The doctor just nodded. “Exactly as I expected. You may have felt you were experiencing certain things at the time, but the brain can do a lot to protect itself. I suspect the longer you stay awake, the fuzzier it will become as reality takes over. The only way I can explain it is, have you ever had a really vivid dream—and in the dream, things made total sense to you? Then, you wake up and try to tell someone else about the dream, but you find it sounds silly?”
I nodded, wondering to myself how this could really be happening? How did one close their eyes and wake up in an alternate reality?
“My advice is to take things a minute at a time, right now, Mr. Walker. You’ve experienced a huge trauma that’s taken months out of your life. Go slowly. Get reacquainted with people and let the process evolve and sort itself out naturally. There’s no reason to push yourself so hard, mentally. It’ll come back in pieces here and there, though it’s not uncommon to never remember any of your accident.”
“What happens now?” My grandpa asked. “Can we take him home?”
Doctor Kennish shook his head. “No, we’ll be keeping him here for a little while. He’s going to need extensive rehabilitation to build his muscle strength. He’s been all these months getting his nutrition intravenously, so we need to help him work his way back to eating. Plus, we’ll be doing more neurological and cognitive testing to determine the most affected areas of his brain.”
“How long is that going to take?” I asked.
“Probably several weeks, at the very least. We want to make sure you can function well on your own before we release you. I’ll also be requesting that you see the psychiatrist. You’ve been through a large shock, and it might take some time to deal with the repercussion of everything.” He glanced around the room. “But your family and friends are encouraged to visit often and to even participate in your recovery process, if that’s what you would like. This is a long term care facility and it’s open to family at all hours of the day and night.”
“Okay.” My gaze kept gravitating toward Nikki. I still wasn’t sure I believed any of this, but I couldn’t stop staring, drinking her in like she was the only water on the planet. As happy as I was to see her, my heart seemed equally as heavy every time I looked at Brittney. I stared at her baby bump, realizing that with this turn of events, I’d lost the family I thought I had. I felt like I was in mourning for her and my baby.
“I’ll leave you to spend some time with your family now,” Dr. Kennish said, glancing around the room at the others. “Try not to overwhelm him too much.”
“I’m so confused right now,” I said to Nikki.
“That’s okay, Chase,” she replied, flashing me a beautiful smile of encouragement, as she gripped my hand in both of hers. “We’re going to get through all this together—one step at a time.”
Chapter Nineteen
They left us alone—blessedly alone. Not that I wasn’t excited to see all my family, but Nikki and I . . . .
Nikki. I still couldn’t believe she was here, really here—at least she was, if I was, really here. I’d never been so confused in all my life.
She still held my hand in a death grip. It made me feel weak when I didn’t have the strength to squeeze back. I pushed that aside for a moment, knowing we had a lot to talk about.
“I don’t know where to start,” I said honestly, my eyes never leaving the beautiful features of her face, captivated by every part of her. It was like I was seeing her all over again, for the first time.
“How about we start at the beginning? When all this happened.”
I nodded. “Okay, but I have one request.”
“Anything,” she said, flashing me a soft smile.
“You’re going to have to lighten up on my hand. You’re about to pop my fingers off.”
Gasping, she glanced down, immediately relaxing. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Lifting her eyes to mine, I noticed they were watering, as if she was about to cry. “I think I’m so scared you’re going to slip away again. I’m trying to hang on tight to keep it from happening.” She shook her head. “I know what you’ve been through is horrible too, Chase, but I’ve been slowly dying with every day that’s passed and you didn’t wake up. I thought I’d lost you forever. I felt so guilty, like it was all my fault—like if I hadn’t tried to meet you that night this would’ve never happened.”
My heart beat rapidly with her confession. I knew exactly how she felt. I’d lived the terror myself. Giving a wry chuckle, I stroked the back of her hand with my thumb. It was funny how it felt both familiar and foreign to me at the same time. I’d been holding Brittney’s for so long. I pushed that thought away, wanting to be in the here and now, with Nikki. “Don’t feel guilty. I know exactly what you mean. I’ve been suffering from the same horror in my own mind.”
“What happened that night? Do you remember anything?” she asked.
I shook my head. “All I remember is going to your house and waiting for you. After about fifteen minutes without you showing up, I decided to drive toward Tana’s house. I was worried that you might have changed your mind. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. This cop flew passed me and I was terrified, so I hurried after him.” I swallowed hard, the memories threatening to overwhelm me. “I saw your car smashed to pieces. There was a dead elk on the road and bunches of people were trying to cut you out of the vehicle. I lost it. It felt like my whole world had slipped right through my fingers.” Tears rolled down my cheeks, the trauma of that night still so real in my mind.
“Chase. It’s okay.” She lifted my hand to her lips and kissed the back of it. “It wasn’t me. I’m okay, really, especially now that you’re here. All I want is to help you find your way back.”
“Then tell me, what the hell happened? I feel like I’m swimming through two alternate universes. Nothing is making any sense to me.”
