Page 61 of All I Have Left

EVIE

T he rest of Tuesday night goes by slowly.

Unbearably slow. I’m more aware of my injuries now.

Lance had broken my right hand, I have a blood infection from the cuts and a nasty urinary tract infection that spread to my kidneys.

It’s not awesome. None of it. Despite all of this, the staff at the University of Alabama in Birmingham take care of me and give me as much time as they can next to Grayson.

I spend hours beside Grayson, holding his hand, praying. I stare at the machines he’s hooked up to and pray that they keep him alive. The IV pumps, the ventilator, the cardiac monitor, the chest tube, all of it, I beg and plead for them to work and keep him alive while he heals.

“Fight for us,” I whisper to him, gripping his hand that’s tethered to the bed, around his wrists, cuffs to keep him from moving.

My eyes drift to his face, his black eyes swollen to the point his eyelids look like they’re going to explode.

The left side of his head and ear is covered in a thick white bandage.

On the top of his shaved head is a tube connected by a screw drilled into his skull.

It’s a horrifying thought to imagine what his body has gone through in the last two days, yet here he is, holding on.

In reality—though I have no concept of reality at the moment—I have a lot to be thankful for.

Miracles are happening around us. Grayson’s neurosurgeon is rated number one in the nation and he just so happened to be in the area consulting on another case the night of the accident.

He was paged during the Life Flight and had the OR on standby to get him right away.

That’s a miracle I’m hanging onto because without their quick action and getting him in surgery when they did, even fifteen minutes later could have resulted in him being brain dead. So I cling to those tiny miracles. They give me hope.

Until around midnight when Grayson’s heart rate increases radically.

“What’s happening?” Startled by the sudden alarms flashing and beeping in the room, I look to Grayson and he remains motionless, the only sound his ventilator.

He’s covered in big blue pads on his torso, arms and legs.

They tell me they’re cooling pads to regulate his temperature.

He spiked a fever about an hour ago and something felt off to me, as if it was an indication something was wrong. I guess, maybe this is it.

A nurse I haven’t seen before reaches for my wheelchair. “We’re concerned about the pressures so you’re going to have to leave.”

“What?” I panic. “No. I want to stay. I won’t bother you. I just want to stay.”

“You can’t,” she snaps, gripping the edges of my chair, and it’s then I notice the panic in her tone, the rattle in her demeanor. He’s not okay. “You have to leave. Every second you’re in here is another one lost for us to help him. He needs us to save his life and we can’t with you here.”

I’m rushed out, the door closing behind me. Another nurse takes a hold of my wheelchair and IV. “I’m going to take you back to your room for now. They’ll come talk to you when they know more.”

The thing is, I want to know every single detail about what they’re doing. It can’t be any worse than I’m already imagining.

But I’m left with nothing .

No hope. No reassurance.

Alone in my room again, I’m holding on. Barely. As I fear the worst, time moves slowly. Minute by minute, hour by hour, and the waiting seems unbearable. I want answers. I want to know that he’s going to make it, but they don’t know.

After a four-hour surgery, I’m able to see Grayson again early Wednesday morning before the sun comes up. His room is dark, the only lights the glow of the monitors. He’s unresponsive, heavily sedated, the bruising in his face worse. He looks like a raccoon.

“What happened?” I ask, confused as to what went wrong. Julia stands next to my chair, holding my hand. “I mean, he was doing better, wasn’t he?”

Dr. Nehls, his neurosurgeon, sits next to me, his words soft. “These things happen sometimes, but we noticed his hemodynamics changed and were able to act quickly. I’m hopeful that we evacuated the bleed and cauterized the area to prevent another bleed.”

I don’t know what that means, but I understand the word bleed. “Is that normal for there to be a new bleed? Or is that bad?”

“It happens sometimes.” His eyes drift to Grayson. “Now we just need to wait and see. Give him some time and keep an eye on everything. We’re monitoring him very closely.”

“Is the pressure going down now?” I ask.

Beside Dr. Nehls is his nurse, Leigha, who I’ve come to love over the last twelve hours.

She’s sat with me explaining every procedure and step along the way, even though I’m not related to Grayson.

His parents should be getting this information but thankfully, they’ve allowed me to be present through all of it.

