Never Say Never (36 page)

I force a smile. “Congratulations. That’s exciting.”

“He’s my fourth great-grandchild. I never thought I’d live long enough to see this many.” She smiles, and wrinkles form around her red lips. “I wish my Harold were alive to see them.” She lets out a sigh. “He’s been gone for twenty years, and I miss him every day.”

“That must be hard,” I say quietly and turn, hiding my tears.

“It is,” she continues. “But we had a lot of good years together.” She taps her chest. “He’s with me, right here. Always.”

I bit my lip. “Always.”

The old woman is quiet the rest of the flight. She gives me one more smile as we part ways. I get my bag from the overhead storage and fall in step with the crowd slowly walking off the plane. I want to push past them and run. Anything to get to Aiden.

I see a man in a suit holding a sign with my name on it. He leads me through the busy airport and into a car. The sun is rising on the horizon. My eyes flutter closed on the drive to the hospital, and I get flashes of the start of dreams, dreams about Aiden.

I see the first time we made love, feel the passion between us that neither could resist. I see us cantering through a thunderstorm, cold rain pelting our bodies. And I see the first time we went out, the first time I had a flashback in front of him. I want to be able to feel his arms wrap around me again, to feel his heart beating against mine.

“Miss?” the driver says, shaking me out of dreamland. I land in cold reality. “We’re here.”

I blink, my eyes adjusting to the dim light. I fumble and get out of the car, thanking the driver and wondering if I should tip him. I have no cash on me. Whatever. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter.

Aiden matters.

I walk into the cold hospital and look around. I’ve never been to L.A. before. Everything is huge, and everywhere is crowded. I text Claire that I’m here and she quickly responds, giving me a room number and telling me not to ask for Aiden by name. Fans have already tried sneaking in. I walk behind a group of three nurses grumbling about the early hours, and stop by the desk in the lobby.

“Can I help you?” a volunteer asks. She eyes me up and down and smiles sympathetically.

I nod. “I’m here to see a friend. He’s in the ICU.” I look down at my phone. “Room two-oh-three.”

She types something into the computer. “Ah, I see him. And what is your name, honey?”

“Haley Parker.”

“Haley,” she repeats, running her fingers along the computer screen. I assume she’s checking a list of approved visitors, making sure I’m not a crazed fan. “I’ll let them know you’re on your way,” she says, and she gives me a paper map, highlighting where I need to go in pink marker.

I walk through hallways, carefully keeping track of signs so I don’t get lost. I take an elevator up several flights and go down another hall. Claire is in the ICU waiting room, a hospital blanket draped over her shoulders. She’s leaning against the wall with her eyes closed and her phone in her hand.

She sits up when the door closes behind me. “Haley,” she says, stretching her arms above her head. I go over by her and drop my bag on the ground. She hugs me then leads me to another door and gets buzzed in.

A young nurse with long blonde hair in a perfect French braid takes me to Aiden’s room. He’s right across from the nurses’ station, and the curtains aren’t pulled around his bed. I can see through the glass wall, and my stomach flip-flops.

“You can talk to him,” the nurse says softly. “He can’t respond, but he might be able to hear you.”

I clench my jaw, my eyes widening in horror as we close in on him. The nurse steps inside the room. I close my eyes and cross the threshold.

“Aiden,” she says. “You have a visitor.”

He’s worse than I imagined. His face is bruised and swollen, hidden behind tubes and wires. He’s hooked up to multiple machines, including one that is breathing for him. A sheet is lightly draped over his body, hiding the damage to his torso.

A brace is around his neck, and his left arm is propped up on a pillow. Black rods run along the length, screwed in place and I cringe when I see the metal going through his flesh and into his bone. His skin is stained with iodine and blood, and seeing the flesh pucker in around the screws makes me sick. Blood rushes from my head, and I squeeze my eyes shut.

The nurse rushes over and takes my arm, leading me a few steps forward and into a chair next to the bed.

“Deep breaths,” she says.

