I ran through the rain, until my legs were jelly and hunger gnawed at my stomach. When I stumbled back into my apartment, it wasn’t a relief to be home. Memories of Natalia surrounded me. There she was, standing in my kitchen, her head thrown back in laughter. She was on my couch, too, insisting on resting her feet on my lap as we watched a movie. I’d pretended to be annoyed, but I never really was. I shook my head, checking my phone for the thousandth time that day. Nothing. Dammit.
The shower stream pounded down fiercely on my neck. There was no use trying to wipe the memories of Natalia in my shower from my mind. They were too good. Too intense. She’d written herself all over my life, and now an uncertain ending gaped before me.
I hated this. All of it. I scrubbed shampoo onto my scalp with a frustrated growl and set my mind, determinedly, to coming up with a plan for how I could fix all of this. As soon as Natalia got back into town, I would surprise her. There would have to be a nice dinner, for sure, but maybe I could really take a leap toward her. Or… with her.
That was it. I was a genius. I was going to book a skydiving session for the two of us. Propose, like Tom had joked about. I’d tell her that I felt braver than I ever had when I was with her, but that I didn’t want to be without her any more. I could hardly keep up with my own thoughts, had no real plan for what my life would look like if I gave it over to Natalia’s whims. I had no clue how I’d come to terms with her apparently insatiable desire for danger. Suddenly, none of that mattered. The only thing I could bring myself to care about now, after twenty-four hours without her, was how to get her back.
Researching engagement rings, though, made me nervous. What if she laughed in my face, turned me down? What if my behavior over the last day had made her never want to see me again? It only took a few minutes of scrolling through my phone looking for options before I reached for a beer to take the edge off. One beer became two, and two became six, as I grasped for a grand gesture that Natalia would appreciate that wouldn’t make me feel like I was planning my own funeral.
It didn’t take long before I passed out on the couch, tumbling headfirst into a series of weird dreams. My mom was driving behind me through the streets of Philadelphia in her car while I struggled along on foot, through the rain. She stuck her head out the window, screaming at me to take a risk before my own boring life killed me. I was overwhelmed with sadness, and exhaustion, before the rain finally let up and the sun came out. The car rolled to stop, and now, instead of my mom behind the wheel, it was Natalia. I grinned and started to walk toward her, but she just held my phone out the window of the car. Its ring screeched out incessantly as she said in that teasing, musical voice of hers, “Go on, Ethan. What’s stopping you from picking up?”
I didn’t know how to explain, how to describe what was happening. No matter how many steps I took forward, my body couldn’t move. “Come on, Ethan,” she said, her voice growing more desperate, weaker with every word. “I need you right now. You have to answer the phone. Wake. Up.”
And then everything went black.
My eyelids were glued together, or at least weighted down by bricks, filled with their chalky dust. My head pounded, a situation that wasn’t at all improved by the beam of early morning sunlight piercing its way through the curtains. I managed to roll on my back, groaning as my head followed a beat later like a sack full of concrete, before realizing that my phone was, in fact, ringing.
I rolled myself off the bead, groaning again – next time I should remember that getting onto my feet was the better choice. There wouldn’t be a next time, though. A man of my age should never drink that much. Ever again. My tolerance was only going to decline further as I ventured into my thirties.
The caller ID didn’t recognize the number on the screen, which also displayed a perilously low battery level. I was damned ashamed of myself. I never thought I’d be caught dead with less than five percent battery. My phone wheezed out another ring tone, and I mercifully answered it despite not knowing who the hell could be on the other end, this early in the morning.
“Yeah?” I rasped out.
“Oh thank God, Ethan,” a tinny yet familiar voice came through the speaker. “I’ve been trying you for almost fifteen minutes now. I was about to send someone over to… wherever you are.”
* * *
Finally, I recognized the faintest trace of an accent, pushed into her perfect English by the frequency with which she spoke Spanish. “Amalia? What’s up? Is Mr. Ortiz okay?”
“It’s not him, Ethan. It’s Natalia. You’ve gotta get on a train. Now.”
