The Light of the Blue Pearl (21 page)

She felt tears of fear and anger well up
into her eyes as she watched helplessly from the sidelines, doing
her best not to get in the way of the people trying to save his
life, trying to save her Scott.

Stumbling backwards she sat down on the
chair next to the bags and waited. Her heart seemed to no longer be
beating – she was frozen in time, waiting to see if in a moment her
life would still be worth living.

It took them three tries to get him
stabilized; three times she had to watch them hit him with the
paddles, each time making her jump.

She suddenly wanted to hunt down the driver
and kill him with her bare hands. How anyone could be so heartless
as to do this to another person and not even have the decency to
stick around was beyond her. That was the ultimate definition of a
coward in her eyes, and not someone who ever deserved to be behind
the wheel again.

When he was once again stable, the drama
that had woken her up started to calm a bit.

The room started to clear and only the
doctor and one other nurse still remained.

“What happened?” she finally managed to
say.

“He went into v-fib, which can sometimes
happen as a side effect of the sedation medication. But he is fine
now, although I am going to check his vitals and see if we can pull
him out of it sooner rather than later. If his scans come back and
the swelling has decreased enough, we will do that – I’ll be right
back,” he said, before rushing out the door.

She was once again left alone. Luckily she
wasn’t completely alone; Scott had stayed with her, even though he
had scared her to death, again. She was seriously going to have to
punish him for that later.

She hoped she got that chance.

It seemed like ages before the doctor
returned. She spent her time holding his hand and kissing his
cheek, knowing he couldn’t wake up, but wishing he would
anyway.

When the doctor came back he said they were
going to take Scott for some tests and be right back.

The wait for them to return that time had
felt even longer, she didn’t know what to do with herself. After
about an hour she decided to look through her bag. That, she
decided, had been a huge mistake when she opened it to find the
apron. At first it had made her smile, but then eventually she
started to bawl. And then she came to the beautiful nightgown he
had given her.

Upon that discovery she felt it briefly,
closed her eyes and remembered last night – but then quickly zipped
the bag shut not able to handle that memory either.

When they finally returned with Scott and
rolled him back to his place in the room, the doctor came in and
was smiling.

That was a good sign, she hoped.

“His tests look good, Ethne,” he said. “We
are going to slowly take him off of sedation – it shouldn’t take
him too long to wake up, we hope.”

She knew he had to throw in the ‘hope’ line.
There were no guarantees in medicine, as there were no guarantees
in life.

After everyone had finished with Scott she
was once again allowed to return to his side.

It was late; she could see the moon outside
and all of the lights of the city. She was exhausted.

She went back over to her bag and unzipped
it again and pulled out the blue nightgown.

She slipped it on which was a bit daring for
her setting, but she didn’t care anymore. She grabbed a blanket and
snuggled up against Scott.

Within minutes she was asleep.

***

She woke up to a hand making its way up her
leg, vaguely remembering where she was, she lifted her head and
looked up to see Scott looking at her.

“I was hit by a car and you still won’t wear
the apron for me?” he said, squeezing her thigh.

Her heart skipped when she realized what had
just happened. She smiled and kissed him instantly.

“Scott!” she said, doing her best to be
gentle with him, but just wanting to hug him as hard as she
could.

“Easy, easy,” he said, laughing only a
little at her reaction. “I’m injured remember?”

“Oh, sorry,” she said, getting up quickly
from the bed.

He looked at her and whistled. “You might
want to put that apron on now, Ethne,” he said. “We are in a
hospital!”

She laughed when she realized she was
standing there practically naked, but she didn’t care.

“Were you trying to bribe me into waking up
by wearing that nightgown?” he asked. “Shame on you, I needed my
rest.”

She was so relieved to hear him back to his
joking self when only days earlier, seeing him on the side of the
road, she hadn’t been sure he was still alive.

“How are you feeling?” she asked
finally.

“Oh….like I’ve been hit by a car,” he said,
winking at her.

“Yeah, you know you really didn’t need to
prove your point on that one.”

He laughed. “Well, I like to be thorough; I
can never tell if you listen to a word I say.”

She smiled. “Well…for the record, I do. I
should probably go change,” she said, suddenly paranoid that
someone was going to come in.

“Awww, really?” he said. “I think you should
show off the nice present you got.”

“Funny,” she said, grabbing her bag and
heading into the bathroom to change.

“You’re not even going to let me watch…?” he
called after her.

“What, and risk your heart stopping again,”
she responded playfully from the bathroom. “Not a chance.”

When she got back she looked at his face, it
looked rather serious.

“My heart stopped?” he asked.

She suddenly realized how insensitive her
comment had been. “Oh baby, I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to tell you
like that,” she said, going over and sitting next to him again.

“So tell me now…how badly am I hurt?” he
asked, all of the humor had left the room and was replaced by a
hovering fog of fear.

Fear was not something she saw from Scott
very often.

“I think it’s best you talk to the doctor
about all of that…I’m afraid I’ve been in a bit of a state worrying
about you.”

“Well you do tend to worry,” he said,
smiling again.

He never seemed to stay in the deep end of
the pool for very long, which was one of the reasons he was so good
for her, without him she probably would have drowned there.

After getting to enjoy each other’s company
for a little while before being bombarded with doctors and nurses
again, Ethne let them know he was awake so they could check him
over.

He was told that things looked good but that
he would need to stay for another day or two for observation before
he could go home.

Scott said that that was fine with him as
long as Ethne got to stay too; there was no argument from
anyone.

The doctor had told him the extent of his
injuries and later he had asked Ethne to describe the day of the
accident.

