Chapter 22
Seeds of Love
Janie wondered if she and Robert would ever get back to where they were before the accident: two kids in love hoping that God would bring them together for good. Robert could not recall a single memory of them together, and their families weren’t sure what to do about it. Indeed, Robert seemed to be hopeless as far as their relationship was concerned, and Janie, still by his side while he lay in the hospital bed, was starting to lose what hope she had held onto. Yet until Robert’s last night at the hospital, things had remained civil, and Janie had even participated in the numerous prayers the family engaged in while maintaining their vigil before and after he woke from the coma.
Robert still regretted his final outburst, the one that had almost spelled the end of their relationship, as friends or otherwise.
A couple of days before, the Monday that Robert had awakened from his coma, Jessie and Nancy had left Robert and Janie alone together for a few minutes. “We’ll leave you two alone for awhile,” Jessie had said, as she and Nancy walked out of the room. The guys hadn’t yet made it back from Darkwell, so the only others they had to lean on were Janie and her parents, and a random nurse or doctor.
I wish Max was here, Jessie thought as she and Nancy left the room.
Janie’s parents were waiting in the hallway. Once out of the room and the kids’ earshot, Jessie said, “Robert doesn’t remember a thing about her.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “She’s such a sweet girl. You two did a wonderful job raising her.”
“Thanks,” Alex, Janie’s father, said, adding, “Maybe it’s for the best.”
Jessie felt wounded at first, thinking that maybe Alex thought his girl was too good for her boy, but she was too tired to say anything, and Alex sensed her feelings.
“They are just kids, really,” he added. “It might be good for them to go their separate ways, at least for awhile. She was so obsessed with their relationship; I was getting a little concerned.”
“Yeah,” Jessie replied, honestly. She, too, wanted Robert to take it slow, to not go to a school merely because his girlfriend went there, which is what she suspected motivated him to go to Texas in the first place. Texas: the beginning of their recent heartbreak.
“Maybe you’re right. You want to walk with us to the café?”
“Sure.”
Inside the room Janie moved toward the bed and looked at Robert, wondering if he’d ever remember who she was, what she once meant to him. “Are you feeling better?”
“A little. I might feel great if I’d take the pills they’re trying to shove down my throat.” He wanted to laugh about it, but it hurt too much. He learned an hour or so after he came out of the coma that he’d also fractured several ribs, and severely bruised his spleen (despite the head trauma, it was the bruised spleen that concerned the doctors most).
Janie reached over to touch his uninjured left hand. She tried to gently stroke it, to comfort him with a sweet, motherly touch. Robert had his eyes closed through the conversation so he didn’t see it coming. As soon as she touched him, he jerked his hand away and shot an angry look toward her.
“Why are you here?” he angrily asked.
She stood still for a moment, shocked at his reaction. Inside, she felt wounded, stabbed by a barb from someone she loved—at least she thought it was love, though she hadn’t yet told him, even before the accident. What hurt worse was that she had been the guarded one during their relationship. He had told her he loved her; she was still afraid to do the same, though the lingering look he had given her each time he told her made it clear that he had longed for her to say it, too.
When he burst out in anger from his hospital bed, she didn’t move from his side and said nothing at first, but then replied, “I’m your friend.” She wanted to say something else, but she just couldn’t, not now. “Do you want me to leave?”
“I don’t know.” He looked up at her. She wasn’t crying, but she was clearly hurt. “I don’t even know who you are, really. What am I supposed to do? Tell you I love you? I don’t know what I feel; all I know is that there was something I was good at that’s probably gone forever.”
He shook his head side to side and buried it in his one good hand, the one he had just jerked away from Janie.
She was tempted to leave, to walk away; it seemed to be what he wanted. But she didn’t. Instead, she put her hand on his good shoulder and gently rubbed it, back and forth, letting him cry. He didn’t jerk away from her this time. She wanted to cry, too, but she resisted, choosing instead to just be there for him, if not for the one she loved then for someone she knew needed more than words. He needed someone to care for him, unselfishly and without any desire to get something back, and that was one thing she was sure she could do. The thoughts and feelings going through her head at the moment, the ones gushing with compassion, were the same ones that had led her to pursue a nursing degree at UTA, so whether or not Robert eventually came around to love her as he once did was mostly if not completely immaterial to her decision to stay by his side.
Robert, still crying, reached up to touch her hand. At first, she thought he might stop just short of it, hesitating as he once again sensed that this girl standing by his bed was a stranger that he didn’t want to be anywhere near. He didn’t. Instead, he gently caressed her hand, looked up and said, “Thanks for not walking out after what I said. Whatever we had before, I’m glad you’re here now.”
Both smiled and Janie offered a comforting hug, which Robert accepted.
“Thanks for letting me stay,” she said.
He looked deeper into her eyes and saw something he had not seen before. You are so beautiful and caring, he thought. I’m beginning to understand what must have drawn me to you.
PART III
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
—Romans 13:1-2
Broken: A story of hope and forgiveness Page 27
