Chapter Twenty-Nine
Day five
Brooke took Ben’s hand and pulled. The shark fin came closer behind him, rising out of the water like a periscope. She grunted, using both hands to pull and planting her feet against the boat’s wall. He kicked and splashed and together they got him onto the deck. But before his legs could clear the water, the massive great white severed them from his torso in a single bite. Brooke woke up and screamed.
Her eyes scanned the hospital room and she wasn’t sure if she had actually screamed out loud or not. She stared at the slender window in the door, expecting doctors and nurses to come rushing into the room like it was on fire. When they didn’t, she wiped sweat from her brow and turned to Ben, who was still lying in bed with no indication he had heard anything. She sat up in the chair next to him and grimaced with the kink in her back. Putting both hands into the small of her back, she stretched until she heard a loud pop. Then she reached over and took his hand, her heart immediately lifting like it did every time she found it was still warm. After a minute or two, her eyelids grew heavy again. She fought it off, afraid of what would be waiting for her in her dreams. Afraid of what was leaving black circles around her swollen eyes. But it was no use. Like the past few days, sleep had its way with her, again and again.
***
Day seven
The toilet flushed and Brooke washed her hands in the sink, wondering if Ben would ever use this toilet with its support bars running the walls like train tracks. The respirator wheezed just outside the door. She splashed water onto her face and toweled off before daring to examine her reflection in the mirror for the first time in she didn’t know how long. Her heart sank. Her reflection was almost as unrecognizable as Ben had been one week ago today. She must have lost ten pounds and her eyes had gone from a sparkling green to a dull black. Brooke slung the towel on one of the metal bars, vowing to never make that mistake again.
The doorknob was cold in her hand. She hesitated before turning it, imagining him being awake when she came back out. She spent a few seconds convincing herself it could happen, psyching herself up for a miracle. Hell, for all she knew, he might be wondering where she was right now. She could hear him calling out her name in her head and it sounded like the most wonderful thing in the world. The door clicked open. She stepped out of the wheelchair friendly bathroom and disappointment greeted her once again. Ben stared at the ceiling with his eyes closed, the respirator still doing all the heavy lifting.
His face – what she could see of it – looked a lot more like Ben again, which gave her hope. The tubes keeping him alive were another story. She couldn’t stop wondering what would happen if the power went out.
We have many generators, Doctor Goldstein had assured her two days ago.
What if those go out? she had hit back.
They won’t.
But…
Brooke, they won’t.
A reflective sigh deflated her chest. She stretched before checking the messages on her cell from her mom and dad, Evy, Tasha, and Mrs. Randall. Even Janna had left a message. Brooke didn’t bother listening to any of them, let alone responding, opting to slip the phone back into her purse instead.
The vases of colorful flowers dotting the room reminded her of a funeral parlor and she wanted to throw them away. He didn’t need them. Her gut told her he would be just fine. She saw a flash of him a wheel chair, thin and drawn. Brooke blinked it away. The flashes had started coming more often over the last two days and it was getting tougher to hold the door against them much longer.
She pushed back tears she didn’t know she still had and approached the bed. Ben’s warm hand felt good in hers but its limpness did not. She rubbed circles into his belly and spoke loudly, like the doctor had done the first day she had entered this God forsaken room.
“Ben? Can you hear me, sweetie?”
She waited for a response that never came, her glassy eyes checking him up and down for movement. Anything.
“Sweetie, you need to come back home now. You’ve been gone for too long.”
He stared at the ceiling with his eyes closed, chest rising and falling in sync with that hideous machine. A lone tear made it over her stubborn walls and spilled down her cheek.
Options.
Doctor Goldstein’s words now took turns poking her with sticks. Two days ago, the good doctor had begun talking about options. Brooke had insisted there was only one option available: wait it out.
Irene, on the other hand, was beginning to have her doubts.
Brooke’s eyes followed the tubes in Ben’s mouth to the respirator on wheels. From there, her eyes traveled the long, black cord to a plug in the wall behind the bed. The clock was ticking. She set her jaw. It wasn’t her decision but they would have to get past her first.
She patted his stomach. “Come on, baby, I know you can hear me.” More tears laid glistening tracks down her pale cheeks. “Ben, you wake up right now!”
Nothing.
An image of Ben controlling an electric wheelchair with his chin came out of nowhere. She shut her eyes until white spots replaced it.
A nurse popped her head into the room and asked if everything was okay. Brooke nodded with barely a turn and waited for her to leave before kissing Ben on the cheek, wishing she could kiss those lips just one more time. Just move the mask out of the way for two seconds so she could taste him again.
Instead, she dropped heavily into the chair at his side and pulled up an itchy blanket, opting to return to the nightmares she could never outrun.
Chapter Thirty
Day nine
The decision was in.
Ben was never coming back.