They discussed it only briefly; it wasn’t
something either of them wanted to dwell on. It would be a long
time before she no longer saw him getting hit by the car in her
nightmares.

That day had been one of the scariest days
of her life. He was almost lucky to not remember most of it, though
he said he did remember the feeling of panic he’d had when he saw
the car. He said he hadn’t even thought twice before pushing her
out of the way.

He even apologized if she had been hurt by
him doing so. Scott had saved her life, and still he was worried
that his actions had hurt her. He too wanted to strangle the person
who had been driving the car.

When it was finally time to go home, Ethne
helped him up from the wheelchair and into his car. She drove them
home, a little alarmed at being out in the real world again.

She felt so much better when she was pulling
into her driveway; it felt like it had been ages since she had been
home, but there was no way she was going to leave Scott’s side.

When they were both settled in and sitting
on the couch together, the house quiet, she curled her legs in and
laid her head on his chest. Neither of them had anything to say.
Just sitting there with each other was enough, they didn’t need to
talk; they both knew what a close call they had just had.

They stayed that way for quite a while
before heading off to bed. She helped him to try and get
comfortable, he was pretty sore and it was very difficult for him
to find a position he was happy with.

The doctor had warned him about seizures,
the irony not escaping either of them. They both took their
medications, his for his pain, hers for her seizures, before she
reached over to turn out the lights.

Lying there in the dark, she knew he was
going to have a rough night, she reached over to take his hand – he
gladly accepted and squeezed his appreciation. She had hoped to
stay awake with him but her body had other plans and she was asleep
within a matter of minutes, her small hand resting in his.

She hadn’t been asleep for very long before
her hand was being squeezed and she was brought back to reality,
sudden concern coming over her when she realized Scott was calling
her name.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, turning the light
back on and looking over to see Scott’s ashen face looking back at
her.

She looked down to see blood soaking through
his t-shirt and immediately sat up with alarm.

“Oh my god, what happened?!” she asked,
rushing to turn on the bedroom light.

“I don’t know, I just turned to try and get
comfortable and felt something snap, I think I pulled a stitch or
something,” he said.

“Or something…,” she said, pulling up his
t-shirt to get a better look at the wound.

The car had hit him full on in this spot. It
had actually been a miracle he had only needed a few stitches for
the laceration it had caused. She could clearly see that one of the
stitches had come loose, she cursed under her breath.

The idea that their tired bodies were going
to have to make their way back to the hospital in the middle of the
night was not appealing. But she was not equipped to handle this
and it clearly couldn’t wait until morning.

She looked at him and tried to give him a
reassuring smile, but he knew what she was thinking.

“Well, let’s get you dressed,” she said,
putting an arm around his back and helping him to get up.

“I’m sorry, Ethne,” he said.

“Sorry?” she asked. “For what? – You have
nothing to be sorry for, now come on.”

After about four hours spent in the hospital
waiting and getting stitched back up, they made their way back
home.

It was still dark outside when she pulled
into her driveway once again and helped to get him situated as
comfortably as possible back in bed.

The nurse had apologized profusely for the
mishap, saying ‘it happens’. They had simply nodded in synchronized
zombiesque fashion, too tired to make idle chitchat.

They were still in this state when she
crawled back into bed hoping for no more excitement for years,
simply wanting to close her eyes and go to sleep.

She leaned over and gave him a kiss
goodnight, doing her best to avoid touching any spots that might
cause him pain.

This time when she drifted off to sleep she
found herself in a place far worse than her current reality.

***

Turning the corner of the building Ethne
felt for the necklace around her neck that he had given her only a
week before.

She walked in a stunned daze, people bumping
into her every so often, some shouting obscenities at her obvious
rudeness for being in their way.

As she turned the next corner she could see
the cemetery not far off, but far closer than she wanted it to
be.

To set foot in it would make things far too
real, she decided, a desire she simply did not have. She turned
around to head the other way when someone caught her elbow.

It was Scott’s mother.

Escaping, it seemed, was not going to be in
her future. She had been caught, trapped like a mouse running in a
maze for some sick scientist’s experiment.

“Ethne dear,” his mother said, obviously
handling things far better than she was since she hadn’t uttered a
word since it had happened.

She simply nodded her head in
acknowledgement. “I’m so glad you came – I know this must be
incredibly difficult for you.”

Ethne just stood there staring at her in
total disbelief – had she really just said that to her? His own
mother, offering her words of comfort when it had been her fault
that her son was dead?

The idea was so absurd to Ethne that had she
not already been speechless she certainly would have been then.

All she could do was nod her head in
agreement and let the woman lead her to the dreaded place of her
nightmares.

The grass was dry, the weather pleasant, not
your typical rainy and miserable cemetery scene; but regardless of
the setting, the current weather did not match her mental
state.

For all she knew the funeral could have
taken place in the middle of a hurricane and she would have been
numb to the fact.

When they joined the rest of the party that
had gathered to honor him she was somehow pushed to the front, as
if she deserved to be there, set in a higher status above the rest.
When truly her place should have been in the box he found himself
in.

She hadn’t heard a single word that was
spoken. She remembered placing a rose on the coffin and watching
them lower him into the ground, but everything after that was
black.

***

When Ethne woke up she was soaking wet, from
tears, from sweat, she might as well have been sleeping in a
bathtub - not a single inch of her was dry.

She was shaking uncontrollably and obviously
she hadn’t been quiet about it because Scott was calling her name,
trying to bring her out of the hell she was just in.

When she fully realized that it had just
been a dream she was awash with mixed emotions. The first being
relief that it
had
just been a dream, the second
being….fear.