Sighing heavily, she looked as if she were preparing herself to face something very difficult. And if she’d experienced even half the emotions I had at losing her, I could understand why.
“That night . . . you never made it to my house.” To me, what she was saying seemed impossible; I remembered it so clearly. “I was there early, excited to meet you; but after an hour, I knew you weren’t going to show, so I decided to go back to Tana’s. But when I got to the highway, there was this terrible accident with police, fire, and ambulance crews there. An officer raised his hand to stop me several yards away and I rolled down the window to talk to him. He told me to find an alternate route through town because the accident was bad and it was going to take a while to clear the road.”
Goose bumps trailed over my skin, but she didn’t notice, lost in the retelling of her story. I didn’t interrupt.
“I couldn’t see the accident itself very well, because of all the emergency vehicles, but I got this super sick feeling and I asked what had happened. The officer told me that some guy rolled his truck and it smashed into the new tall brick building with the clock tower just down the road.”
A tremor shot through her and she gripped my hand tighter. It was easy to see she was reliving that night . . . just like I had for so long. “It’s all right,” I whispered, but she still seemed so sad.
“I asked the officer what color the truck was.” Tears fell freely from her eyes. “He said, ‘It’s white,’ and then I knew. I knew it was you.” A single sob escaped her, and I pulled my hand away, lifting it unsteadily to cup the side of her face, brushing away the tears with my thumb.
“It’s okay, Nikki.” It killed me to see her so upset, so hurt by all of this.
She continued. “The officer let me through the barricade to see if I could identify your truck . . . or what was left of it anyway. It was really bad. They had a sheet draped over you and they were working to cut you out.”
Unable to hold my arm up anymore, I let it fall to my side. She wiped at her face and took a deep breath before resting her hand on mine again. “They called a helicopter for you. You had
this giant knot on your forehead, plus several gashes that were bleeding badly. They were worried you had a brain injury because they couldn’t get you to wake up, at all. When they finally reached you, they found out your leg was broken, too.” She sighed again, staring at me as she ran her hand slowly up and down my arm in a comforting gesture. “You were all bloodied and bruised. They let me talk to you while they were trying to get you out, to see if you’d respond to my voice. But there was nothing. It was like you were gone—poof—just like that, you, that part inside you, simply disappeared.”
“Come here,” I said, lifting my arm. She didn’t hesitate for a second, crawling into bed beside me. She wrapped her arm over my stomach, laying her head against my chest, and I could feel her trembling as she continued to shed her tears.
“Forgive me,” she said.
“For what?” I asked, draping both my arms around her shoulders.
“For giving up . . . for losing hope. I didn’t think I would ever get the chance to look in your eyes again. This . . . this is the miracle I’ve been praying for, for months. The one I dreamed about every night. The one I was sure would never happen. Where did you go?”
Squeezing her as tight as I could manage, I placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head. “You have done nothing that needs forgiving,” I replied softly, loving the feel of her in my arms once again. “As far as where I went—I went to Hell and back, Nikki. I thought you were dead and I felt like I died with you, but we were separated. It was . . . agonizing, the purest form of Hell I could ever imagine. No fire and brimstone could ever hurt me the way I felt when I thought I’d lost you.”
“Chase?” she snuggled closer against me.
“Yeah?”
“I know you’re confused and trying to sort things out right now, but can we not talk about the accident right now? I’ve been sad for so long; and while the memories of these months will always be painful, I don’t want them to cloud this moment. You’re here, awake, and I’m in your arms. I want to just take a few minutes to enjoy that.”
“Whatever you want,” I replied, kissing the top of her head. “You know I never could resist giving in to what you want.”
She gave a small laugh. “Remember the days we spent cuddled up like this by the creek?”
“Every second.” I let those memories wash through me. How many times had I relived those moments in an attempt to hang on to pieces of her? “While I was . . . asleep, I dreamed, once, that you met me there. I didn’t want to wake up. I didn’t want you to leave me, but you told me . . . ,” I remember her telling me it was okay to let go and go with Brittney, but how was I supposed to tell her that? I didn’t want her to think I’d forgotten her or that I’d cheated on her. That’s what it felt like. She’d been mourning for me all this time and I’d been living a lie with someone else. What did that mean? “You told me it was okay for me to leave. That it didn’t matter, because wherever I went, you’d hold a piece of me—,”
“In my heart,” she interrupted, sitting up and turning to look at me. “You heard that?”
I stared at her confused.
“I said that to you, Chase. Here, in reality. When I let myself finally realize you might never wake up, I came to visit you. I talked about how unfair it was to be torn apart from each other, just when things were beginning for us. Even though your body was healing, you weren’t waking up. I thought maybe you were hanging around because of me, and I didn’t want you to suffer; so I told you it was okay for you to go. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”
I’d heard her, heard her talking to me. Suddenly, I began to wonder if some of the other dreams and moments when her voice came to me were a result of the same thing. Had I been hearing her all along? The thought boggled my mind, but it made so much sense now. She’d been trying to reach me—and she had.