Three hours later, I approached Amalia on a street in New York City. She pulled me into a quick hug before pulling back to talk to me “I know you two were arguing, and you were really angry with her. Last night… she told me you didn’t love her anymore. I don’t know what went down between the two of you, but I think she would want you to know.”
The trip to the hospital in New York City had been the longest of my life. Still, no amount of time could have prepared me for the sight that waited for me once I got inside.
Natalia lay in a hospital bed, still as death. My eyes burned with tears in the split second that I realized the faint beeping of her bedside monitor and the pink flush of her skin meant that she was not, in fact, dead.
Alejandro paced on the other side of the room, muttering rapid-fire questions into his phone. Of course he’d gotten here first. Through a fog, I realized he’d never actually come to Philly from New York to see his dad. We’d told him that Mr. Ortiz would be okay, that he could stay put in New York. Thank God. Amalia settled on the couch tucked into the tiny bay window of the hospital room. Her eyes met mine, then flicked to the space behind me. I blinked twice, my eyes heavy, before I registered that she’d left the seat at Natalia’s bedside open for me.
Amalia’s eyes were filled with tears, but she was all business. “Alejandro secured her a private room. He’s on the phone with his lawyers now. We told the staff you’re her fiancé, by the way, so you’ll be allowed to stay past visiting hours.”
My face was numb, and my lips struggled to form words. “Thank you,” I managed to choke out, turning my gaze to Natalia. “Is she – how did – I mean – what…?”
“She was injured in a motorcycle driving stunt. She’s been through three surgeries already, to repair her small intestine, give her a small skin graft, and put pins in her leg. She has a traumatic brain injury, and between that and the surgeries the doctors determined it was best to put her into a coma.” A small sob punctuated the end of Amalia’s sentence.
“What does that mean? What the hell happened?”
“I watched the footage,” Alejandro said, finally turning to me and shoving his phone in his pocket. “There was a track directing the bike, and a cable tethering it so it couldn’t fall on her once she jumped the platform. They worried so much about the bike and whether it would hurt her, that they didn’t double check the safety net in front of the window,” he said, looking slightly ill. “There was an old plate-glass window a couple dozen feet from the net,” he continued. “She went right through, and hit the scaffolding outside on her way down. Thank God for that, or she would have hit the concrete and been dead.”
“Oh my God,” I moaned, locking my hands behind my head and bending forward, trying to will away the nausea that churned inside me at the thought. “No.” The top of my head nudged against Natalia’s still thigh, and its warmth was encouraging. Not dead. She’s still alive. She’s breathing.
“She did the stunt flawlessly. Rode that bike like she’d been doing it her whole life. Even the fall was gorgeous. I wonder if they’ll still use that footage for the show.”
“Jesus,” I muttered.
“She had zero protective gear on,” Alejandro continued. “Just a neoprene suit. No helmet. She tucked herself into a ball quickly enough to avoid a lung puncture, but some big shards hit her in the abdomen, so there was some internal damage.”
Oh God. I couldn’t brea
the. Could not make myself picture Natalia’s body being tossed around atop a thousand-pound death cycle just waiting to ignite itself. And now here she was. Hooked up to monitors, looking like she was sleeping. Mercifully, something was different from my memory of seeing my mom there, dead on the ER table.
“There’s no breathing tube,” I said in a whispered rush. Somehow, that made it okay for me to scoot the chair in closer, reach my hand out to brush a strand of hair from her forehead. “Why isn’t there a breathing tube?”
“It means that her brain is telling her body to breathe on its own.” A deep bass voice sounded from the doorway, and I turned to see a doctor who looked as though he’d just graduated from high school step in the door. Immediately, I got to my feet, overwhelmed by the need to get every bit of information I could from him.
“I’m Dr. Rasal,” he continued, reaching out a hand to grasp mine. It was only then that I realized my hand, hell, my whole arm, was trembling. I swallowed hard.
“She’s breathing on her own, then,” I said. “That’s good.”
Dr. Rasal nodded hesitantly. “It means is that that particular part of her brain was unharmed. While we don’t know the extent of the injury, the MRI gave us reason to think that, given a little time, she should come out of the coma on her own. In terms of her verbal and motor function… time will tell.”
