by B. L. Olson
A choked sob escapes me as I recall that mind-numbing moment where I hoped like hell Annie would catch herself, but careened over the side. I am trying to keep my composure about me, both for my sake and her parents as well, but the constant anxiety and stress of the what if's are making that impossible. I don't want to imagine my life without Annie, I already had to live without Brielle and our daughter. I can't dwell on what could have happened though, not until I know what did happen for sure.
The elevator starts to slow down as we reach our floor and Natalie reaches over to give my hand a comforting squeeze, "Our girl will be okay Wyatt. She has kicked, fought, and scratched her way from the bottom and there is not a chance in a million that she is going to let something like a cliff negate all the progress she has made in her life."
I nod my head in agreement and hope like hell that she is right. The elevator stops and the doors slowly slide open. Exiting and taking a direct left as instructed, I begin to watch the room numbers increase until we hit the 200's and finally Annie's room. Walking through the door I notice her lying on a bed still out cold, a doctor examining her while she is hooked up to a myriad of machines that are constantly beeping and showing fluctuating numbers on their screens.
Sobs wracking her body and trails of salty tears on her cheeks, Natalie goes to throw herself on top of her daughter but I reach out and grab her before she can. Shaking my head at her and giving her a tight hug, I murmur into her ear, "We don't know the extent of her injuries yet."
She solemnly nods that she understands and I let her go. She directs her attention towards the doctor performing the exam, "How's our girl looking doctor?"
The doctor's blue-green eyes meet mine for a moment before turning to address Natalie, "Are you her family?"
"Yes, we're her parents." Gesturing at me standing behind her, "And this is Annie's boyfriend, Wyatt. He was with her when she fell."
Nodding once and referring to the chart in his hands, he launches into an explanation, "Ms. Ellis has sustained several bruised ribs on top of the two that broke cleanly when she landed. Luckily for her, they didn't puncture either of the lungs. She has what is likely a mild concussion, but we cannot rule out any bleeding or swelling until after a scan is performed and she awakens. She sustained quite a bit of bruising to the remainder of her body, but I believe the scan will show no internal bleeding either." Here he hesitates and makes eye contact with me again, looking uncomfortable as he does so. There is some other news he doesn't want to share. Not with her family, and certainly not with me.
"What aren't you telling us, doctor?" Natalie catches on that there is more to Annie's diagnosis than what we are being told. Fear puts my lungs into a vice grip, my breath ragged as various horrific scenarios run through my mind. Paralyzation, brain damage, and even a permanent coma seem to be the common themes.
The doctor shakes his head, "I think the rest of it is up to Annie and whether or not she would like that information shared with you. It is nothing life threatening I assure you, but it is more private than what I just discussed with you."
The three of us share confused looks before her father speaks up, "How can you tell us some things but not the rest of it?"
Giving us a small smile, the doctor closes the chart and moves to leave the small room, "I apologize, but we will have to wait on Annie to wake up before we can continue this conversation. I am ordering her scans and x-rays now, but there should be nothing keeping her from waking up on her own."
Before he can exit, my voice echoes in the small and quiet room as I ask, "When can we expect her to wake up?"
Looking over his shoulder at me, I see my answer in his eyes before he even responds, "Unfortunately there are no time limits for these situations. Anywhere from a few minutes to several hours is average." He excuses himself from the room, leaving us alone with the woman we love lying broken on the bed before us. Whatever news they don't want to tell us cannot be good, that's for sure.
****
A few x-rays, an MRI, and hours later we finally received the all clear from the doctor that Annie will be just fine. No brain swelling or bleeding anywhere in her body, just the two broken ribs and a couple bruised ones, and what is still assumed to be a mild concussion.
It's as we are hitting the fifth hour of unconsciousness that Annie starts showing signs of waking up. It begins with her fingers twitching where they lay on top of the hospital blanket, followed by her eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks.
When she finally did open her eyes she was met with three bright and smiling faces, all of us ecstatic that she dodged yet another bullet disguised as an accident. After all, a mild concussion and two broken ribs are nothing compared to the extent of what could have been.
After giving her a tight hug, Charlie runs out of the room to track down the doctor and let him know she is awake. Annie rolls her head on her pillow to look at me, a cautious look in her eyes, as she asks, "What happened? I remember tripping and a fern all up in my face, but not much afterward."
I take her tiny hand and sandwich it between my two large ones. Before I can answer her, her father is striding back into the room with the doctor from earlier in tow. Giving Annie a sunny smile, our happiness that she is awake seemingly infectious, he begins to explain to her the extent of her injuries. Her eyes get wider the more in-depth he goes about the tests that were performed and the injuries that were revealed, but it isn't until he stops and looks remorseful that panic begins to flicker across her features.
The doctor turns to address the rest of us in the room, "Do you three mind letting Annie and I talk alone for a moment? I have something I need to discuss with her."
Charlie and Natalie nod and I move to leave with them, even though my heart is telling me that I need to remain for support. I am almost out the door when Annie calls out, "Wyatt, wait! You can stay." She turns her head to regard her doctor, "This is my boyfriend. He can hear whatever it is we need to discuss."