Maybe because I might possibly have a mental breakdown .

“It’s not coming down yet, but I think it will.

Swelling that’s persistent and doesn’t show any improvement means the area of the brain affected needs to be explored further.

We do a series of CT scans and compare them over time and that gives us a better understanding. Almost like a timeline to go off.”

“And if it doesn’t go down?”

“Then we know there could be more damage done to his brain than we initially thought. So we’d start with doing another surgery, another hole in his skull to allow for the swelling. Sometimes it’s a new bleed that’s causing the problem. In that case, again, another surgery like we had to do today.”

I let out a heavy breath. “So if he wakes up, then what?”

“I’ll have to do another small surgery to put the piece of the skull back in place once the pressure is down and stays down.

” My eyes widen as I stare at Grayson. “That’s nothing compared to the first and second surgeries though, but we’re still a long way from that,” he adds, noticing the worry etched in my face.

“Even with no complications from this point on, he has a very long recovery, and we don’t know what that recovery will look like.

It’s different for everyone. For now, let’s just take it hour by hour.

We’ll lighten the sedation around the eighteen-hour mark after this last surgery to see if he can follow those simple commands we talked about.

Squeezing my hand, thumbs-up, eye movements, look me in the eye, wiggle his toes. ”

“Can I be in the room when that happens?” I blurt, remembering how jealous I was that Dr. Nehls got to see him awake.

He nods. “This time, yes. I think that can be arranged.” His eyes move to Leigha.

She nods, smiling at Julia and me. “I’ll make sure you’re both here for that.”

“Then what happens after you wake him up?” Julia asks, speaking for the first time. I didn’t realize until now I’ve been the one to be asking most of the questions.

“We only want him awake long enough to test brain function. After that, we’ll give him more pain medication and keep him sedated and comfortable.

He’ll be going in for a series of CT scans to check on the bleeding and swelling.

If it goes down, and keeps going down, we’ll lighten the sedation even more, wake him up and to do the breathing trials, if he passes them, we eventually remove the breathing tube.

But all that will happen slowly. Can take weeks. ”

I stare at the monitors and then Grayson’s face. “What about his heart rate and the pressure. Is it too high now?”

Dr. Nehls glances at the monitors too, and then me again. “He’s holding steady at where he’s at. We monitor it so that the pressure doesn’t become so severe that the brain herniates onto the brain stem.”

“What if that happens? Another surgery?”

His face softens and I watch the roll of his throat as he swallows. “That’s the end game for us, Evie. He wouldn’t come back from that. He’d be brain dead.”

I gasp, my hand over my mouth. “Oh my God.”

His hand reaches out, rubbing my back. “Evie, honey, we’re doing everything we can. Remember, Grayson’s fighting. He is.”

I try to accept his words and believe him, but it’s hard. Especially after the scare he gave us earlier.

Eighteen hours.

Just wait eighteen hours and hopefully I can at least see him awake for a short time.

I shower for the first time and even the water hitting my skin makes me cry. It burns so bad I have to stop and have my mom and Frankie give me a sponge bath.

I’m forced to eat something and throw up about twenty minutes after it. I am, in fact, losing it, but all I can do is think and worry about Grayson.

For the next few hours, a pastor comes to see him.

We pray together. Social workers check in on me, police, a sexual assault nurse walks me through filing charges against Shane and what will happen after that.

They send in a grief counselor. She’s sweet and holds my hand, trying to assure me that everything I’m feeling and going through is natural, but I’m not convinced.

Through all of that, never once do any of them promise he’ll make it.

I try, twisting my words so that maybe they’ll reassure me, but they don’t.

I’m given no promises of tomorrow with him.

Wyatt comes into my room for the first time that afternoon. He’s the closest thing I have to a dad and the very second he enters my room, I think, what if he’s here to tell me Grayson’s gone? What if that hemorrhage they talked about in his brain stem happened?

“There’s no change,” he tells me, closing the door behind him. “It’ll be around five tonight before they ease off the sedation.”

No change isn’t great, but it isn’t bad. I look at the clock. It’s only been twelve hours.

Wyatt comes closer. He looks nervous, as though he wants to ask if I’m okay, but knows the answer. He touches my hand and squeezes and when our eyes meet, I see Grayson in him. I burst into tears. “I’m sorry I led him to Grayson.”

