The melody in our hearts (23 page)

Delia felt almost scared by her tone: She had never seen her so determined, but she could understand how important that guy must be to her, so she didn’t say anything and simply nodded.

“I’ll go get some sleep now. Call me immediately should there be any changes, either good or bad, okay?”

Delia nodded again, and Valerie left reluctantly to go lie down and try to regain strength before her shift started.

~
Thirty-nine
~

On Saturday morning they started to reduce the sedatives and moved him from the intensive care unit to a standard room in the sixth floor ward, waiting for him to wake up. Valerie basically spent the days going up from the ER to his room and then back. When her shift was over, she would grab a snack from the vending machine and would go up again to be with him. She simply sat there by his bed all the time, holding his hand and talking to him, hoping he could hear her.

She spent more time in his room than was necessary, but she just couldn’t help it. Even if she was off duty, she had to be by his side, making sure that she was there in case he needed her.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her colleagues. They were great doctors, but he was too important, and she just couldn’t let anything happen to him. She felt sort of responsible, not only because he was her patient and she was acting professionally, but because he was her life.

She had known it ever since she first met him. She had felt that her life hadn’t been worth living until he’d walked into it, that she just didn’t feel whole without him. She had always thought it was only friendship, that she was feeling that way because he was her best friend and had always been her only true friend, the big brother she had never had, the only person who truly understood her.

She had never realized, not until the moment she was about to lose him, with her hands inside his chest trying to save his life, that what she felt for Ryan was way beyond friendship.

It was love she felt; it was love, the feeling that had been burning inside her ever since he had come into her life. It was love that so many times had made her want to take the first flight available and travel across the world just to be where he was and see his smile; it was love that had made her heart skip a beat when his heart had stopped for a few seconds when he was lying on the operating table.

She had been so stupid to think that she only cared about him as a friend, that feeling at home every time he was near was just because they had grown up together, just because they had shared the same passion for music. She had let him travel around the world and meet new people without knowing the way she felt.

Maybe he didn’t feel the same, maybe she was still just a good friend to him, but could she live without letting him know now? No, she couldn’t. She had to let Ryan know her feelings; even if he had a girlfriend, a model nonetheless, she had to know if he still considered her only a friend.

She looked out the window at the rain pouring down like tears from Heaven, and somehow she knew that someone up there was crying for what had happened to Ryan: If it wasn’t God Himself, surely both their grandpas were.

The news had spread fast and reporters from local and international newspapers and TV networks had gathered outside the hospital, waiting for her to walk out and tell them how he was feeling today. They had tried to come inside as soon as the news had leaked, the morning after the accident, and she had needed the security guys to take them outside, as her efforts to remind them they were in a hospital and not in a shopping mall had not succeeded.

They all knew she was the one who was taking care of him, and the first time she had walked out, trying to go home to get changed, she had literally been assaulted by them, cameras flashing and microphones coming up toward her from all directions. She hadn’t been able to leave the hospital in the past forty-eight hours; Karen had brought her clean clothes and some toiletries she needed, and she had basically been living in the ward since the night of the accident.

In a way, she was glad she had an excuse not to leave the hospital even when she wasn’t on duty, because that way she wouldn’t have to leave Ryan for a minute and would be there when he woke up.

If he wakes up
, her mind reminded her.

He
will
wake up, she replied, as if that would be enough to convince the part of her mind that was connected to the doctor and not to Ryan’s friend, that he would be okay.

She had tried to look at the situation from the outside, to have a critical point of view, the same point of view she would have if Ryan was a normal patient, one of the many she had seen, and she would have to tell his family what was going to happen. But she had felt too weak and overwhelmed by her feelings to remain detached, so she had decided that she would stop thinking as a doctor and would just pretend that she didn’t know how critical his condition was. Miracles did happen, right? She had heard stories of people who had nearly died and then woke up and went on living as if nothing had happened. She only had to hope, to pray, to wish really hard, and she knew God would listen to her.

Ryan was an angel, it was true: He had an angelic voice, and he was a wonderful person, but she was sure God could wait a few more decades before wanting him to sing for Him in Heaven. He just couldn’t take Ryan away from her yet; He should know she would never be able to live without him, and unless He wanted to meet her in Heaven as well soon after Ryan, He’d better listen to her prayers and let Ryan live.

She shrugged, realizing how stupid she would sound if anyone could hear her thoughts, and she moved away from the window, as if fearing that the reporters could see her, even though she knew they couldn’t.

She got close to Ryan’s bed and looked at the screen that was monitoring his conditions. Everything seemed okay, nothing had changed, which in a way was good because it meant that he hadn’t gotten worse, but it also meant that he hadn’t gotten any better either.

She looked at him and instinctively touched his brow to check his temperature. He had had a temperature the previous night, but she had immediately given him some ibuprofen to bring it down, so his brow was cool now. He seemed to sleep peacefully, and she smiled and brushed away a lock of hair that was sticking to his right temple.

“You’ll be okay, Ryan. I promise.” She bent and kissed his brow, then stroked his cheek. “Man, you so need a shave! It’s so unlike you!”

She chuckled, as if she expected him to open his eyes and say something in response, just to tease her like he used to do. But when he didn’t, she sighed and slumped down on the chair next to the bed.

“You’ll be okay,” she repeated and quickly wiped away a tear on her cheek.

