Chapter 15

Flynn

“She’s at the hospital.It’s Adeline.”

The euphoria I had been feeling only moments before evaporated at those words. I lean over the seat and shout to Jack to take us to the hospital before I pry the phone from Roman’s hand and put it on speaker so I can hear too.

“What happened, Kitten?” I ask.

“I went home this morning to get ready for work and I couldn’t wake her. I had to call 911 and they sent an ambulance. We just got to the hospital like an hour ago and she’s back in surgery but no one can tell me anything and I don’t know what to do.” She says as her voice catches again and I can tell that more tears are streaming down her face as she tells us what happened.

“It’s ok. Roman and I are on our way.” I say.

“Yeah, we’ll be there soon.” Roman says.

“Do- oh god. Do you think that she’s going to die?” She asks and her voice is so small and scared that it breaks my heart.

“No. No, Kitten. She’s going to be ok. Just hold on, we’re only a couple of minutes away now.”

“Ok.”

I hear someone call her name in the background and she pulls the phone away to talk to them.

“Aspen?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” She says after a second.

“We’re pulling up now. What floor are you on?”

“The seventh.” She says.

“Ok. We’re walking in now. See you in a second ok?”

“Ok.” She says before she disconnects the call.

I throw my door open and the two of us race inside, running for the elevator and hitting the up button over and over again until finally, the doors slide open. We wait for a few people to get off before we hit the button for the seventh floor and wait impatiently as the elevator slowly rises.

The doors finally open and we’re racing down the hall until we see a familiar head of brown hair.

“Aspen!”

At the sound of us calling her name, her head snaps up and watery blue eyes stare up at us. My heart breaks even more at that look.

“Have you heard anything yet?” I ask, already looking around for a nurse that I can flag down and demand answers from.

“No, just that she’s in surgery. They’re going to take the tumor out today instead of Thursday. They said it will be hours until they’re done so I guess maybe no news is good news, right?” She asks and I can tell she’s trying to be brave.

I sit down on her right and Roman takes the chair on her left. We both scoot in closer to her and wrap her up in our arms.

“It’ll be ok. They’ll get the tumor and she’ll be fine. I know it.” I whisper in her ear as she wraps her arms around us and holds on tight.

We stay like that for a couple of hours until one of the nurses comes in and hands Aspen some paperwork. She starts to fill it out when suddenly she freezes.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I- They’re asking how I’m paying for this. After last night it doesn’t feel right to take money from you guys.” She says as she stares down at the form, rolling the pen back and forth between her fingers.

“Hey. We would have given you the money even if you never went out with us. We were just desperate for you to give us a shot. We love you, Aspen. Anything you want, it’s yours. You just have to ask for it and we’ll make it happen.”

Roman nods and I can see more tears form in Aspen’s eyes. He tugs her into his arms and I slip the form from her hands as she cries on his shoulder. I fill out the payment part of the form and text Jack, asking him to bring my checkbook from the house to the hospital. We’ll pay for the surgery and ambulance ride today so that our girl doesn’t have to worry about it anymore.

We sit in the waiting room for hours. We order food but none of us seems to be very hungry, instead just picking at our sandwiches. Aspen stares off into space for a little bit or gets up and paces for a while but for the most part, she sits sandwiched between us. Finally, around 8 pm she falls asleep with her hand wrapped around mine and her head resting on Roman’s shoulder.

When the doctor walks in an hour later, asking for Aspen, I hate to wake her up but I know she’ll want to know what he has to say.

“Family of Adeline Monroe?” He asks.

“Yes.” Aspen says, leaping from her seat.

“How is she?” I ask, wrapping my arm around Aspen’s shoulders.

“She’s stable now. We were able to remove the tumor and we believe that we got all of it.

She’ll have to go back for regular checkups for a couple of months but barring any regrowth, she should be great.” He says with a smile.

Aspen’s whole-body sags with relief and she cries as she thanks the doctor.

“When can I see her?” She asks.

“It might be an hour or so before she’s awake. She’s been in observation for a while now. We wanted to make sure she was stable before we came and talked to you. You can go back to her room now though if you like but only one visitor at a time for right now.”

Aspen nods and he tells her the room number and to limit the number of visitors, that Adeline will be tired and weak for a couple of days still. We thank the doctor again and tell Aspen that we’ll be waiting right here for her and for her to take her time. She reaches up and brushes a kiss against both of our lips before she starts to head for her friend’s room.