8. Phoenix

CHAPTER 8

Phoenix

" C harlie!" I cried, sprinting past the nurse into the emergency ward of the hospital. "CHARLIE!"

One of the nurses grabbed my arm, trying to stop me. I yanked my arm out of her grasp and ran through the ward, calling out to him.

"Charlie!"

He had to be alive. He just had to. I hadn't stayed around long enough to find out the details when my mom delivered the news about the crash. I'd sprinted out of the house and squealed out of the driveway in my junker of a car. I got to the hospital in record time, my heart pounding so hard I thought I might die.

He had to be alive. I would've known if he wasn't. Right? I would've felt it. He was the person I loved more than anyone else in the world. We were connected in that way.

He had to be alive.

"Charlie! "

Hot tears streamed down my face as I reached the end of the hall. Several of the nurses were staring at me, surprised by my sudden rampage through their hospital. The one that had tried to hold me back finally caught up, a doctor on her heels.

"You can't be back here," she said in that same gruff tone nurses on television used. "This is for emergency patients only."

"I need to see Charlie Miller," I replied, trying to hold back my sobs. "He was brought in with his mother. It was a car crash."

The nurse opened her mouth to argue, but the doctor held out her hand to silence her. "Are you friend or family?"

"Family," I said without hesitation.

"I'll show him to the room, Nurse Atchinson," the doctor said.

The nurse rolled her eyes and hurried away to deal with the other thousand things I'm sure she had on her plate. I could understand her position, but Charlie was hurt and I had to see him.

"Follow me, please," the doctor said.

I did as I was told. But I was surprised to find that we weren't moving toward one of the patient rooms. Instead, the doctor pulled me through one of the doors marked ‘employees only' and into a bank of offices. She stopped in front of a half-glass door that had Dr. Roberts , ER Trauma written across the front in bold white letters.

"Where's Charlie?" I asked before I stepped inside. "I need to see him right away."

"He's stable," Dr. Roberts replied in a calming tone. "But there are some… things you need to know before I take you to his room, alright?"

My blood went cold as her words landed on my ears. What did she mean by things ? If Charlie was okay, that was all that mattered, right? But then I thought of the word she'd used. She didn't say he was okay. She said he was stable . Those were two totally different things. A tightness gripped my chest, and I had to put a hand out to steady myself against the doorframe. Dr. Roberts looped her arm through mine, pulling me into the office.

"Come take a seat."

I allowed her to seat me before she closed the door and took her own chair on the other side of the desk. Each second that ticked by was more painful than the last. My mind was running a million miles per hour with every question, bad feeling, and worst-case scenario blazing through all at once.

"You said you were family?"

I nodded. "He… he's my boyfriend," I said. The title should've brought me joy, but instead it just made my heart hurt more. "We've been best friends for eight years. Even our parents are really good friends. Mine are on their way here now but I couldn't wait for them…"

She nodded. "I understand." Taking a deep breath, she began to explain at last. "Charlie and his mother were in a terrible car accident up in the mountains. From what the police know so far, they blew a tire and somehow the car flipped."

I gasped, my hand going to my mouth.

"And then… it went over the side of the mountain."

I stopped breathing altogether. My entire body went numb from head to toe. It wasn't until a hot tear landed on my arm that I even knew I'd started to cry again.

"Charlie is alive ," she continued, not making me agonize for longer than necessary. "But he's pretty banged up. He had multiple broken bones, lacerations, and blunt force trauma all over his body, including his head. Because of that, we had no choice but to put him into a drug-induced coma. He's currently on life-support and looks a mess, but we've patched him up as much as we can. Still, he'll need time to heal before we can bring him back to consciousness again."

"But… he'll live?"

"Most likely. It won't be easy, and he'll need years of physical therapy, but I suspect he will live if things go well."

"Thank you," I gushed, my hands reaching across the table and taking hers. "Thank you so much. I don't know what I would've done if he'd… if he'd…"

She gave me a soft smile, but there was something sad in her eyes that caught me off guard.

"What is it?" I asked. My brain jumped to the most likely scenario with that amount of injury. "Is… Is he paralyzed?"

She shook her head. "No. His nervous responses are normal."

"Then why do you look like you have bad news to give me?"

She took a deep breath. "There's a second reason we've decided to keep Charlie in the coma."

I waited for what seemed like an eternity as she found the right words to say.

"We… We're afraid that his response to the crash will be severe. We want to make sure he's healed enough so when he wakes up, he won't hurt himself further once he learns the truth."

"The truth?" I didn't understand what she was trying to say. "The truth about what?"

Another deep breath. "Charlie is the only person that came in from that crash. "

I furrowed my brows. "Did his mom go to a different hospital?"

"No. She didn't need to."

That was even more confusing. "She walked away from that with no injuries?"

Dr. Roberts shook her head slowly. It took a moment before I realized what she was telling me. My hands went back to my mouth and I felt the tears flowing even harder now.

