Page 59 of All I Have Left

EVIE

I wake up in a clouded haze, knowing this might be how I wake up every morning from now on. I have no idea the time, what day it is, or what’s going on. There’s brief moments when I do open my eyes that I stare at the wall, blinking slowly, trying to recall where I am.

And then it hits me in the next breath, my blinding reality.

Grayson .

He’s my first thought, my only one. Is he okay? Did he make it through the night?

I sit up in a rush, gasping, my hand over my heart, wishing this was all a dream. Sunday flashes in my head. The lake, the drive, inside his truck, and then the brutal image of the bat connecting with Grayson’s head.

Tears flood my eyes, that all too familiar lump in my throat surfacing.

Looking around the room, I notice I’m hooked up to an IV still, a thick white blanket over my body.

Frankie steps in front of me, her face blotchy and red, her hair knotted up on top of her head and a loose white T-shirt hanging off her shoulder.

“Evie, you should lay down.” Soft hands reach for my shoulders, urging me back. “Don’t sit up so quickly. ”

Not because I want to, but because my body needs it, I allow her to lay me down.

She stares at me, crying silently, her ring catching my eyes. Her day, her time to be excited about her upcoming wedding is no longer the focus, and it should be. It fucking should be but Shane took that from them, too.

I swallow, or try to. My throat’s scratchy and raw. “Where’s Grayson? Have you heard anything?”

Her eyes cloud, flutter, tears dripping from her lashes. “He just got out of surgery about an hour ago but I haven’t heard anything else.”

“And?” I try to sit up again, but she stops me, her hands on sore shoulders. “Is he okay? What did they say how the surgery went?”

Frankie pauses, her eyes darting around the room.

She squeezes my hand. “I talked to a couple of the nurses that I know from school. I’m not going to say it’s good and reassure you he’s going to be okay, because I don’t know, Evie.

I just… I don’t know. They haven’t even listed his condition yet.

I’ll tell you what I tell all the families when this kind of injury comes into the ER, hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”

“Frankie!” I gasp. “What the fuck?”

“I’m sorry. You need to calm down, okay?”

“I can’t. What are they doing to him? Can’t you find out anything? Don’t you know other nurses where he is?”

“They’re not going to give me any information because they know I’m his sister. All I know is that he was a working code when they brought him in.”

“And that means?”

“They were doing CPR.”

“What kind of things would you guys do if this happened?”

“We’re not a trauma center. We don’t see patients like him. That’s why he was air lifted here. It’s the only trauma center in the area.”

“Frankie, just… walk me through what would happen. ”

She blows out a breath, knowing what I need.

“Okay. I can only assume after he was brought in they would have had a team waiting. Usually for a Life Flight everything is called in and ready for when the patient arrives. They would have got him stable. Since his heart stopped, they would have had to get a pulse back, then quickly do imaging. CT scans, chest X-rays, they probably looked for internal bleeding and then went from there.” She pauses, seeing my breathing slowing and knowing that this is finally giving me some peace.

“They would have given him pain medication, anti-seizure medication, and paralytics so he didn’t fight the ventilator, which would have increased his intracranial pressures even more.

They don’t want them exerting themselves at all.

And then they would have done surgery. After all that, they’ll ease him off medication enough to check for brain function and then sedate him to let him heal. ”

My heart beats faster, in my throat, down to my toes. It’s painful, restricting, and I can’t even draw in a breath to calm it. Honestly, I’m not sure I care about anything but that. I just want his heart beating and the painful reminder that the last time I saw him, it wasn’t.

Frankie notices my anxiety and hands me a plastic cup with a straw. “Drink some water.”

The door opens, a nurse entering. Vaguely familiar, she smiles. “Evie, honey, it’s good to see you awake.”

I grip the edges of the blanket, my eyes darting to my hands when I realize how sore they are. They’re black and blue. I think about her words. They flash in my head.

Good to see you awake.

“How long have I been out?” I ask, looking to Frankie.

“It’s Monday afternoon.”

Afternoon? I’ve been out for twelve hours?

The nurse moves toward me, her focus on the screen in front of her. She’s typing, asking me how I feel, taking my blood pressure, checking bandages I didn’t know I had, but my only concern is Grayson. I don’t care about my injuries .

“Do you know anything about Grayson? Can I see him?”

