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Another wave of pain rushes over my abdomen, causing my legs to collapse underneath me. The room starts spinning because the pain is so severe. I try to grab onto anything within reach, but my head connects with something solid. I fall to the floor as everything fades to black.
Chapter 30
Poor Kelsey — I hate that she’s not feeling well and there’s not a whole lot that I can do for her. After she texted me, I called Mitch and told him I need him to run practice today.
“Frankie, I’m heading home. Are you good to lock up?” I call into the bay from the office.
“Yeah, I’m just finishing up this oil change and then I’ll be out of here.”
“Thanks, man. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I get in my truck and try to call Kelsey on my drive home, but it rings out and goes to voicemail. I wonder if she’s taking a nap. The drive from my shop to my house is five minutes, but when I’m waiting in anticipation to see my girl, it feels like it takes forever.
When I pull into the driveway, my gut wrenches. Something is wrong — I can feel it. Panic is driving my movements, and I can’t run into the house fast enough.
“Kelsey?!” I shout as I burst through the door. She’s not on the couch or in either of the bedrooms. When I make my way to the back of the house, I find her passed out on the kitchen floor surrounded by blood. My first thought when I see the amount of blood around her is that someone came in and stabbed her.
“Oh, God. Kelsey!” I drop to my knees and pull her into my lap. I feel her neck for a pulse and breathe a sigh of relief when I find one. “Kelsey, baby, I need you to open your eyes!” I scream, lightly tapping her cheeks to rouse her awake, but nothing is working. I dig my phone out of my pocket and call 911.
Throughout the call, the dispatcher gives me guidance on what I can do to get Kelsey to wake up while I wait for the ambulance to arrive. She instructs me to inspect her body to find the source of the bleeding. It was, as I’d already suspected, from her period. I run a wash cloth under cold water and lay it over her forehead — still, nothing.
“Does she have any reproductive issues that you’re aware of?”
“I don’t know what that means…” I say with a slight wince of embarrassment.
“I mean — endometriosis, PCOS, fibroids, ovarian cysts… has she ever mentioned anything like that to you?”
“No, all she’s said was that she was on birth control.”
“Okay, Sir —” Her statement is interrupted by the sound of pounding on my front door.
“The ambulance is here, I have to go.” I disconnect the call and run to let them in.
The next twenty minutes is a complete blur. I feel like I’m having an out of body experience as they load her onto the gurney and into the ambulance. I watch intently as the EMTs try various ways to get her to wake up on the drive to the hospital. They’re doing so much work on her that I can’t even hold her hand and tell her that I’m here. My heart shatters into a million pieces they rush her off to the emergency room, leaving me to do nothing but sit here and wait.
Once I’m settled into the waiting room, I call Savannah. The hospital likely won’t release any information to me, since I’m not immediate family.
“Joey? What’s wrong?” Savannah answers without a hello. She knows me well enough to know that I wouldn’t call unless there was an emergency.
“It’s Kelsey. We’re at the hospital.” My voice is laced with tremors. “I came home and found her unconscious on the kitchen floor.” I pause, shuddering at the image of her surrounded by all of that blood. It’ll be a miracle if the memory of that sight ever leaves my mind.
“Oh, my God!” Savannah shrieks into the phone so loud that I have to hold it away from my ear. “I’m on my way.” The call disconnects before I have a chance to reply.
I don’t know what to do right now. I can’t sit down without trembling, but if I stand up, I’m going to pace until I wear a hole in the floor. The lesser of two evils would be to sit, I suppose.
The smell of antiseptic makes my stomach churn — I fucking hate hospitals. I watch anxiously as doctors and nurses rush in and out of the waiting room, while more EMTs bring new patients in with gurneys. When I look around the area I’m sitting in, I see other people who currently share my emotions — dread, fear, and uncertainty.
I haven’t cried since I was a kid, when my Pop Pop passed away. But right now, it’s all I feel like I can do. I feel like someone is gripping my heart in an iron vice and squeezing the life out of it. Unable to hold it in anymore, I rest my head in my hands and cry.
I can’t lose Kelsey, not when she and I just got together. I should have told her sooner that I loved her, regardless of my fear of rejection — regardless of my fear of ruining our friendship. I shouldn’t have wasted so much time fucking around. Why was I such an idiot for so long?
I want to wake up from this nightmare. I want to go back to bed this morning and convince Kelsey to lie in bed all day. But more than anything, I want her to have confided in me about whatever health issues she’s dealing with here. I’ve dated many women for enough time for them to have a period, and none of them ever dealt with anything this severe.
“Joey!” Savannah calls across the waiting room before running toward me. I pull her into a hug, not letting go until she’s ready for me to. “What happened? Have the doctors come and talk to you at all?”
“No one has come out yet, but I don’t think they will because I’m not family.”
Savannah nods her understanding and motions for me to follow her to the nurse’s station. “Excuse me, I’m here for my sister, Kelsey Andrews. She was admitted into the emergency room about thirty minutes ago, and I was wondering if there’s any update.”