It seems that’s all I can say. I’m sorry for so much.

Without words, he crawls into my bed with me, wraps his arms around my body and holds me.

And until this moment, it’s something I didn’t know I needed.

Wyatt has held me like this three times in my life.

The night my dad put my mom in the hospital, he comforted a terrified four-year-old who thought her mom was going to die.

Then again, after Grayson left, he found me drunk, lying on Grayson’s bed, holding that damn letter.

He lay next to me, brought me to his chest and assured me everything would be okay.

Then again the first time Shane hit me and I refused to tell anyone, yet somehow, this man knew I needed someone I trusted to tell me everything was going to be okay .

And now, when I have nothing left, he gives me that fatherly assurance I didn’t know I needed from him.

Despite only thinking of myself, I can’t imagine what he’s going through.

I think I cry more for him because this man has loved me and my family unconditionally since the day we moved next door, and his son is barely hanging on.

And then, then I cry for me. Because this is, well, fucking overwhelming.

He holds tighter, his arms around my shoulders, his lips pressed to my forehead. He smells like leather and cinnamon. “I’m so sorry you’ve been through all this.”

“It’s because of me though. I deserve all of this.”

Wyatt pulls back. “You don’t deserve any of it. Not a goddamn thing that’s happened is your fault.”

I try to listen to him, but in my current state, it’s hard to accept that. It’s like the world shifted and the darkness took over. I can’t possibly see the bright side in any of this.

When I look at his face, I see so much of Grayson in him.

The way he bites the inside of his lip when he’s thinking—a nervous twitch they both have. “Thank you for saving his life.”

“He saved mine.”

“Honey, you saved him in more ways than this one.”

I don’t quite understand his words. “What do you mean?”

“If it weren’t for you, he would have given up a long time ago.”

“I feel like it’s my fault he left in the first place.” Sighing, I motion around the hospital room. “And then he came back to this shitshow.”

Laughter shakes his chest and I think it’s the first laugh from anyone, aside from an hour ago when Frankie snorted powdered sugar off a donut by accident. Long story. “Honey, life is a shitshow for everyone. Grayson knows that.”

“Will you tell me something about him?”

He sighs. “Anything.”

“What happened to him over there? ”

Sadness takes his smile. I don’t think he thought I was going to ask that. “Probably more than he will ever tell anyone.”

“It was bad, huh?”

He nods. “He was captured and held captive with another soldier back in March. He was found somehow by the Navy about a month later, and transported back to the States once he was stable. He’s been through a lot in the last year.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“When he went missing, I didn’t want to say anything because we didn’t know what happened.

There wasn’t a lot of communication with his commanding officer and by the time we did get through to someone, we were told he’d been found, alive, but in a hospital in Balad.

” He blows out a heavy breath. “I didn’t even tell the girls.

Kelly found out, but we didn’t tell Frankie. ”

“Because you didn’t want me to know?”

“You had enough going on, honey. But honestly, in my heart, I knew it wasn’t the end for him. I knew they’d find him. He’s a fighter, through and through. Stubborn as hell, you know that.”

I smile through my tears. “Do you remember that time he wanted you to buy him a dirt bike and you wouldn’t so he took the engine out of your lawnmower and wired it to his bike?”

“How can I forget.” Wyatt shakes his head, his hand running through his hair. “He drove it through the side of the house.”

Laughter leaves my lips for the first time, a pain in my chest and side at the movement. “Did he ever tell you what happened while he was over there?”

“No, he hasn’t. His commanding officer said it takes time for them to talk.

” His hand falls to his lap, his other securely around my shoulder.

“All he ever said was that the soldier he’d been captured with didn’t make it and I think it’s affected Grayson more than he wants to admit.

I’ve tried to talk to him about it, but he won’t. ”

Overwhelming guilt takes over and I rest my head on Wyatt’s chest, listening to the beat of his heart, the man who gave Grayson life, holding me. “I can’t do this without him. I don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to either, Evie,” he soothes, his chin resting on the top of my head. “He’s going to make it. I know it in my heart that he’s going to pull through.”

While he holds me, I start to wonder if this pain inside me is ever going to end. Right now, it feels like it never will.