Fullepub 
Chapter 44
44
I awaken again, a forehead touching my forehead, my nostrils pinched closed by a finger and thumb, lips pressed against my lips. I feel the whoosh of Listerine-flavoured air filling up my lungs and start to cough, spluttering and spitting. The owner of the forehead yells, “She’s alive! She…I saved her! I saved her life, oh my god!”
Pain immediately envelops me, my shoulders throbbing, the evening air stinging a small patch on my cheek, the taste of blood in my mouth. My knee. My knee feels like someone has taken a hammer to it.
I try my best to concentrate on the face above me, the big earnest blue eyes looking imploringly into mine.
Jonah.
“Hi,” he says softly, brow furrowed. He touches my hand and I flinch.
I open my mouth to say something, but he shakes his head.
“Hush. Just stay still, okay?” He looks up, nodding at something or someone I can’t see. “The paramedics are here now. You’re okay.”
My head feels thick and heavy, my heart skittering out of rhythm. There’s a mad burst of activity beside me as a mask is placed over my face and I am lifted by two paramedics onto a trolley. They’re talking to me. I know because I see their mouths moving, but the words seem all jumbled because my head is filled with only one thought.
Where’s Cooper?
I lift my head, and a kind-faced paramedic gently pushes it back down onto the trolley. But not before I see Cooper’s car crashed up against a Land Rover, and there on the ground in front of the cars is Cooper himself.
He’s lying straight, arms at his sides, eyes closed—he looks like he’s playing pretend. Surrounding him are four or five paramedics. One of them is pressing on his chest over and over, his face red with the effort.
“No,” I manage to whisper before I’m wheeled up a ramp and into the ambulance. It takes off, sirens blaring mournfully.
“You’re okay,” Jonah says from my side. What is he doing here? Why is he in here with me? “You’re going to be okay. You crashed your car down the road from my house. I heard the bang from inside and ran out to find you lying on the road. You must have crawled out. You’re safe now, though. You’re okay.”
I’m not okay. Nothing is okay.
My heart punches in my chest, the force of it making my whole body ache. A machine starts to beep and suddenly the paramedic with the kind eyes is above me brandishing a needle. I don’t feel it go in. I don’t feel anything.
I wake up, god knows how many hours later, in a room with walls made of glass. The pain in my knee is unbearable. I sit up and my whole body feels like it’s been chucked down a full flight of stairs. I’m dressed in a hospital gown, and my leg is wrapped in bandages. My head feels foggy and my mouth is as dry as dust.
“Oh! You’re awake! Do you want some water?”
It’s Jonah again.
He’s sitting on a plastic chair beside my bed. He pushes a bottle of water towards me, but then realising that I could probably do with some help, he unscrews the cap and holds the bottle to my lips. I gulp down the liquid. It dribbles on my chin and plops onto my chest.
“You had surgery,” Jonah says. “On your knee. You have bruised ribs and a glass cut near your ear. But they gave you stitches. There will barely be a scar.”
“Cooper. Where’s Cooper. Is he…Is he…?”
“The man you came in with—Cooper—is there.” Jonah points to the left of me.
I look through the glass window, and there he is. Lying in a bed, sleeping soundly. The relief that he’s not dead bursts out of me in the form of a noisy sob, mixed with a yelp of pain because the movement makes my ribs feel like they’ve been squeezed in a brutal mechanical contraption.
“He…uh…he’s in a coma, I think,” Jonah says.
“A coma. People wake from comas. He’s not dead. He’s going to wake up.”
Jonah doesn’t say anything, just sets his mouth into a stoic line. The stubble is thick on his jaw. His eyes are red, and his linen shirt is crumpled.
“Have you been here all night?”
“Yeah. I wanted to know you were okay.”
“I am,” I say, looking over at Cooper. “Thank you so much for staying with me. But I’m okay now. You should go. Get some sleep.”
Jonah nods, but seems reluctant to go. He scooches his chair closer and picks up my hand. “I…I’m really glad you’re alright,” he says.
I laugh mirthlessly. “I’ve terrified you twice in one week.”
He half smiles. “Yeah. You’re kind of extreme.”
I nod. “Honestly, you can go. I promise not to chase you.”
Jonah takes a deep breath and stands up, stretching his arms upwards so that his shirt rises and I can see the bronze hairs of his lower belly. I think about how I felt when I first met him in Evermore. I mean…I get it. But that spark that tickled me the first time he touched me? It’s fully done a runner.
“Feel better soon, I guess,” Jonah says, hesitating at the door.
“Thanks, Jonah,” I mutter, turning my head so that I’m watching Cooper.
He’ll wake up soon. And I want mine to be the first face he sees.
The doctor tells me pretty much the same as Jonah did—gnarly broken knee, bruised ribs, general bashed-up body, extremely lucky to be alive at all. When I ask about Cooper and when he will wake up, she grimaces, which I’m pretty sure is not in the manual for how doctors should respond when someone asks when a patient will awaken from a coma. The doctor explains that Cooper’s injuries were very serious. She says words that no-one should ever have to hear in normal life: intercranial pressure, mechanical ventilation, fluid. When I ask her the average amount of time that patients are in comas following an injury like Cooper’s, she replies with an unhelpful, “Every patient is different.”
I can’t leave my bed yet, so I just stare across at him, lit up beneath the harsh ceiling lights. His body is right there. But him? He’s in Evermore. And the thought of anyone being stuck with Merritt would make me worried, but as it turns out, she’s his sister. And they clearly adore each other. So he’s okay. I know that much. But he doesn’t belong there. He belongs in this world. Listening to his Charlie Parker. Drinking delicious wine. Planning fictional heists. Being despicable. Kissing me.
I press the buzzer for the nurse, asking if she’ll help me into a wheelchair so that I can go sit with him.
“Oh…you came in together, right? Is he a loved one?” she asks, glancing down at her notes.
“Yes,” I say, the words coming out of my mouth with absolute certainty. “Yes, he is. He’s a loved one.”
Once I’m at his bedside, I take hold of his hand, marked with the bruise of a failed cannula insertion. I run my thumb over his palm. He looks so calm. So empty.
I look around to make sure there are no medical staff in the near vicinity.
“Merritt,” I hiss angrily. “Merritt, you need to send him back home now.”
I know it will be difficult for her to just wisp into a busy hospital, so I check my phone, waiting hopefully for the sound of “Jump Around” to emerge.
But there is nothing.
I try to reason with her, muttering into the air that I know she’s missed her brother, that I know she is sometimes bored in Evermore, but that she has Eric now. Why does she need Cooper? Cooper belongs here. And why would she do this to her own parents? Put them through this?
Still no response. Apart from the regular beeps and the whooshing sound of the machine that is helping Cooper to breathe, the room is silent. And while Merritt has disappeared on me before, I start to get the sinking feeling that Merritt won’t ever be getting in touch again. I’ve fulfilled the deal I made in Evermore. Jonah literally gave me the kiss of life. It might technically have been emergency mouth-to-mouth, but his lips touched mine of their own free will. The contract is over. I have my life back.
But, as I look down at Cooper’s pale face and slightly clammy forehead, I realise that I’m not ready to know what that life looks like without him.