At eight o’clock tonight the doctor – or nurses, or who the fuck ever – would make sure of that. Brooke waited for Irene to leave the room before letting her eyes run from the respirator to the plug in the wall. They would have to get past her first. That decision was in as well. And she would not go quietly. She had accepted the fact the decision was not hers to make, but that didn’t change a damn thing. They would not just hear her protests again. This time, they would see them.
She leaned back into the chair, her butt resting numbly on the edge of the seat.
The respirator sucked in a wheezing breath that deflated Ben’s chest and then exhaled a burst of oxygen that pumped his upper body up again. Up and down. Up and down.
After a few minutes of listening to that fucking noise - the one she had somehow become used to - she worked up her courage to glance at the clock on her phone. Three thirty-five. She did the math in her head. Less than four and a half hours.
She threw the cell against the wall where it shattered into pieces around a small dresser with three drawers. “Fuck!” Brooke buried her face in her hands and cried harder than ever before, a helplessness washing over her with demoralizing results. It was over. Her prayers had fallen on deaf ears and she would never forget it. If only she had told him how she felt, this might have been easier to take. But she hadn’t. And now, instead of living with him, she would live with that for the rest of her miserable life.
Her hands wiped at the tears but they just kept coming like an army of marching ants that goes on forever. Over the last twenty-four hours the flashes of Ben in a wheelchair had turned to those of him in a coffin. She shuddered at the color of his gray skin, his body stuffed into a pressed suit she knew he would not be pleased with. The best way, she had found, to dispel the gruesome images back to where they came from was to let anger take their place.
Detective Diamond and associates had nabbed the white guy in a puffy coat along with his pit-bull buddy yesterday and it was easier to think about what Brooke would like to do to them now. Especially the short guy with the bat. Her eyes glazed over as she pictured him tied to a filthy bed in some candlelit basement with stone walls where no one could hear him scream. He struggled for escape, his pathetic pleas music to her ears. She tightened her grip on the aluminum baseball bat in her hands and he
struggled even harder, bringing a smile to her face.
“Where am I?”
She could only laugh at the absurdity of a question like that. It was obvious where he was. He was in her world now and the only real question was: should she start with his knees or with his balls?
“Where am I?”
Her heart rate spiked along with her adrenaline, giving her a head rush. She pulled her face from her hands, the evil vision dissipating into nothingness. Brooke clawed at the tears clouding her vision so she could see if Ben was really blinking his eyes or not. His head lolled on his shoulders until his barely cracked lids found her in their sights.
She wanted to spring to his side but could not move, let alone talk. It had to be another dream. Another mental trick played on her by her subconscious’ unforgiving sense of humor.
Ben pulled the mask from his face and Brooke finally sprang into action, flying from the chair in a blur.
“You have to keep this on,” she said, covering his mouth with the mask again.
He fought her like a child who doesn’t want to eat his vegetables.
“Ben! You’ve been in a coma for nine days and you’ll die without it!”
He pushed the mask away just the same. “Nine days?” His voice was a dry whisper. He tried to sit up and slipped into a coughing fit instead. “What happened?”
“Stop fighting me!” Brooke stretched the mask’s loopy bands around his head. “It’s breathing for you.”
He resisted again, pushing the mask to the side. “I’m breathing for me.”
She studied him through bulging eyes. His chest continued to rise and fall without the mask so she dropped it to the side of the bed and hugged him tight, careful not to bump his bandaged head. “Oh my God,” she cried. “I knew you’d come back to me. I knew it!” Tears blazed slick paths down her cheeks and she let them. When she noticed he wasn’t returning her hug she pulled away. The confusion blanketing his face drew her next words out slowly. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”
He tried to lick his lips. “Who are you?”
She stood frozen, the respirator still breathing in and out. In and out. In and out. “What?”
His eyes left her to roam the room. “What happened? Are you my nurse?”
She covered her mouth like she had just witnessed a fatal traffic accident in the light of day.
He tried to sit up again but grimaced with pain and sank back into the pillow, releasing a pent-up breath along the way. “Who are you?”
“I’m your girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?”
The color left Brooke’s face.
“I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
The floor dropped out beneath her. She was freefalling. Blood pounded thickly in her temples. Amnesia had never even crossed her mind and she couldn’t recall Doctor Goldstein ever broaching the subject.
“What happened?” he asked again.
She stared into his dilated eyes. “You seriously don’t…recognize me?”
He shook his head, his interest now in the wires connected to his arms and chest.
“We were walking home,” she said, pausing to relive that night all over again, “and you were hit over the head by some thug.”
He looked up. “Thug?”
“You really don’t remember me?”
He looked into her eyes, trying to blink away the fog of a nine day coma, and gently shook his head.
She staggered backwards with the heavy handed blow and bumped into the chair. Its legs scraped loudly against the tiled floor. Her mind reeled.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
Tears slipped through the fingers covering her mouth. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t talk. Couldn’t stand it.
“How long had we been dating? A while?”
She managed a slight nod. It was the best she could do.
“Were we in love?”
Her breath came in shallow spurts, barely making a dent in appeasing her thundering pulse. She nodded a little harder this time.