~
Forty
~

She had been awake longer than twenty-four hours by now. She had been on the night shift again, and when Doctor Tyler had come in to start the morning shift, she was supposed to go home and get some sleep, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She wouldn’t be able to leave Ryan as she would leave a normal patient, even though she knew Doctor Tyler was great. So she had taken another cup of coffee and had gone to look after her friend.

But she was starting to feel really tired now, and her eyelids were feeling so heavy she had to pinch her cheek a couple of times to wake up. Seeing Ryan sleeping so peacefully only made her more tired, so in the end she just gave in and rested her head on his chest, its rhythmic movement as he breathed lulling her like a sweet lullaby.

She woke up with a start at the sound of the machine beeping loudly, and it took her only a second to realize what was happening.

His heart had stopped beating.

Again, like in the operating room three nights before.

She wasn’t going to lose him, no matter what God’s plans where; she was a doctor, her job was to save lives, and she was going to save Ryan’s life.

“Ryan,” she whispered desperately, while pressing down rhythmically on his chest to restart his heart. “Ryan, I know you can hear me. Please don’t give in. Please don’t leave me now.”

The door opened and Doctor Tyler came in, pushing the trolley with the defibrillator, their last chance to save Ryan.

“Valerie,” he said, not at all surprised to find her there. “How long have you been doing that?”

“About ten seconds I guess, as soon as the alarm went off.”

Doctor Tyler switched on the machine, and a nurse put some gel on the plates.

“Move aside, Valerie,” he ordered and she nodded, allowing him to do the job. “Clear,” he said, before releasing the electrical shock on Ryan’s chest.

His body rocked, but the sound of the machine didn’t change.

“Okay, charge it to two hundreds,” he told the nurse, and a second later he tried again.

Ryan’s chest lifted from the bed, but nothing changed.

Valerie felt a sudden sense of desperation taking hold of her mind and body; she knew where this was going: Doctor Tyler would try a third time, but if Ryan’s heart didn’t start beating then, he would ask the nurse to switch the machine off and declare the time of death.

No, she couldn’t let that happen; she couldn’t lose her best friend, not like that. They taught you how to be professional and practical, how to be detached and make decisions as quickly as possible, but they didn’t teach you how to act when the patient is your family, when your decision will change not only the patient’s life, but yours too.

“Ryan, Ryan!” she screamed, just before the third shock. “Please stay with me, please stay with me now, come back from wherever you’re going. Don’t you even dare go into the light now!”

She knew she might sound like a lunatic to Doctor Tyler and to the nurse, but she couldn’t just leave anything untried, not if Ryan’s life depended on that.

“Charge it to three hundreds,” Doctor Tyler ordered, ready to buzz him again. “Clear.”

He gave the third electrical shock, and they all looked at the screen, waiting for the sound to change from an uninterrupted to a rhythmical beep, the sound of Ryan’s heart.

Valerie instinctively squeezed Ryan’s hand, as if she could transfer some of her life into his body. Just as Doctor Tyler bowed his head, ready to declare the time of death, the sound suddenly changed, and he looked up at Valerie, a smile on his face.

“He’s back!” he said, almost shocked, and immediately checked the data on the screen. Either the guy was a tough one, or he had a guardian angel somewhere, he thought. He had almost been declared dead twice in only a few days, but he had always come back. If this wasn’t luck, then Doctor Tyler didn’t know what it was.

Valerie bent down to kiss his cheek, tears in her eyes, but a big smile on her face and, as she stroked his brow, Ryan suddenly opened his eyes.

It took him only a couple of seconds to understand there was something stuck in his throat, and he immediately tried to remove it, his eyes wild with fear, feeling as if he was choking.

She knew she should have let Doctor Tyler do it, as she was off duty, but she just acted instinctively and, as soon as she saw Ryan in pain, she quickly and expertly removed the tube from his throat, while Doctor Tyler put an oxygen mask to his mouth to help him breathe normally for a few seconds.

“You’re gonna be okay, now. It’s all over.”

He looked at her, his dark eyes looking bewildered, but only for an instant. Then he smiled a crooked smile from under the oxygen mask and closed his eyes, a tear rolling down his cheek.

~
Forty-one
~

It felt as if he had been on a long, exhausting journey. Had he maybe been touring Europe, or was it the States? Maybe it was Canada. He couldn’t remember. All he was sure of was that he was exhausted, as if he hadn’t been able to rest for days.

He had been dreaming. It had been a weird dream. It had felt like flying in the sky, high above the clouds. He was sort of walking and skipping from one cloud to the other, totally careless and free. It had felt good. He could still remember the feeling of freedom, of pure contentment. He hadn’t felt like that in ages; he couldn’t even remember the last time he had felt like that.

Actually, he could. It had been ages ago, before he became famous, before he started traveling around the world, before he became a celebrity. It was a late October afternoon, and he had been strolling in St. Stephen’s Green with Valerie, talking about their dreams and what the future would hold for the two of them. They had made so many plans, and each and every plan included the two of them together. They just couldn’t imagine a life in which they were not together. It had seemed back then that everything was possible, that whatever lay ahead for them would be just perfect as long as they had each other, as long as their friendship existed.

But it had all gone wrong, it had all turned out to be just some kids’ fantasies, and soon they had parted and had started living two separate lives. Good as they were, lucky as they had been, they were nothing like they had planned back then.