Don’t Forget to Remember Me (2 page)

“Aaron,” I cried brokenly. “This isn’t
happening. Tell me this isn’t happening. Jesus…I love her so much.
I can’t lose her.” It was closer to a prayer than anything I’d ever
said.

“We have some of the best
doctors in the world here. Just have faith, Ryan. We have to
believe she’ll be okay.” His arms tightened around me and lifted me
enough to get my feet under me. “She’ll be okay. We all love Julia.
We
all
love her,
man.” His voice broke on the last sentence as he hugged me. If
Aaron was crying, then he didn’t believe she’d be okay. He
never
fucking cried. In
all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen him shed a single
tear.

I pushed away from him and pulled out my
phone. I dialed the familiar number, pacing back and forth in the
room that Julia and the medical staff had just vacated.

“Hello?” my father answered the phone and I
felt a new wave of emotion overcome me.

“Dad…”

“Ryan? Is that you? Did something happen?”
His voice was anxious and I could hear my mother’s distressed voice
in the background as well.

“I need you to get to
Boston right away. Julia’s been in a car accident. Her cab was
broadsided and it looks like she has a serious head injury. Please.
If she needs neurosurgery, I don’t want anyone else touching her.
I’m going out of my mind. Just…
please come.
”

“My God, Ryan. Yes, we’ll come, but if she
does have a head injury, you have to let them treat her. Don’t wait
for me, do you understand? You know as well as I do, that treatment
must be immediate. Waiting could kill her or leave her with serious
brain damage. The first hour or two are critical, you know that!
Ryan!” Dad yelled when I didn’t respond.

My eyes were burning and I couldn’t get the
words out so I just nodded. Aaron ripped the phone from my shaking
hand.

“Hey, Dad. Yes, okay. Call me with your
flight details and I’ll pick you up at the airport.” Aaron turned
his back to me and kept talking into the phone. “No, he’s not
handling it well. Not at all. I’ve never seen him so out of it. Are
you sure? Okay. Yes, I called, but her mother didn’t answer. Yes,
I’ll call again. Love you guys. Bye.”

I slid down the wall until I was sitting on
the floor and rested my arms on my bent knees. Aaron closed the
door and sat down on the one chair in the now empty room. The
symbolism of it shook me to the core. Stark, empty space where
Julia used to be…cold and sterile.

I put my head in my arms and let the
emotions I couldn’t contain wash over me. My shoulders shook in
silent sobs until I finally had to gasp for breath and Aaron
touched my shoulder.

“Mom and Dad are on their way. Ryan, I’m so
sorry. She’s going to be okay.”

“She has to be, Aaron. She has to, or I
won’t survive,” I whispered brokenly.

“You need to try to pull it together, Ryan.
You have to be strong for Julia. She wouldn’t want to see you like
this.”

“Hmmph,” I let out my
breath heavily.
“
Julia
would want
me to be honest about my feelings. And I feel like I’m falling
apart…helpless. Like I’m dying myself. I want to be in there and
take this all away from her. I’d take her place if I could,” I
choked out and I fisted my hands over both eyes.

Aaron was right. Unless I
wanted her parents and Ellie to freak out, I needed to get control
of my emotions. Even more importantly, when they let me see Julia,
I had to be calm and reassuring.
If she
was conscious.

We sat there for what
seemed like an eternity. Aaron left a couple of times to get
coffee, but I didn’t move, praying that she would be okay and
reliving so many of the wonderful times we’d shared. The day we
met, the first time I kissed her or when we made love, when I put
the engagement ring on her finger, the many Sunday coffee dates we
were forced to spend on the phone, the move to New York. In all of
my memories she was beautiful and smiling…whole. Not broken and
bleeding. “Oh, my God,” I ground out brokenly. “No,
please
.”

I ran my hand through my hair and stood up
to answer my phone immediately as it started to ring. It was
Julia’s dad.

“Hello, Paul.”

“Oh, thank God. Ryan, what do you know?” His
voice was frantic, the catch in his voice giving away the level of
his emotion.