“I heard you,” I replied, at last. “At least that time, I did. There were other times you, or your voice, would come to me, but not always when I was sleeping. Sometimes I thought I smelled your perfume and I’d turn to try and find you, but you weren’t there.”
Smiling in amazement, she shook her head slightly. “I still wear the same perfume. Occasionally, when I couldn’t stand it because I missed you so badly, I’d lie on the bed next to you, just so I could feel you next to me.” Reaching out, she rubbed her hand over my whiskered face.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” I joked. “I need a shave.”
“Your grandpa comes every few days to shave your face and helps to give you sponge baths.”
I sighed, leaning into her palm. “Because that’s not embarrassing at all.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. You needed help, and we were more than willing to give it. We were all here for you, Chase. None of us ever left. Brittney has been with you a lot, everyday. She works here. And she’d even come to see you on her days off. Brett would come with her whenever he could– your mom, Greg, your grandma and grandpa, my family—we’ve all been here, talking to you about things in our lives, trying to keep you involved, in touch with us, just in case you might hear us and come back.”
“Hmmm. I’m thinking maybe it worked.” Maybe this really was where my false reality had come from. Simply my mind twisting the things people were telling me into a story that made sense to it at the time. Everything just seemed so bizarre, so otherworldly.
Closing my eyes, I suddenly felt tired, but I was afraid to sleep. Afraid—like her—that I’d go away, again, and lose all of this.
“You need to rest,” she said, and my eyes flickered open to look at her. “You’ve been through a lot today.”
“I don’t want you to leave.” I didn’t care if that was a greedy thing to ask. In my mind, I’d been without her for years. I wanted her right here, beside me, now.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she replied and we both chuckled. Her face grew serious. “Do you still love me, Chase? I mean, like you used to?”
Sliding my hand around her neck, I pulled her back to my chest. “I never stopped loving you, Nikki. Not for one second.” I wrapped my arms tightly around her. “And I’m not about to stop now.”
Chapter Twenty
Someone quietly entered the room. I cracked my eyelids to find Brittney moving around, cleaning things up and emptying the trash, as well as restocking some items. Apparently she thought I was still sleeping. As tired as I was, I hadn’t rested much through the night, awake when the morning light began filtering through the cracks in the blinds at the window.
My mind was churning; full of a myriad of thoughts after Nikki had left me in the wee hours of the morning. She hadn’t wanted to leave, and it had taken quite a bit of coaxing on my part to get her to go, relenting only when I gave her my word I’d still be here when I woke up again. The fear in her eyes was plain to see, not that I blamed her. I was afraid, too—afraid of closing my eyes and waking up to find this all gone once more, like everything about Nikki had been in my past.
Still, I managed to doze off for a few hours here and there, always finding myself back in the hospital when I awakened. I was beginning to believe all of this, even though I was still afraid to.
I watched Brittney closely, studying her as she moved, trying to make sense of what had happened in my head. Despite my deep feelings for Nikki, I’d been in love with Brittney, too—at least I thought I had. All the emotions tumbling inside me felt real; whether they were imagined or not.
“Nikki said you visited me every day.”
She jumped, placing her hand over her heart. “Chase, you scared the crap out of me. I thought you were still asleep.” She moved closer, resting her hands on the foot of my bed.
“Is that true? You came every day—even when you weren’t working?”
Nodding, she stared into my eyes. “Yes, everyone tried to come as often as they could. We kept talking to you, hoping something would eventually get through; or, if you could hear us, so you wouldn’t feel alone. We wanted you to know we were all here for you.”
“What did you talk to me about?” I asked, wanting to test the doctor’s theory.
A perplexed look crossed her face. “Do you mean all of us, or me in particular?”
“Just you,” I replied. “Unless you don’t have time right now. I don’t want you to get in trouble or anything.”
Shaking her head, she moved around to the side of the bed, sitting in the chair Nikki had been in yesterday. “My boss won’t mind. She knows we are friends.”
Friends. I flinched a little at the word. She was so much more to me than that, and she had no idea.
“I talked to you about all sorts of things.” She gave a small laugh, almost like she was a bit embarrassed. “To be honest, you’ve kind of been my sounding board. There’s been a lot going on in my life lately. Sometimes I’d come sit in here beside you and spill every little detail out to you. It was therapeutic for me, and you never talked back to me in a condescending manner.”
“Who’s talking to you that way?” My temper flared at her words.
She shrugged. “Matt, people around town, my parents even, sometimes.”
“Why?” I demanded. The Brittney I knew was a beautiful, amazing girl—even before the accident. No one should be making her feel bad.
“Isn’t it obvious?” She gestured to her stomach. “I’m pregnant.”
“So? What does that have to do with anything?”
She laughed. “It’s small town judgment, Chase. A girl gets pregnant out of wedlock and suddenly she’s a whore, a disgrace to her family and all who know her. Her boyfriend accuses her of cheating with someone else and leaves, even though he knows she was only ever with him.”
“Sounds like small minded people in a small town to me.” I couldn’t believe anyone would treat her that way.