"No… No, she can't be…"

"She didn't survive the crash."

I slumped in my chair, staring wide-eyed at the floor. Sobs wracked my body. Mrs. Miller was like a second mother to me. She'd been in my life for over eight years, feeding me dinner, getting after me for getting Charlie in trouble, and celebrating with me when I had my wins in life. More than once, she was the one that baked my birthday cake or rescued me when I was too scared to call my own parents.

But I wasn't crying for my own loss. I was crying for my friend. Charlie was lying in a hospital bed only a few yards away, completely unaware that his mother, the only parent he had left, was dead. By the time he woke up, she'd be in the ground, and he would've missed it all. The grief would be fresh for him while everyone else in the world had moved on.

All of it was so unfair that I wanted to puke. In fact, I was pretty sure I was going to.

I got up from the chair and ran across the room to the closest trash can and hurled up everything I'd eaten that day and then some. Dr. Roberts was behind me a moment later, handing me a box of Kleenex to wipe my face.

"I'm… I'm sorry… "

"It's okay," she nodded, sadness still filling her eyes. "I understand."

I took a shuddering breath, wiping my mouth. "I need to see him. I need to see Charlie."

"Okay. But I need to warn you, it's not a pretty sight, alright?"

"I don't care. I need to be by his side."

Dr. Roberts led me out of her office, got me a bottle of water, and took me down to one of the private rooms at the end of the ward. It was one of the few with a solid door, which didn't bode well. If Charlie was in such bad shape that he had to be hidden away, I couldn't imagine how I was going to react to seeing him.

"He's in here," she said. "Visiting hours end at eight, but I'll let the nurses know you might be here longer, okay?"

"Thank you." She went to leave, but I reached out and touched her arm. "My… My parents are on their way here. We're all the family Charlie has left. His father died when he was really young…"

"I'll break the news to them," she said, catching my meaning. "And put them down as family, okay?"

"Thank you."

She gave me a soft smile and headed back to her duties. Meanwhile, I stood outside Charlie's door trying to gather up all the courage I had. Still, it took me nearly a full minute before I could force myself to reach out and turn the door handle.

The first thing I heard was the regular beeping of the heart monitor followed by the slow whooshing of the breathing machine. Stepping inside, I found myself staring at more tubes, machines, and IV bags than I thought could possibly be for just one person. My eyes drifted down to the figure in the bed. Tubes exploded from his mouth and arms. Not to mention he was bandaged nearly from head to toe. The only reason I even knew it was Charlie was because of the tuft of dark hair poking out from under one of the bandages on his head and that one freckle he had under his left eye.

Immediately I felt my stomach lurch again. But I forced it back down. Tears streamed down my face, but I didn't allow myself to sob or lose control of myself. I didn't care if he was in a coma, I wouldn't do that in front of Charlie. What he needed right now was reassurance, support, and love. I could lose control on my own time, when I wasn't right next to him.

So, taking a deep breath, I went to the side of his bed. His right hand, one of the only parts of his body that wasn't bandaged, sat on the scratchy hospital sheets. There was an IV stuck to the back of his hand, so I did my best to avoid it as I slid my fingers under his palm. The warm touch of his skin made me breathe a sigh of relief. Up until that point, I wasn't fully convinced he was still alive.

I took a deep breath and kneeled down at the edge of the bed, his hand still in mine. Leaning forward, I kissed his fingers one at a time, trying my best not to cry all over him. The thought of him lying there, not knowing where he was or that his mother was dead, broke my heart into a million tiny pieces. His entire life had changed, and he had no idea. I would've traded my life at that moment to turn back the clock and stop it all from happening. But kneeling there, holding his hand, that was all the power I had. And it made me feel so inadequate.

A colorful glint caught my eye as I kneeled. I glanced to the right and saw the opal arrowhead I'd given him all those years ago, sitting on the bedside table. The string had been cut, and it was caked with blood, but the arrowhead itself remained clean and intact. I felt my lip wobble and a lump rise in my throat as I looked at it. If only we could go back to the bright days when I'd given him that arrowhead and forget all about the future .

I wanted to talk to him. To tell him that everything was going to be alright. I wasn't sure I believed all that nonsense about coma patients being aware of their surroundings. But I couldn't stop myself from speaking either. I had to say something, even if it was only for myself.

"Don't you fucking die on me, Charlie," I said, tears and snot choking me as I tried to stop myself from falling apart. "Don't you fucking dare. You and I have too much unfinished business for you to leave me now. We're not over yet. Not by a long shot. So, you better fucking come back to me, alright?"

There was no sound except the whooshing of the breathing machine and the regular beeping of the heart monitor. Nothing changed. Nothing got better. Nothing convinced me that he could hear me.

"It's okay," I muttered, pressing his hand to my cheek. "I'll wait for you. I'll wait forever if I have to." I let my face rest on the side of the bed, tears soaking the sheets. "I love you so much, Charlie."