by River Savage
“What if he doesn’t survive this? What if I never see him again?” I’m pacing now, my world turning from color to darkness in simple seconds.
How could I be so stupid? Tears hit the back of my eyelids, and before I can control them, they’re rolling down my face. “I didn’t even tell him I love him. I made him play this stupid ‘need time’ game. Why? Why would I do that?” The tears don’t stop now, sobs wracking my body, twisting and contorting me with their strength.
“Hey, hey. Come on, you need to keep it together, Lib.” Arms come around me, Fox’s voice coaxing me away from hysteria.
“What if he dies, Fox?” I turn in his arms and push my face into his chest. It’s not the chest I want, but it’s the only one I have.
“He’s not going to, okay? He’s going to pull through, and you’re going to tell him you love him.” I almost believe him. Almost take comfort in it. Until his voice shakes with the same unease pressing within me. “He’s going to be okay.” He moves me back to the chair, pulling me down onto his lap and holds me while I hide from the world.
“I can’t lose him, Fox. I can’t.”
He doesn’t reply, or maybe he does, but nothing gets through the muffled sounds of my sobs.
For the next four hours, I stay like that.
Held in Fox’s arms, I cry, and pray, and wait.
Inhale. Exhale. Wait.
Please don’t die, Hetch.
Thirty-Three
Hetch
“Liam?” a voice I didn't think I’d hear again whispers and settles over me.
“Dad?” A black haze fixes itself against an endless sky, but even concealed behind an inky darkness, I still know it’s him.
My father.
“You shouldn’t be here.” His words are more than a whisper across the unusually frigid air and this time, my body tries to react. To search for him, find where he is. But no matter how hard I force my limbs to move, I can’t.
I’m stuck. Frozen. I’m nothing.
“Where is here?” I give up fighting when the haze slowly lifts, and he’s there, standing in front of me.
“Hello, son.” He steps toward me, his face coming into the light. He looks different from how I remember him.
Younger. Brighter. Alive.
His salt-and-pepper hair looks as thick as the day I graduated high school and the groomed mustache he’d worn since the day I was born is still tidy and neat.
“How?” I close my eyes, opening them again to make sure I’m seeing things right.
How is he here?
Why is he here?
Where is here?
“You shouldn’t be here, Liam. You need to go.” Seeing him again splinters something deep and raw inside of me.
The change of his aim
The discharge of his gun.
The fall of his body.
The agony of my screams.
“Son, you really need to get out of here before it’s too late.” His pained stare captures me as the black haze builds again, the brightness I noticed about him before dims.
How come he can move and I can’t?
“Too late for what? Where are you going? Please don’t leave,” I ask him frantically.
I’m not ready for him to leave. I only just got here.
Wherever here is.
“We don’t have time for this, Liam. Just promise me you’ll open your eyes.”
Open my eyes? What the hell is he talking about? My eyes are open.
“Why did you do it?”
“There is no time for this, Liam. Just rem–” He shakes his head, still caught up in what he wants to say.
Then as soon as he was there, he’s gone.
Darkness wins out again.
Thirty-Four
Liberty
“Family of Liam Hetcherson?” A short, older woman wearing blue scrubs steps into the private waiting room we've been moved into and closes the door.
At first, I thought it was a good thing when they herded us into the small room an hour ago. Then I remembered I once saw a movie where they moved the family of a car crash victim to another room to let them know he had died. I don't share my concern with anyone, though. Even if I want to, I can't. Hell, I can barely manage a whisper at this point. My voice is no longer mine, lost to the violent sobs that wracked me four hours ago.
Instead, I’ve sat quietly, tucked into Fox’s chest. Brianna to the left of us, Kota to the right.
“Yes, how is he?” someone asks, but I can’t be sure. Maybe it’s the older man from earlier, or maybe it’s Hart. Everything bleeds into each other. Faces. Voices. Time.
“He’s out of surgery and in recovery.” A collective sigh settles through the room, releasing an invisible band of tension that’s been restricting us all.
“Is my son going to be okay?” Brianna stands and steps closer. I want to follow her up, but I’m mentally incapable. Body spent, mind lost, I hold on to Fox like a lifeline.
“Your son is very lucky, Mrs. Hetcherson. The first bullet penetrated what we call zone 1.” She motions to the lower part of her neck. “And the second bullet entered what we call zone 2.” This time, she motions higher up her neck. “The first bullet penetrated his left common carotid artery. And while serious, we were able to reconstruct and repair the artery, using a vascular graft. Now the second bullet being higher was a little more complex. There was complete disruption of the internal carotid artery, as well as a small laceration in the internal jugular vein. The degree of the injury was such that to control the bleeding, the internal carotid artery had to be ligated.”
“What does that mean?” My voice croaks, burning raw, and even though I know no one can hear me, I still ask.
“What does that mean?” Fox asks the question for me, his voice vibrating against my cheek.
“It means we couldn’t repair the artery. Laymen’s terms, we tied it. Now, arterial repair is reported to achieve better neurological outcome and survival rate compared to ligation. However, patients like Liam who present with a normal neurologic examination can still have an excellent prognosis.”