“Not a lot right now. They took her to
radiology for some scans. She probably has a skull fracture, but we
don’t know the extent until after these films. She has a
pneumothorax and a dislocated shoulder, contusions on her head,
face and torso and probably some broken ribs.” My voice had taken
on a clinical tone, on autopilot, as I rattled off the list.

“What’s a pneumothorax?”

“Oh, sorry. Um, a collapsed lung.” He gasped
on the other end of the phone and my strong façade fell by the
wayside when my voice thickened. I put my hand over my eyes and
took a deep breath. “Paul, I’m really scared. All I want to do is
get in there and help take care of her, but they won’t let me.
They…won’t let me. I feel…so incredibly helpless.”

“Jesus.” Paul sighed. “Ryan, I’m sure you’re
doing all you can. I’m glad you’re with her. I’ll get there as soon
as I can. I’ve changed planes in Chicago and I’m already onboard.
Ellie called and said she was going to meet me at the hospital and
Marin is on her way, too.”

He was trying to comfort me when his baby
girl was fighting for her life. I wished I could be that strong,
but then, I’d seen her. I’d seen the blood and the machines and
despite the fact I was around it all the time, because it was
Julia, it wrecked me.

“Yeah. My parents are on their way as well.
If her head injury looks bad, I want my father here to consult
or…God forbid, operate, if it’s necessary.”

“I hope it isn’t that serious, but I’m
thankful that Gabriel is coming. I’ve made my bargains with God
already. I’ll see you in a couple of hours. Julia is lucky to have
you, Ryan.”

It’s that serious.
I closed my eyes in silent prayer.

“I’m the lucky one. She means everything to
me, Paul.” I could feel my chest constrict again as I hung up the
phone.

“Ryan?”

I turned to a shaken Jenna re-entering the
room. “They’ve taken her to ICU. She has a fracture to the left
side of her skull. We were able to re-inflate the lung, tape up her
ribs and pop her shoulder back in. There is some slight swelling to
her brain but radiology didn’t see any bleeding on the CT
scan.”

“Is she breathing on her own?” I asked,
fearing the answer with everything I had. “Did you need a chest
tube or did the lung re-inflate on its own?”

Jen came forward and hugged me. “We were
able to suck the air out with a big syringe so we didn’t need to
tube her. She’s on a vent and hasn’t regained consciousness,” she
said quietly.

I hugged her back. “No doubt due to the
edema. All we can do is watch her now and make sure we catch any
bleeds or fluids. We’re not out of the woods until she wakes up.
Have they got her on blood thinners? Is the coma induced or not?” I
asked wearily. I was exhausted and started rubbing the back of my
neck. The next three or four days would tell the story. If she
didn’t wake up before that, the chances were, she never would.

“Ryan, stop trying to be a doctor. You’ve
got enough to deal with,” Aaron began, but his words upset me. My
jaw tightened and I bit back the words I wanted to retort.

“I want to know what is happening,” I said
instead.

“She’s on several meds. She didn’t wake up
on her own, but Dr. Brighton ordered barbiturates to keep her
asleep so her brain can heal and to help reduce the swelling. I
don’t need to tell you the particulars,” Jenna said. She looked as
exhausted as I felt and her eyes were red and swollen.

She moved back from the embrace and took my
hands. “Thank you, Jen. I appreciate all you’ve done. Can I see her
now? Is Dr. Brighton still with her?” The array of questions fell
from my lips like rain.

“I’m sure they’re watching for hemorrhage.
It’s common with traumatic brain injury,” Aaron interjected quietly
and more contrite than before.

I shook my head and started walking out of
the room, my intention to go straight up to ICU, but Jenna put a
hand on my arm to stop me.

Her voice shook and she cupped my face with
her palm. “Ryan,” she said hesitantly her blue eyes full of
sadness. “Julia had some vaginal bleeding. It was quite
excessive.”

“She had internal bleeding?” I asked in
panic. My heart started racing again but Jenna shook her head.

“Ryan, um…” She raised her tear-filled eyes
to mine and brushed my hair back from my face.

“Jen, what is it?” I choked out. “What is it
that you’re not saying?” Fear, even more prevalent than before,
engulfed me.

“Did you know that Julia was pregnant?”

Until that very moment, I thought it
couldn’t get any worse. I was wrong. I felt the blood drain from my
face and I clenched my fists hard enough for the nails to draw
blood.