I nod and inhale slowly. I wipe my eyes and move to the edge of the chair. The world is spinning and my ears are ringing. My vision blacks, and I think I might pass out. I lean back, not wanting to fall onto Aiden or pull one of the many tubes or wires connected to him.

It’s terrifying to see him like this. He hardly looks like himself. I focus on the slow, steady beeping of the heart monitor and look at his face. “Aiden,” I say softly, reaching out and trying to find a patch of unbandaged skin to touch. I sweep my fingers over the top of his right hand. “Aiden, I’m here.” Gently, I lace my fingers through his. “I’m sorry it took so long, but I’m here now.”  I close my eyes, pushing out tears. They splash onto the bed.  “I love you,” I say softly. “Please don’t leave me.”

When I thought my heart couldn’t hurt any worse, the tiny pieces rip again. “What’s wrong with him?” I ask, scared to hear the answer. “Why isn’t he awake?”

“He’s in an induced coma,” she says. Is that good? Is being in an induced coma better than being in a non-induced coma? “We’re monitoring intracranial pressure right now; it’s higher than it should be, but not high enough to require opening the skull.”

I softly stroke his skin. This isn’t happening. It’s a nightmare—a horrible, horrible nightmare.

“He has six broken ribs, and a punctured lung. His left arm is fractured in three places, and he has a right fibular fracture and unstable blood pressure.”

The nurse moves back to Aiden, checking on him and adjusting tubes. I try to swallow everything she so calmly told me. “Is he going to be okay?”

She gives me a small smile. “I can’t answer that. The bones can heal, but there’s no telling the damage from the head injury until he’s awake.”

“Do you know when he’ll wake up?”

She moves along the bed, fixing the sheet. The room is warm, yet seeing a thin sheet draped over him doesn’t seem like enough. “The doctor will reassess him in a few hours. A lot depends on the intracranial pressure. If it’s not down enough, a lumbar-peritoneal shunt will be put in.”

I just nod, not understanding what she is talking about. All I know is Aiden’s brain is swollen, and that’s not a good thing. At all.

“I’ll be in the nurses’ station if you need me,” she says before she goes to the door. “And I’ll be coming in every fifteen minutes to assess him. Take your time, talk to him. There is a bathroom down the hall and coffee in the waiting room.”

“Thank you,” I say. She leans in and pulls the curtain to give me some privacy. I slide my other hand under his, cupping his fingers in mine. “Aiden, I’m not sure if you can hear me. I really do love you. I love you so much. Whatever happened, whatever made you think you had to leave, I forgive you for it, and I want to help you. You said we were meant to be, and I believe you. I think we are meant to be too. I need you to hang on and pull through so you can wake up. We can’t be together if one of us leaves.”

I wait, my breath bated, for him to squeeze my fingers or flutter his eyes. But there is no movement except the mechanical rise and fall of his chest.

“I posted Sundance on the adoption site,” I tell Aiden. “I think he’ll make someone really happy, even if he is lazy. Aurelia is getting big too. She tries to boss Gandolf around. It’s pretty funny to see that big guy move away from the water trough when she comes over. I blame you for that,” I say with a half smile. “You pretty much raised her.”

“And Phoenix…” I trail off. I don’t want to lie, but I don’t want to tell him bad news. “She’s the same. I think she misses you, actually. We all miss you.” I rub his skin. “I rode Shakespeare a few times, and Benny is still fat as ever.”

I rest against the side rails of the bed, looking at his face. I want so badly to kiss him. “I thought about buying that property more, but it sold and someone had the barn torn down already, probably to build something new. I haven’t looked at what they are building yet. It makes me sad to know Mom’s dreams won’t happen, so I avoid it.” I close my eyes. “And there a few more cats hanging around the front porch. I still don’t know where they come from. They just show up for food but won’t let me pet them. I’m going to try and wrangle up what I can and have them fixed. Well, probably not. I don’t have much money.”

Money. The vet bill. And now I’m crying again. Maybe Claire was right. Maybe he never stopped loving me.

“I will never stop loving you,” I whisper. “Never.”

