go home from the hospital 18 days after the accident. He seemed good too. Better than ever. But I knew it wasn’t over.
He hadn’t dealt with it. We just didn’t talk about it. Even months later, we acted like it didn’t happen.
Just like it started with us, distracting one another, it seemed we tried that again.
This time, it came crashing back on us the first time we tried to have sex since that day.
Grayson stopped after just two minutes, his head fell to my shoulder and his shaking took over. “I can’t do it…I can’t fucking do it!” He said, more angry than anything.
“Why?” I swallowed over the painful lump in my throat pulling his sheet up over my body, afraid of what was coming next.
“What do you want me to say?” He pulled away completely and sat up swinging his legs over the bed. Staring at the wall, his voice was low and pained. “All I see when I t
ouch you like that is them, fucking you.”
The sob that left my mouth shook my bones. He realized he’d made a mistake saying those words, he just kept saying, “I’m sorry…so sorry…I just can’t—” even though everything he said was exactly the same thing I was feeling. I felt his pain because I was living it too.
This was going to take a lot of time to get past for both of us and it was slowly killing me inside knowing the normalcy we’d found was shattered in such a short period of time. We couldn’t even be intimate with one another. How much more would we have to endure?
It was a good thing Grayson was unconscious that night because Shane wouldn’t have walked away from that. Grayson would have killed him. I know that. And he would be the one in prison instead of Shane.
He still wanted too. I saw it in his eyes every time he looked at me. I was the reminder of that day now. He said he would gladly spend the rest of his life in prison if it meant Shane was dead. It wasn’t comforting to me because I didn’t want that. I didn’t want any of that.
I wanted us to work, to be an us again, something we hadn’t been in a long time.
I found him two hours later, crying, with a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand. The past had finally reared its ugly, blood sucking head.
“Grayson?” My hand shook as I reached for the door knob.
He stood from his place on the bathroom floor, and walked down the hall, never looking at me. I followed as we walked into his bedroom. He came back to the bed, swaying and then collapsed on it, his face in the pillow. My hands went to his back, rubbing it. “Grayson…please talk to me. Baby please…we have to talk about it.”
“Make me forget,” he twisted, his arms wrapping around my waist, holding me so tight I thought his life depended on it. “I can’t forget…I can’t…”
It’s hard to let go of the past. It’s part of you. And that’s hard to forget. It happened.
We needed to talk about it. We had to. It needed to start from the beginning though.
“Tell me what happened over there.”
“Why does it matter?” he wasn’t looking at me but I felt his body tense and go rigid.