“So, he’s going to be fine?” It’s Kota’s turn to ask.
“We won’t know for sure until he wakes up.”
“When will that be?” Kota presses. I can’t see her from my position, but I know she’s standing there, holding her mother’s hand, staying stronger than I ever could be.
“Right now he’s sedated and intubated. Over the next twenty-four hours, we will know more. In the meantime, I suggest you all go home, get some rest and come back in a few hours. He won’t be taking any visitors just yet.” There’s a flurry of movement, a few calls of resistance, but I stay sitting there, hiding.
“I’m not leaving,” I croak against Fox again, thinking he’s going to force me to leave. “Not until I see him.”
“I wouldn’t dream of moving ya, Lib. Hetch would kick my ass if I sent you home.” He rumbles against my back, and it’s the first smile that slips free. “Just don’t get too comfortable. I do have to give you back.”
I don’t answer, nor do I move. Stuck in a trance of time as it stands still. Seconds could be minutes, minutes could be hours. Exhaustion tugs at the edges of my mind and before I can put up a good fight, it wins.
Thirty-Five
Hetch
“Shoot me. Or I’ll have to do it.” His voice teeters between a moan and a tremble. While my hand rests ready on top of my gun belt, prepared to arm myself at a moment’s notice, my gaze stays trained on a man I don’t recognize, yet love.
“That’s not going to happen, Dad,” I tell him with all the conviction I can muster. It’s almost surreal, like we’re reenacting the play-by-plays we used to run when I was going through the academy.
“I’m telling you it’s happening, Liam. Don’t think I’m not going to end today the way I intended.” He takes a step back from me as I step in closer. The gun he’s pointing at me wavers as his free hand moves to his hair, tugging in irritation.
“What way is that, Dad? What exactly is the end goal here?”
“It has to. It does. It has to. You know it. You know it,” he mutters. I’m not sure to himself or to me.
“Dad,” I call him back; I need him to stay focused and in the moment. “Don’t do this to me, Dad.” This isn’t my father, the man who raised me. This is someone else. Another version of him. The version he’s been struggling with for the last few years.
“Talk to me. Tell me what’s happening here.” I take another small step closer, my mind trying to figure out how to stop this.
Maybe I can bring him down with my Taser.
“Stop right there, Liam.” He jerks back. “Stay out of range.” He might not be of sound mind, but he knows my training.
“Dad, please.…” My voice cracks, not sure how I’m going to get us out of this, but I can’t stop till I have tried.
“Hetch?”
The scene fades, and a black haze swirls around us returning me to the place he keeps meeting me.
“What are we doing back here?” I turn to face my father. Only this time there’s no gun, no threat of suicide. Just us.
“You know every time you relive it, I’m there with you. Every dream, every encounter. I’m there with you.” Silence beats between us as he stands there across from me.
“So you’re aware of what it did to me? What it did to all of us?” In my mind, the question comes out as an accusation, but the truth is, I’m just a kid, standing in front of the man I thought hung the moon for thirty years, asking why we weren’t enough.
“I do, son. And if I could take it back I would. But at the time, I wasn’t thinking about you. I wasn’t thinking about anything but stopping the pain in here.” His hand rubs his chest, and it’s almost like I can feel his pain inside of me. “I was sick, and I was hurting. But you have to believe me, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt any of you. You were all my life, but no matter what I did, or how hard I tried to be the person you all needed me to be, I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it.”
Time stretches between us as I wait. Wait for understanding. Wait for clarity. When it doesn’t come, panic rises to the surface. I’ve waited three years for this, and his words aren’t the magic fix I thought I needed.
“It never goes away, you know? No matter how hard I try to forget, no matter how hard I fight it, it’s always there.” Every minute of pain he’s handed to me comes back, and for a second, it’s almost too much.
“I know, son. And if I could go back and change things I would. I’d do it in a second and vow to live through the pain all over. If I thought sorry would ever be enough, I would say it a million times over to you. But, Hetch, I can’t do that, and sorry isn’t enough. Nothing will ever be enough.” I don’t know what I was expecting from his words. Maybe a moment of understanding. Maybe relief. But the truth is I get neither. His words don’t take the pain away, his presence doesn’t soothe the ache.
I’m still me, and he’s still him, and together we’re here.
Wherever here is.
Thirty-Six
Liberty
“In my head, there’s this woman. She’s brave and she’s smart. She has it together.” The monitors next to Hetch’s hospital bed beep loudly between us. “She’s nothing like me, you know? She’s so positive, so optimistic…” I trail off when the door opens and the doctor walks in.
“He hasn’t woken up yet. Why isn’t he waking up, Doctor?” I don’t bother with the sequential greetings as I stand and give her room. It’s been two days, and I haven’t left Hetch’s side. I know every doctor on the roster¸ every nurse who’s come in. I know all the gossip. Who’s screwing who. Who hates who, and who’s not talking to who. In the beginning, it helped. A distraction to keep the minutes from dragging, but now the days are ticking by and I’m done with the small talk. I’m done with the gossip. I’m done with the waiting. I want him to wake up. I’m ready for him to wake up. I need him to wake up.