Nodding once, he sighs and sits down on the stool on one side of the bed while I plop down in the chair by Annie's bed on the other. Grabbing her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze, I try and prepare for the news the doctor is about to share. To say I had been anxious the last few hours would be an understatement, I tried to equip myself for any possible scenario.
I am not prepared in the slightest though, not at all.
"Ms. Ellis, I sincerely apologize for what I am about to share with you. And just know that there are resources available for you to speak with if you so wish it." Taking a deep breath and catching her eyes he continues, "I'm not sure how far along you were, or if this was something you were aware of, but unfortunately you suffered a miscarriage in the fall."
The silence in the room is deafening, the only imagined sound is my heart beating frantically in my chest. I heard him wrong, right? He did not just tell us that Annie is pregnant. No was pregnant. How is this even possible? Annie voices my question, "I'm on birth control though. My IUD was replaced just after my ex-boyfriend and I broke up which means it should be good for another year?" Her voice gets squeakier and a look of panic is overtaking her features.
The doctor nods sympathetically, "Unfortunately it is possible for an implant to shift and therefore not be effective. I would need to examine you to see if that is the case, but between the blood from the miscarriage and your blood work we ran, we can say with absolute certainty that you were pregnant prior to your accident."
Annie looks at me, a sorrowful expression in her eyes. I want nothing more than to comfort her and tell her that it will be alright. But who am I to reassure someone everything will be okay, especially when it comes to a lost child? The second one for me in only a handful of years. That thought doesn't sit well with me and I cannot meet Annie's eyes. I haven't even gotten a chance to tell her that I was going to have a child with Brielle, and here we are dealing with the loss of one we didn't even know was coming.
I can't be in this postage stamp sized room any longe
r, the closeness of the walls are suffocating me as the feelings of shame and guilt come flooding back. I am the common link in the women I love getting hurt, and there is only one way to keep something from finishing Annie off next time around.
Never mind that her light guided me out of the darkness. I am a better person for it, enough to know that I have to leave while Annie is still breathing. Standing abruptly from my chair, I look down at Annie's broken body, and even knowing what I am about to do may just break her spirit as well, I do it anyways.
To keep her alive. To keep her safe. To keep her the hell away from me.
I still can't meet her eyes. If I do I might cave and comfort her like I know she desperately needs right now. Instead, I give her a shattered heart to match my own, "This makes it so much easier Annie, to call it quits right here."
The doctor wisely chooses that moment to slink from the room, giving us a moment alone. Her eyes are boring into the side of my head, urging me to look at her but I can't give in. Her voice grates as she asks, "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"We were inevitably going nowhere Annie, and obviously we weren't as careful as we thought. Better to call it now before something else happens. Or we accidentally bring another child into this world." Can she sense that I am lying? That until the doctor had come in and dropped the news, I wouldn't have even considered the fact that I need to be anywhere Annie isn't in order to keep her safe?
Not able to help myself any longer, I try and glance at her quickly and realize too late that it's a giant mistake. While she has to be in extreme physical pain from the fall, it can't compare to the anguish she must be feeling if what I see in her eyes is any indication.
When the anguish is replaced with the look of a promised storm, I know Annie is angry. No that's an understatement, she is fucking pissed. And it is directed right at me. I decide to make a swift exit before she says something that will haunt me more than what is already weighing me down. I don't need any more ghosts, that's for sure.
It isn't completely lost on me though, that by leaving Annie like this I am opening up the potential for some new ghosts to replace the ones she banished not too long ago. I hope like hell that she learned the repercussions for not doing so sooner, and doesn't lapse into another couple-year depression. She might be safe away from me, but I can't live with myself if she becomes completely miserable either.
I stride from the room without a backward glance.
Chapter 22- Annie
Repercussion #237: Sometimes not pushing someone to share more means you are left out in the dark and sidelined when a bombshell is dropped.
I spent a couple of nights at the hospital for observation and a few more at home bedridden. Yeah, the last week has just been splendid. Not only did I trip over the side of a cliff, I also suffered a miscarriage and lost the love of my life as a repercussion.
I think life smoked a whole carton of cigarettes when she got done fucking me this time around.
I hear a soft rap on the door and quietly sigh at the intrusion. I have had a good excuse to not allow visitors up until now, emotionally dealing with the knowledge that I had lost a child and my body physically coming to terms with it as well.
I call out begrudgingly, "Come in!"
Makayla pokes a weary head around the crack in the door and tries to judge my mood at showing up unannounced. I kind of missed her and her ridiculous advice but I'm not going to tell her that as it is sure to go to her head.
I wave her in and pat the bed beside me, "Sorry I have been even more of a hot mess than usual. Just a lot going on with, well you know."
Makayla crosses my bedroom and kicks off her flip-flops before plopping belly first on my bed next to me, "How are you handling everything?" We have been texting enough this week that she has an idea of what occurred, without having all the facts.