I rest my head on the bed, not letting go of his hand. I stay there for hours, until my stomach is grumbling so loud that the nurse gently puts her hand on my shoulder and tells me she ordered me breakfast.

I kiss Aiden’s fingers and leave the room, my heart aching to be near him. I use the bathroom and see how awful I look. My hair dried in frizzy waves around my face, dark circles cling to the skin under my eyes, and my cheeks are sunken in and hollow. There is no light, no spark in my eyes. I feel dead inside.

I sit in the waiting room and eat pancakes. I didn’t realize I was hungry. I had gotten to the point of being so hungry the hunger pains went away. Plus, the pain in my heart was worse, outweighing everything else.

When I go back in, the door is closed. A doctor and two nurses stand around his bedside. My heart drops and I freeze. The same young nurse from before tells me to wait. Nothing new has happened, but the doctor is checking on Aiden.

I wrap my arms around myself and stand outside the door, watching feet move under the curtain. Don’t they know I need to be in there? He needs me as much as I need him. When the doctor leaves, the nurse goes over the prognosis. Aiden hasn’t changed. The pressure in his head hasn’t gotten worse, but it hasn’t gotten better either. He is getting more medication, and if that doesn’t work, they will have to put in a shunt. I’m shivering, imagining a drain being drilled into his forehead. That probably isn’t how it works. I’m definitely too scared to ask.

I take my spot at Aiden’s side, softly rubbing his fingers. The young nurse comes in and gives him medicine, pushing it slowly through an IV port. She empties the catheter bag and carefully repositions his left arm.

“Do you need anything?” she asks me.

“No,” I say, not taking my eyes off of Aiden. She leaves and comes back with a bottle of water, a pillow, and a blanket. I cover up and take off my shoes, curling my feet under myself on the chair. I get as comfortable as I can while still holding Aiden’s hand, and close my eyes.

I dream that Mom is there, standing over Aiden’s bed. His body is lying there, unmoving and broken, but his spirit is up, sitting at the foot. He and Mom are talking, and she’s drilling him with questions, making sure he’s good enough for me.

I wake, so disturbed, and oddly comforted at the same time, I burst into tears.

“I love you,” I whisper between sobs. “Please, Aiden. Come back to me. I need you. Please.”

I cry myself back to sleep, not waking until Claire comes in later that afternoon.

“How is he?” she asks.

“The same,” I say. “I want him to get better.”

“Me too.” She perches on the edge of a table at the back of the room. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Aiden over the years, it’s that he’s a fighter. He works hard for what he wants, and I like to believe he wants to recover.”

I look at him, at his dark curly hair stuck under his head, ends crusted with dried blood. Does he want to recover? He told me before he thought about death—including his own—many times. He tried to kill himself before. He wanted out before. What is there to anchor him here, to make him want to fight through the pain and live?

Me? No, I’m not enough, or at least I don’t think so.

“Aiden,” I say, rubbing his fingers again. “We both really want you to pull through. Please, baby, hang on.” I watch the heart monitor and note that his blood pressure is higher than the last time I checked. Which is good, maybe? It was too low before.

“There’s a room down the hall,” Claire says. “For family members to stay when someone is in the ICU. You can go lie down if you want. I put your bag in there.”

I shake my head. “I’m not leaving him.”

“You need to sleep, Haley.”

“I can sleep here.”

Claire just nods. “Should I call his mom?” she asks me.

I turn to her and push my eyebrows together. “I don’t know.”

“His sister? I know they still talk on occasion.”

“Maybe,” I say. I really have no idea. But if Aiden is this bad, she should know. “Probably. She should at least know what’s going on.”

“You’re right. She can decide if his parents need to know. Aiden always said he didn’t want them contacted unless he was dead. He’s not, but…”

She doesn’t have to say it. He’s not dead, but he’s close. He’s in a coma, and no one knows what will happen once the medications are stopped and he’s given the chance to wake up on his own. I start shivering and wrap the blanket around myself. Whatever happens, I’m never giving up on him.

Never.

Chapter 27