I swallowed again, finally allowing my trembling legs to relax back into the seat. “Excuse me,” I said, rubbing my palm across my forehead. “I wasn’t with her when it happened.”
“She will be okay,” Dr. Rasal assured me, sounding convincingly sure of himself. “Before my shift ends, tell me what questions you have.”
“Everything,” I said, taking in Natalia’s quiet, beleaguered face. “Every sling, pin, bandage and tube. Tell me what they’re for, and how long it’ll take for her to recover.”
For the next twenty minutes, I listened intently as Doctor Rasal patiently explained everything. A complicated network of pins held Natalia’s tibia, ankle, and foot together after it had shattered in her fall. There was a patch of skin about nine inches long that had been stripped away from Natalia’s calf, filleted by the sharp glass as she crashed through that. Dr. Rasal explained that she’d needed surgery to reattach the muscle and she’d need another one to graft skin over the wound. “She will walk fairly normally, as long as she works hard in rehab,” Dr. Rasal preemptively explained.
“Oh, she will,” Amalia and I said in unison. We shared a small, fleeting smile, while Dr. Rasal moved on to her internal injuries. “Her liver had a lot of lacerations, and it was bleeding so much we had to remove a large portion of it. But she can live without that,” he assured me quickly. “The most concerning thing was the damage to her small intestine. We removed some of that, and we’ll need to monitor it closely to make sure none of the stitches come out. She’ll have to take it easy for a while.”
“You’re talking awfully optimistically,” I said on a sigh, running my fingers back through my hair. I was sure I was a mess, and I really didn’t care.
“I am optimistic,” Dr. Rasal laughed. It was a booming, boisterous sound that didn’t match his skinny young façade. It was reassuring, but all the same, I glared. At that point, he seemed to remember his bedside manner. “If you’d seen the kind of things I’ve seen, and met the number of patients I’ve met, you’d understand what I’m trying to say. Her injuries aren’t too bad, her surgeries went well, and from what you all are telling me, she’s a fighter. I’d say we’ll wean her off this medication keeping her unconscious within the next twelve hours, and see where we go from there. Ok? You won’t even have to change the wedding date. I’d bet money on it.”
My heart wrenched at that, and a kneejerk protest to Dr. Rasal’s statement was half-formed before I remembered that Amalia had listed me as Natalia’s fiancé. Just twelve hours ago, I would have happily given myself over to daydreaming about Natalia agreeing to be mine forever. Now, my wildest fantasies involved her waking up. Walking again. Knowing my name. So, instead of saying any of the dozen things I could say to the well-meaning doctor, I thanked him, holding his hand in a strong, grateful handshake before he moved on to his next patient.
Then, I settled into the chair at Natalia’s bedside, gently holding her still, cool hand in mine. I prayed silently, desperately, she would wake up, that she’d speak again, walk again. Skydive again. It was the most fervent praying I’d ever done.
The next morning, God had my back.
Chapter 30
Natalia
My eyes flew open to a world I didn’t recognize. A bright light glared into the corner of my left eye, and pocked white ceiling tiles filled the rest of my vision. My throat had been rubbed raw with sand, and though I desperately wanted to move my head to take in more of my surroundings, I couldn’t move a muscle. I was lying down, that much I knew, and the only thing keeping me from completely freaking out was the feeling of a solid, warm hand holding on to one of mine, heavy where it rested on my stomach. There was a strange texture to it, though… barely perceptible points of pressure pressing against my skin beneath his hand.
“Oh my God,” Ethan’s voice breathed in a combined panic and relief. He squeezed my hand too hard, too briefly, before dropping it. I heard his footsteps dashing from the room, and confusion washed over me for long seconds before I heard them coming back in again, trailed by another set. A soft, soothing woman’s voice addressed me.
“Natalia? Hi, honey. You’ve just woken up from a medically induced coma. You’re going to be fine, but it might take a little while to regain movement. You are not paralyzed, okay dear?”