"Honestly? It has been a little rough. My mind keeps trying to dwell on what could have happened if I had landed differently, say on my neck in lieu of my back. I have been in a constant argument with it regarding the fact that it didn't happen, and I am alive and can't overthink it. But does my mind want to freaking listen? Nooooo.
Then there is my body who for the past week hasn't wanted to accept that I am no longer pregnant. Not that I really noticed, to begin with, but my hormones have been all over the place. You know my temper, best to hide away until the they pass and I don't have to worry about being tried for murder.
And then there's freaking Wyatt, who I am pretty sure I fell in stupid love with, who told me all this was a sign we should call it quits and then got up and walked out the fucking door." I gesture towards my bedroom door even though it isn't the one in question, and wince slightly at the quick movement, "I've just needed some time to adjust to my new reality."
She gives me a knowing smile, "Babe, I love you and you deserve to wallow in pity and grief for a while. But remember how broken and stale your life became when you dated douche waffle and the years following? I just don't want you to lose all the progress you made in the last few weeks because Wyatt got scared and backed off in the worst possible way."
I side eye her, "Trust me, I am not letting myself go back to my boring and depressed self. Like you said, I am allowed a little wallowing and then it is straight back to kicking ass. The first of which will be Wyatt's."
Amusement shines in my best friends eyes, "You can tag me in if needed." I let out a snicker at her response before she gets serious again, "Do you know why he pushed you away? It can't just be because he truly thought what you had had an expiration date. I think everyone could see that your relationship was going somewhere."
I let out a sigh, "I really don't know. It could be just one thing or a whole plethora of reasons. The fall? The miscarriage? The fact that I almost lost my life and it triggered some sort of PTSD after losing his wife?"
"I'm sorry, did you just say wife?" Crossing her arms across her chest, Makayla prods me to continue. I never discussed Brielle with her, the story not for me to tell. But at this moment I need to unload something from my vault of secrets and pain, and catching her up is in my best interest.
I give her a sheepish smile before murmuring, "That's why he moved here."
I launch into what I was told just a few short weeks ago and feel just as confused as before I started. Why couldn't Wyatt see that me falling was just an accident? I can't help the fact that I can trip standing in one place, let alone hiking the mountains of Washington. Doesn't he realize by now that I can take care of myself? That I don't need him worrying or trying to protect me?
Clearly not, because here I am lying stuck in this stupid bed without him and feeling the effects of a disintegrating heart. I lost a child and the love of my life all in one big swoop, and I know that there is only one cure for what ails me.
Time.
"Was he there when the accident happened?" I shake my head and she continues musing, "There has to be more to it than that. I can see why he was so broody though, at least at first."
I level her with a stare, "Why do you think there has to be more to it than that?"
She shrugs, "While they are both seemingly accidents, the situations are completely different. Not enough for him to push you away and try and demean what you two had. It just seems uncharacteristic to me is all."
I mull over what she says for a moment but the sound of another knock on the door interrupts us, Makayla and I both shouting, "Come in!"
Leveling my best friend with a glare and hitting her as hard with a pillow as my aching ribs would allow, I remind her, "You're in my room freak. You can't just invite people in all willy-nilly."
She brushes her hair out of her eyes and lets out a laugh, "You're the one who said willy-nilly."
From the corner of my eye, I see a pattern of leopard print passing through my door that can only mean one person. Grandma Hazel. And trailing behind her is Wyatt's younger sister.
Maddie shoots me an apologetic smile, clearly not here because she want
s to be. I can only imagine why they came and feel a faint twinge of bitterness that they only know where I reside because they know I live next door to him. The one person I decreed never to think about again. A plan that went out the window the moment Makayla came barging in and was followed shortly by his freaking family.
Fuck me sideways, today is going splendidly as well.
Grandma Hazel plops down on the end of my bed and Maddie stops at the foot of it, a tight grip on the frame. I take a moment to study her and am surprised to find that she reminds me a lot of Wyatt. Silent, broody, and being drug from one moment to the next without truly living.
I wonder what sort of consequences she experienced to make her so.
Shaking myself from my thoughts, I turn my attention to the older woman and give her a greeting, "Good morning, Mrs. Wallace."
She waves a hand in front of her face in distaste, "None of this Mrs. Wallace business. You call me Grandma Hazel. I have no doubt my grandson will pull his head out of his ass and realize he's being a ninny. I came to check on you though and not talk about him, how are you dear?"
I smooth out the quilt I have wrapped around me and refuse to meet her eyes while I prepare a response. How am I? Not fucking great. But I know how far I can fall if I don't pick myself up this time. Instead of voicing my thoughts aloud I say, "I'm doing okay, all things considered. I've been taking advantage of the fact that I have been on ordered bed rest and getting some writing done."
Makayla snorts, "Some? You text me the other day and said you were writing twenty-thousand words a day and have almost completed your first draft."
Grandma Hazel claps her hands in excitement, causing Maddie to jump at the sudden noise, "That is tremendous Annie! I didn't realize you're a writer."