“Oh, I’m not sure. The last I had heard he was out of surgery and in the neuro ICU.” Her voice is soft, a gentler side being revealed. Her eyes dart to Frankie, and then me. “But I’ll go check on him.”

The rush of blood in my face thickens. “Can you come right back here and tell me what you find out, like, right away?”

The nurse smiles tenderly. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, get some rest. Do you want to try some food?”

I shake my head immediately, the idea of eating repulsive. “No.”

She leaves me alone with Frankie, who sits on the edge of my bed, grasping my hand. “Do you need anything?”

Tears flood my eyes. “All I need is to know Grayson is going to make it.” I shake my head. “That’s all I care about.”

“I know you do. We all want that.”

“Where is everyone?”

“In the waiting room. We’re only allowed back here two at a time. Ethan was going to come back,” her expression shifts, softens, “but he’s not ready.”

I think about what I must look like. “I’m a fucking mess,” I say, trying to smooth my hair. It doesn’t work. It’s tangled and feels like there’s glue in it.

Frankie takes my hand in hers, holding it carefully. “You’re amazing. You got him help and if it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t be alive right now.”

“I might have been too late, Frankie. His heart stopped.”

She nods. “I know, but we’re going to pray for the best.”

That’s all I can do. Pray. Because this, this isn’t in my hands. I can’t fix him.

It’s another hour before a Julia comes into the room, her purse draped over her shoulder and two coffees in hand. She hands one to Frankie, and then me. I can tell she’s been crying all night. “I wasn’t sure if you would be up and want coffee so I brought one anyway. ”

The sound of anything, water, coffee, it’s all repulsive to me. “Did they give you an update on Grayson?”

Julie sits next to me, Frankie on the other side, holding my hand. “He’s in the Neurocritical Care ICU. We’re not allowed in there yet but when we are, they said one person at a time.”

“What do you mean we’re not allowed? I want to see him now.” I try to get up, ripping the blanket off me. “I won’t bother him. I just need to see his face.”

Julia rests her hands on my shoulders, trying to make me lie back down. “Sweetie, I want to see him too, but we can’t right now. We need to let him rest and let the doctors care for him.”

“Have they listed his condition yet?” Frankie asks.

“Critical. So far, they’re taking it hour by hour.”

Fear knots in my chest like my heart and stomach are twisting into one. “What are his injuries?”

“Did they say if he was leaking cerebrospinal fluid?”

Julia and Frankie exchange a look. “He was.”

My eyes dart to Frankie’s. “What does that mean? What’s that?”

She runs her hands over her face. “It means that his skull fracture tore the dura. It’s a protective layer on the outside of the brain. He had a depressed skull fracture to his temporal lobe so more than likely the fragments tore it.”

Julia and Frankie talk amongst themselves. About where they’re staying in Birmingham and the windows being replaced in the house. Things I can’t even bear to think about if Grayson doesn’t make it.

I replay the accident over and over again wondering if I had been able to get him into the truck, would the outcome be different?

His heart stopped. I couldn’t have helped that so maybe it was better that I called 911 because the time it would have taken me to get to the ER, he wouldn’t have made it.

What I don’t think about is myself. I have no real care about the pain between my legs or the fact that I was raped. I don’t care that I have hundreds of cuts all over my body, contusions forming on my arms and face. I care about none of that. Nothing else matters.

The next few hours, or maybe days, fade. I have no concept of time, or my own injuries, just that I have them. They mean nothing to me.

Frankie tells me she heard from Ethan that Shane confessed.

“What? Really?” I would have never thought he’d do that.

“He didn’t at first but when they found Grayson’s bat in his car and the blood on it, he had no choice but to admit to it. And with Kaiden’s confession, he’d be stupid not to.”

I didn’t see it coming, but in a way, I’m glad Shane confessed. He ruined our lives and after everything he’d taken from me, from Grayson, finally, he did one of them right.

Finally, later that evening, they let me see Grayson. Between all the tubes connected to him and the bandages, I have no idea if they are even showing me Grayson, or some other guy wrapped up in bandages. I don’t think at this point, I care. I just want to know that his heart is beating.

At a closer look, I can tell it’s him by the scar on his shoulder and the forearm tattoos. “We were able to wake him up enough after surgery to get some responses out of him. He was able to squeeze my hand and nod. We’re keeping him heavily sedated for now.”

“Is that machine keeping him alive?” I ask, pointing to the one closest to him with his heartbeat displayed.