Page 46 of When I Should’ve Stayed (Red Bridge #2)
Josie
My bloodstained hands look foreign to my own eyes as I clutch Clay’s severed flannel shirt within them and look over at the two paramedics working feverishly over his body.
His eyes are still closed, his normal exuberance completely dimmed, and my stomach cramps with anxiety and worry.
“I love you,” I whisper into the air, praying he can hear me. “Please wake up. I need you. I need you so much.”
His skin is pale and ashen in a way I’ve never seen, and with the extent of his injuries, the paramedics are too busy for me to even hold his hand.
My breath gets tangled up in my lungs. Clay is a big, strong guy, but he looks so small on the stretcher as a paramedic shoves an IV into his veins and lets a bag of fluids run into his body as fast as it can.
Another paramedic puts an oxygen mask on his face and slaps a heart monitor to his chest.
“What kind of rhythm do we have?” the one who put in Clay’s IV asks.
“We’re still sinus, but it’s brady. In the forties.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, raising my voice so they can hear me. It sounds gritty and jarring to my own ears. “Is he going to be okay? He has to be okay.”
“He’s lost a lot of blood, but we’re only a few minutes from the hospital, okay? We’re going to do everything we can, Josie. I promise you. I’m not going to let anything happen to Clay.”
It’s only then that I realize I know both paramedics. Tommy Martin and Doug Stone are Friday night regulars at Clay’s bar. Tommy is Eileen Martin’s nephew, and Doug Stone’s mom teaches at Red Bridge Elementary. She stops in the diner every Friday after school for a slice of pie.
I still have no idea what happened on the road or how we ended up in a wreck, but I know that I should’ve been paying closer attention. I shouldn’t have been arguing with Clay about planning our wedding or telling everyone at dinner tonight that we’re married.
I shouldn’t have been mad at him. I love him and he loves me, and he was right to tell all the people we love, because when you least expect it, you get in car accidents and don’t get another chance! A sob racks my ailing body, but I smother it down, choking on the taste of my tears.
I can’t believe he doesn’t even know I’m pregnant.
Nothing can happen to him. I can’t lose another person in my life. I can’t lose him .
Doug stays with Clay while Tommy shifts to the side of the ambulance with me. The sound of the siren blares on repeat as we cross the railroad tracks on the east side of town. “Josie, I see you’ve got a bit of a gash on your forehead. Let me clean it up and take a look.”
I nod woodenly, staring at Clay and Doug.
He pokes and prods at the top of my head, using an antiseptic and gauze and tweezers to pull at a piece of glass.
We’re nearing the entrance of the hospital when he finishes taping a bandage over it and squeezes me on the forearm.
“It’s a superficial wound. You won’t need stitches.
Just make sure you keep an eye out for infection. ”
The ambulance comes to a stop, lights and sirens still blaring, and Tommy and Doug dive into action, opening the doors and quickly wheeling Clay out of the back.
I follow their lead, inside the emergency room doors of Addison County Medical Center, and have to run to keep up with their pace as they charge down the hall.
A doctor and three nurses don’t hesitate to join them and assist Tommy and Doug as they wheel Clay through automatic doors and into an area that has Trauma Bay 1 written on a sign on the wall.
A nurse with red hair tosses on gloves and takes over holding pressure to Clay’s wound while Tommy rattles off an update.
“Clay Harris. Thirty-year-old male in an MVA. Large shard of glass went into the upper left side of his abdomen. Per the female with him, he pulled it out and immediately started losing a lot of blood. He’s bradycardic. ”
“Were you with him?” the doctor asks me as he puts a stethoscope to Clay’s chest.
“Yes.”
“How bad was the accident?”
“I don’t know…I don’t know… The airbags went off, and the windshield is gone. But I don’t know anything else. I’m sorry. I—”
“It’s okay, honey,” a nurse with brown hair and a soft expression on her face says as she comes over to me and encourages me to sit down. She grabs a blanket and wraps it around my shoulders. “Your boyfriend is in good hands.”
“He’s my husband.”
“We’re going to take good care of your husband, okay?” She offers a sympathetic smile. “How are you feeling?” she asks, but I can’t focus on her because I swear I hear the doctor talk about surgery.
“Get us additional IV access and start blood transfusions stat. Don’t bother with type and screen, just give him O neg,” the doctor instructs the nurse with red hair as he carefully inspects Clay’s wound.
“And go ahead and call the OR and anesthesia now. We need to get him back as soon as possible.”
The nurse makes quick work of sticking Clay and sliding a new IV into his other arm. And I’m just standing in the room, watching everyone hustle around, shock and fear and every horrible emotion rolling through my body while my mind tries to understand what is happening.
“He needs surgery?” I ask, but when his heart rate monitor starts beeping wildly and the number twenty-eight flashes on the screen, the room turns into complete chaos.
“Give a dose of atropine now!” the doctor shouts. “And let them know we’re coming back!”
A nurse hangs a bag of what looks like blood into Clay’s new IV and the doctor, two nurses, Doug, and Tommy start to wheel Clay’s bed out of the trauma bay area. Immediately, I jump to my feet.
“Where are you taking him? What’s going on?”
“I’ll stay with his wife,” the nurse who gave me the blanket says and places two strong hands on my shoulders. “Honey, they are taking your husband back for emergency surgery so they can stop the bleeding.”
“Is he going to be okay?” My knees buckle, and I have to reach out to use the wall to hold myself up. “Tell me he’s going to be okay.”
She tries to get me to sit down again, but my body outright refuses as I watch the medical team wheel Clay through doors that have the letters OR written above them.
“I know this is scary, but they are going to do everything they can, honey. They are giving him blood transfusions, and Dr. Sarens is going to fix his wound.”
“I don’t want him to be alone.” I can’t let him be alone like Grandma Rose. “I need to be with him!” I try to run toward them, but the nurse wraps me up in a bear hug.
“I know you want to be there for him, but I need you to be strong. I need you to stay here and let me take a look at you and make sure you’re okay. That’s what I need, and that’s what your husband needs, okay?”
Deep sobs escape my lungs, and I just kind of bury my face into her shoulder. I don’t want him to be alone. He shouldn’t be alone. Grandma Rose was alone.
“It’s going to be okay,” the nurse says and rubs a gentle hand down my back. I sob and hug her as tightly as I can. It feels like she’s the only reason I’m still standing.
“How about we sit down on this bed right here?” she coaxes as she gently guides us toward an available bed in the trauma bay area. “That way, I can see how you’re doing.”
But when I step back from her, her concerned gaze latches on to something on my legs. “Oh, honey,” she whispers, and I follow her eyes’ lead to the crimson-red blood staining my cream wool pants.
I’m pregnant and I’m bleeding. Two things that I know are never supposed to happen at the same time.
I can hardly get out the words I haven’t managed to tell Clay. “I… I… I’m…preg…preg… Pregnant.”
Before I know it, the nurse has me lying on the bed and she’s carefully removing my clothes to place a hospital gown on me. I sob through the whole process. When another doctor tells me she needs to do an ultrasound, I can only manage a nod.
There’s a flurry of activity before the cool gel and wand are on my stomach, and a stark silence follows.
There is no whoosh. No flutter of a tiny heartbeat. No sign of movement from my little bean at all.
I know before the doctor tells me. I know with a sharp, white-hot pain.
I lost the baby.