“There’s still time.” She starts to do her doctor thing. Picking up his chart, she moves around the right side of the bed before pressing some buttons on the screen attached to his monitors. It should all be really scary—the tubes, the sounds, the wires—but sitting here watching, I don’t see anything but him.
“But you said twenty-four hours. It’s been over forty-eight.” My voice shakes as I count the hours off in my head. Every single one of them.
From the family who’ve come by to pray and cry, to the officers who’ve told me to be strong, the unknown faces, the known faces… every one of them represents a long minute, a dragged-out second.
“The waiting is always the hard part, but like I told you, this morning everything looks good. His brain function is clear. He’s breathing on his own, and there are no signs of complications from the surgery. We have to be patient now.” She writes some notes down on his chart before replacing it in the rack at the end of his bed. “I’ll be back later tonight. Keep talking to him. It helps.” She offers me what I like to call the pity smile and leaves me alone to think again.
Talking helps? I’m not sure I believe her. I’ve been talking for two days. Two days of not shutting up, and I’m not sure it’s working.
“I hate her, you know? Not the doctor, the girl in my head.” I continue with my ranting and take my seat back beside him. “I hate her because I used to be her. I was her. But the problem is I can’t be her anymore, not without you. You already left me once, Hetch. And I know everyone makes mistakes. I know this. Jesus, I know this. It’s the after that matters. How you come back. And you came back. You came back and I pushed you away. So now I’m asking you to give me my after. Give me my chance. Don’t stop fighting. Please wake up. You have to come back to me. I’m not finished loving you, Liam Hetcherson.”
I need more time.
The girl in my head needs more time.
We both need more time.
“Please, Hetch, please wake up. I need you to wake up now. Okay?” I squeeze his hand, waiting for something. For anything.
Three days.
Three days of back and forth with these doctors and I’m going crazy.
“Come on, Lib. Will you just try?” Sterling taps my shoulder, pulling me out of the bubble I’ve created for Hetch and me.
“I’m not hungry.” I look up to find Sterling, Hart, Brianna and Kota staring down at me.
“Liberty, you need to eat. Just try a bite.” Hart tries to reason with me, but the last thing I want to do right now is eat.
“He’s like glasses,” I blurt, clearly still not myself. Three days of hell and I’ve barely slept more than an hour at a time. I’m also in desperate need of a shower, but I refuse to give up on him. Refuse to leave his room. “Hetch. He’s like glasses,” I tell them all, probably not making any sense.
“Glasses?” Hart’s eyes move to Brianna’s before coming back to mine. I know they’re worried about me. I heard them talking about me outside the door before they came in. I know they mean well, but I can’t seem to care about anything other than worrying when Hetch is going to wake up.
If he’s is going to wake up.
“Yeah. Like when someone doesn’t know their vision isn’t perfect. They think they can see fine. But the moment they put those glasses on for the first time, they see everything so clearly, so vivid. They realize how much detail and beauty they’ve been missing. That’s Hetch. He’s my glasses.” No one says anything for a beat, and I wonder if they’re thinking about having me committed. I smell, I haven’t eaten, and I’ve started talking in metaphors and similes.
“I get it. Ava was my glasses,” Hart finally answers, filling the silence.
“Ava?” I sit a little straighter, relieved I’m not going completely crazy.
“My wife.” His eyes glaze over briefly before he shakes his head and clears it. “She died a few years ago. But even on the darkest days, the days I didn’t think I had anything left in me to fight with her, she was the clarity my life needed.” H
is voice shakes a little, and for a second, I feel like a complete ass.
How did I not know his wife died?
“I don’t want to walk through life thinking I can see when I know I can’t,” I whisper, unsure if it’s the right thing to say. He lost his glasses; he knows what I’m going through, but I shouldn’t rub it in.
“You won’t, Lib. He’s is going to wake up. And when he does, you’ll see so much; you’ll wonder why you ever doubted.”
I don’t answer, not sure if I can believe it; instead, I hold my hand out for the sandwich they’ve been trying to make me take a bite of for the last twenty minutes.
“Thank you.” He hands me the sandwich and steps back.
“I’m not gonna lie. I probably won't even eat half,” I warn before they think they won the battle.
“Well, I’m not gonna lie, I wish I had some of these magical glasses,” Sterling murmurs beside us, and like the other day when Fox made a joke, I smile. Then maybe I laugh.
It’s not the laugh Hetch would have given me, but it’s something. And for that, I’m hopeful.
Thirty-Seven
Hetch
“Hetch, please. You need to come back to me. I can’t do this on my own.” The soft sound of Liberty’s voice fills the still, dark air. Breaking through my peace and calm, it wraps its panic around me.
“Liberty?” I turn, trying to find her. “Liberty, where are you?” Panic sets its claws into me.
Why is she here? What happened?
I don’t know how much time has passed. Seconds could be minutes, minutes could be hours. Time bleeds into nothingness, scenes run into each other.
“She’s not here, Liam.” My father steps in front of me, halting me from my search. Each time he comes to me now, I’m less shocked and more relieved.