Hearing that Julia was expecting my child
should have made me the happiest man on earth, and instead it left
me aching and empty. My Julia, lying broken and still, in a bed
seven stories above me. I whirled away from Jenna to lean a hand on
the wall to steady myself. “Oh, my God,” I gasped for breath.
“Jesus, no!”

The tears I thought had run dry began to
squeeze out of my tightly closed eyes. My stomach ached and my head
throbbed. My chest wouldn’t let me breathe and my throat
constricted with the sobs that wanted to break out of my chest.
“Why the hell is this happening? To someone as good as Julia?” the
words ripped out of my chest.

“We still have Julia, Ryan,” Aaron pointed
out. “That is the most important thing right now. Try to focus on
that.”

I nodded and put a hand over my aching
heart. I didn’t need to ask if she’d lost the baby. I already
knew.

Jenna was openly crying now. She nodded and
grabbed a tissue from the box on the counter to wipe at her eyes
and nose. My hand started tugging on the shirt over my heart in
silent hope that it could remove the pain that was manifesting
there. I felt like a black hole had just opened up and swallowed me
alive and there was nothing I could do to claw out of it.

“How far along was she?” Aaron asked.

“A few weeks, maybe,” Jenna answered softly.
“We managed to get the bleeding stopped fairly easily and she won’t
need a D and C.”

I moved away from both of
them, not wanting anyone touching me. I could hear them talking but
it was like I was hearing their voices from underwater.
“
Five
weeks since
we were last together, but technically they’d measure it as seven,”
I said more to myself than to either of them. The night she told me
about Paris, the night I put the ring on her finger…the night we
conceived our child.

Jesus, is there anything else you can do to
me? To her?

“Weren’t you guys using protection,
Ryan?”

“Aaron. Stop being an insensitive ass,”
Jenna shot at him. “Now isn’t the time for that.”

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat,
nodding. “Um…yeah. Julia was on the pill, but she’d had a sinus
infection and was on an antibiotic course shortly before we were
together. I’m such an idiot! I should have realized…This is my
fault. I should have protected her.”

“Julia wouldn’t think that way, Ryan. I’m
sure she was happy about the baby. She loves you so much,” Jen
answered.

The gravity of what this meant rushed over
me in waves. Yes, she would have been so happy.

My child…with Julia. I’d
imagined what it would be like to see her swell with the evidence
of the mad love we felt for each other. Nothing would have made me
happier. Now, I felt cheated at the unfairness of it. And
Julia…she’d be the most wonderful, giving mother. I saw it in the
way she took care of everyone around her. I was angry because now
she lay near death, and when she woke up…
if
she woke up, I had to tell her she’d lost our
child.
Our
baby.

“That’s why she came to Boston.” My heart
constricted to the point of pain. “She wouldn’t tell me something
like that over the phone.”

“Ryan, I’m so sorry. You’ll be able to have
more children,” Jenna’s voice was trembling and she wiped at her
eyes. Aaron gathered her close to his side.

“If she survives, you mean?” I asked
hopelessly.

“Ryan, I should beat you senseless! Stop
thinking like that. Julia needs you to be strong right now. She
needs you like she’s never needed you, so get your head out of your
ass and start being more positive! We’re all here and we’re going
to get her through this.” Aaron’s voice was loud and his tone hard.
It should have shaken me out of my heartbroken haze, but it
didn’t.

“When Paul and Marin get here, don’t tell
them about this. They have enough grief to deal with because of
Julia. They don’t need more to contend with.”

I shook my head silently, then turned and
rushed from the room. I had to get out of there, had to be alone to
deal with the agony before I could go up and be with Julia. I had
to run, scream or both or I’d explode.

I ran as fast as I could, the cool night air
rushing over my face and through my hair. I ran so fast that the
tears were pushed back across my temples by the wind. Finally, when
I reached the footpath that ran through the park near the hospital,
I slowed my pace and sank down on my haunches. It was the middle of
the night and no one was around. No sounds except the crickets, a
few birds and some distant traffic.

Why? My heart screamed.
Why?! Why?!
Fucking
Why
?!