I would have nodded my head, if I could have. Panic rose in my throat and my eyes flew back and forth, searching for the Ethan’s face. He was here, wasn’t he? He had to be. My heart flew around in my chest like a crazed bird trying to break free of a cage. Then, after a handful of agonizing seconds, his hand held mine again, and his warm, deep voice floated into my ear. Finally, finally, he leaned over me so I could see him. There were deep purple circles under his eyes, and his scruff had grown slightly wild. He looked into my eyes for a moment, and I felt the slightest twitch in my eyebrows, a tiny closing of my lids. Ethan’s eyes squeezed shut in response, and a tear trickled from the corner of one. I felt his head drop to my shoulder, and everything in me wanted to take him in my arms.
I had no idea where I was, but I knew that Ethan was home. My eyelids fell closed, too heavy to keep up, but when I heard the soft female voice again, I dragged them open. Her words were fuzzy, but I’d be damned if I was going to backslide now. Another slow blink, and I forced myself to refocus on the sound of her words, commanding my brain to separate the syllables instead of allowing them to blend together.
“Natalia,” the nurse said, with the tone of someone who’d been repeating herself. I blinked again, slowly, purposefully. “There we go. We’re going to do a little test, okay honey?”
I blinked again, and Ethan’s face, which was looking down at mine again, broke into a grin. “Did you see that?” he demanded, his voice giddy. “She totally heard you.”
“Let’s see,” the nurse said. It struck me that the patience dripping from every word was probably not for me – Ethan sounded crazed, and annoying as hell. My heart dictated a laugh – I felt the corner of my mouth twitch up.
“She smiled,” Ethan narrated, a revelation the nurse ignored. I didn’t, though. I let the joy in his voice, the exuberance of the way he squeezed my hand, warm me down to my bones.
“We’re going to try blinking first, okay?”
I blinked. Yes, much faster this time. I was approaching normal speed.
“How about twice, dear?” I blinked twice, though I could feel the fatigue seeping in at the corners of my consciousness.
“Okay, now let’s try a bigger challenge. Can you tap your fingers on the bed?”
With gargantuan effort, mental and physical, I willed my fingers to work. Cool, scratchy fabric brushed my
fingertips.
“Hmmm,” the nurse said with a frown as she stared at my hand. “Might be just reflexes.”
No. No, it was not. I had worked hard for that. With a grunt, I commanded my fingers to move in a rhythm. The nurse let out a laugh. “Okay then.”
“That’s good, that’s so good, honey. Oh, thank God,” he uttered. With that last sentence, the realization hit me – the strange points of pressure between Ethan’s hand and mine had been rosary beads. He’d been holding them for me, just like I’d held them for my dad.
“One more thing before I leave. Now if you can’t do this last one, dear, it’s fine. Nothing to worry about.”
I could do it, though. I could do anything I set my mind to. If the sum of my life so far had proven anything, it was that.
“Natalia,” the nurse said, and I got the distinct sense I’d drifted out of focus again. I blinked, showing her that I was listening. “Try to say something for me. Say ‘hi.’”
“Okay, no. She can’t – she’s clearly struggling just to blink and move her fingers today. It’s too much. We’ll try for words tomorrow.”
Yep. This was really and truly my Ethan. My unsolicited safeguard and protector from anything that might stretch me too far. Under normal circumstances, I would have smacked him, or at least rolled my eyes. but given that my body didn’t seem too keen on moving just now, the most I could do was a scolding, raspy whisper. It took everything in me, but after a few seconds of determined effort, I managed the two syllables. “Ethan.”
Chapter 31
Ethan
It was raspy, and pained, but it was clear as day. Natalia had seen me, recognized me, and said my name. I let my forehead fall on the bed beside her and let the sobs I’d been holding in since I first saw her lying in that hospital bed all those hours ago pour out of me. The deluge of tears and emotion knocked down any walls that were left between me and my devotion to Natalia. Now, I just had to hope that she would keep getting better, and that she felt the same way. The happiest moment of my life was when, an instant later, she moved her fingertips back and forth against my arm, just twice, and just a centimeter.
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