“We were?”
Brooke stared at him through watery eyes, her mind conjuring up all kinds of new and improved images now. “Very much so.”
Ben snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “I knew it.”
She blinked out more tears, bewilderment morphing her ashen complexion into something twisted. “What?”
“I knew you loved me. I knew it!”
She inhaled a sharply and slapped a hand over her heart to stop it from bursting through her chest.
His laughter quickly turned into more coughing. “Too bad it only took a nine day coma for you to admit it.” Ben shook his head in disgust. “You should be ashamed of yourself. I could’ve died.”
A mixture of emotions tore at Brooke’s heart, beginning with rage and ending with relief. Extreme relief. She rushed to his side and took his warm hand. This time it squeezed her back and felt like nothing she had ever felt before.
“You are such an asshole,” she whispered, kissing his lips and sprinkling his cheeks with salty drops. She ran her fingers over the five o’clock shadow covering his cheeks. “But I love you anyway.”
He smiled weakly. “I know.”
She made him drink some water, slowly at first.
He spilled some down his cheeks. “Was I really in a coma for that long?”
She answered him with a tearful nod. “I thought I had lost you.”
“You’ll never lose me. I promise.”
Brooke looked to the foot of the bed. “Can you move your legs?”
His eyes followed hers to the blanket.
“And do not joke about this!” Her heart stutter stepped when he wiggled his toes. The movement was weak but there nonetheless. Her hand shot back to her mouth, tears cascading down her face. But this time, they were tears of joy.
Ben clenched his teeth and brought his knees up. He lowered them before checking his arms and hands. Other than lacking strength, everything seemed to be functioning properly.
His face turned grave.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” she asked, her ear-to-ear grin crumbling a little around the edges.
“What if my…ya know, doesn’t work?”
Her gaze followed his eyes to his lap. “Don’t say that?”
“What if it doesn’t? Would you still love me?”
“Of course I would.”
He started to pull the wires from the inside of his arm and she stopped him, so he pulled down the blanket instead. They stared at the flimsy hospital gown that was just long enough to cover his privates.
“I can’t feel anything,” he whispered.
“What do you mean?”
He swallowed hard. “I can’t feel anything…down there.”
She glanced at the door and sighed, slipping a hand under his gown and grasping the fire hose beneath. Even when it was limp it was still a handful. Relief washed over her when he responded almost immediately, inflating in her hand like a balloon. “Thank God.” She pulled up the gown for a good look with her own two eyes, the Hulk tattoo bringing a smile to her face.
Ben shut his eyes and pushed his head back into the pillow.
Brooke took her hand back and his eyes popped back open.
“What’re you doing?”
She dug her cell from her purse. “I have to call your mom and tell her you’re okay.”
“Well, don’t stop now! It was just getting good.”
“I am not doing that in here!”
“Why not?”
“Because you just came out of a coma!”
“I feel fine!” He started coughing again and she tilted her head at him. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”
Brooke ignored him and tapped at the screen.
Ben sat up and grimaced with a wave of pain. “Who are you calling?”
“Your mom,” she said, tapping at the screen and putting the phone to her ear.
He studied his gown. “Where are my jeans?”
“Irene, he’s awake and he’s fine!” She turned to Ben and nodded, covering her mouth and releasing the dam all over again whether she wanted to or not. Tears flooded her cheeks. “He can move his arms and legs. He is talking perfectly fine. Everything is fine.” Her words were nearly unintelligible with her racing pulse so she repeated them again, this time with a deep breath and more slowly. She nodded rapidly as if Irene could see her. “Uh-huh, I know!” She nodded some more. “Okay, bye.”
Brooke hung up and stared at the screen, the many messages (voice and text) not even close to registering on her Richter scale. She composed herself and dropped the phone back into the chair. “She’s on her way.”
Ben glanced at the pillow and blanket crumpled in the chair next to his bed. “Were you here the whole time?”
She wiped away more tears, her face red and raw from all of the rubbing over the last nine days. “Not the whole time. I do have a life to live, ya know.” A warm smile shaped her wet lips. “But not without you?”
He stared into her eyes, peering deep into her soul, a silent understanding passing between them. “Will you marry me?”
Her smile dropped and her knees went weak. “Are you using your injury to take advantage of me right now?”
Ben lowered his brow as he thought it over. “Yes.”
Her blank expression remained unchanged, the respirator still wheezing in their ears. “In that case, of course I will marry you, you big lug.”
He pulled her to him and kissed her softly. They parted and he dove into her glassy green pools. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She smiled, stroking his face. “I will always love you.”
His face began to turn red.
Concern gripped her features. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re on my tube.”
“Huh?”
“You’re leaning on my tube and I’m starting to get dizzy.”
She looked down and saw her elbow was pinching off one of the tubes running into the soft spot in his arm. Brooke jumped back. “Oh my God, I’m sorry, sweetie.”
“That could have killed me.”
Brooke & Ben: Before Fate Interrupted Page 24
