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She was outright crying, but she managed to say, “What…who found you? Where have…”
“Caden found me,” he said, looking at me with a look I almost couldn’t handle, “Caden, Amber, Jesse, Jeff, and Caitlin. They found me. I’m sorry, mama, my leg is broken, and I couldn’t get home.”
She couldn’t stop crying. I understood. I felt like I could cry forever, too, but in a much different way than when I’d cried on my first trip through the same woods. We pressed on.
???
An ambulance and three police cars met us at the edge of the woods, EMT’s already rushing toward us with a stretcher. Jeff directed some of the police officers to the cabin while the EMTs got Jamie onto the stretcher, and I stayed right at his side. My friends, knowing I didn’t want to let him out of my sight, insisted that I ride in the ambulance with him, and told us they’d meet us at the hospital soon.
As the ambulance doors closed, I saw all of my friends talking to the police officers. The EMTs were already hooking Jamie up to an IV and checking his injuries as the ambulance made its way carefully down the dirt road that led to the path that wasn’t there.
Jamie was stabilized in the ER, placed on IV antibiotics, and given pain medication that would make him more comfortable. His minor wounds were cleaned and dressed, then they prepared to take him to surgery for his leg. They needed to clean and debride it, and make sure it was safe and healing before they put in a plate and cast it. Suddenly, though, I panicked. I didn’t want them to take him away from me yet. I didn’t want them to put him under anesthesia when I knew he already had infection throughout his body that made it riskier, even though I knew they needed to do it in order to get rid of the infection completely. My fears were getting the better of me. I’d just gotten him back. I couldn’t lose him again. Instead of being the strong boyfriend that he probably needed, I fucking started crying right there in the ER room he was in and told the nurse she couldn’t take him.
“Aw, Caden,” he said, holding his arms out to me. I fell into his embrace as the nurse waited patiently to take him away. “It will be ok,” he said softly into my hair. I just sobbed. Everything from the previous few weeks caught up to me right then, with finding him then being faced with the fear of losing him all over again. “Hey,” he said, trying to get me to give him my attention. I finally pulled back to look at him, tears still streaming down my face. “I’ll be back,” he said firmly, “I promise. I didn’t make it this far to give up on a damn operating table. Ok?” I nodded.
“I love you,” I said, giving him a kiss while the nurse just looked on with sympathy in her eyes.
“Love you, too,” he said, giving me a reassuring smile, “I’ll see you in a few.”
My friends showed up as the nurse was wheeling him out of the room to go to surgery prep, and they looked at him curiously. He drew a teary smile from me again as he gave them the rock-on sign and said, “Gonna go get my leg cleaned out, bitches. Catch you on the flip side.” They all laughed and gave him hugs, then he was gone.
I paced the waiting room the entire time Jamie was in surgery. I think I was making the receptionist nervous because she kept telling me that he was going to be ok. She wasn’t back there. She didn’t know. Jamie’s mom and sister arrived right before the doctor came out. They were crying, and they hugged me. His mom, still bewildered and still crying, asked me what happened. Before I could say anything, the door swung open, and the doctor was there. I almost pounced on the man to find out if everything was ok.
“He’s fine,” the doctor assured us, “He’s in recovery right now. There were no issues with the anesthesia. We placed the bone. He’s going to need a plate, but he’ll need one more surgery to clean it out before we can plate and cast it. We got the necrotic tissue out and cleaned it up, and he’ll need to be on IV antibiotics for at least ten days. They’re already starting to bring down his fever, and he should be more comfortable when he’s fully awake. I think he’ll be out of here within the next couple of weeks. I can see that he’s full of determination, and I doubt he’d let us hold him here a full two weeks, anyway. He’s already mumbled some complaints I couldn’t quite understand about his motorcycle and asked me to bring it to him. I don’t think he quite knows where he is yet, but he’ll be completely awake soon and in a room where you can all go see him.”
I started laughing and crying at the same time, tears of relief that time. I had to sit down, and his mom and sister sat with me. As soon as they let us in, his room was crowded with his friends and family. Angela and Tara hugged him as they tried to apologize for giving up on the search. By then, Jamie knew the police had officially declared him dead, and that almost everyone had believed them. The look he gave me when he realized I was the only one who had refused to was so intense, I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
I hadn’t told Angela or Tara my thoughts back then because I didn’t think it would help anything. I didn’t want to upset them even more, and I was going through hell with all the thoughts and confusion myself. I didn’t want to burden them with that. Jamie and I both told them they’d done nothing wrong. It had appeared that there was no hope. I was just a stubborn bastard who didn’t believe anyone or anything I didn’t want to believe.
???
Jamie had another surgery three days after the first, and then at his insistence, he was transferred to a hospital near our school. He wanted his friends and family to be close without being a burden on us or our lives, even though we insisted he was our priority. He freaked out that his friends were missing school, and his sister was missing work. If he was closer to where we all needed to be, we could visit him when we wanted and still fulfill our obligations. So, he was transferred, and they prepared to take him to surgery once more for a bone plate and a cast. I fretted every time he went to surgery, but I managed not to freak out again like I had the first time.
Jamie was released from the hospital twelve days after we found him in the woods. By then, the story had hit the news. There were reporters waiting at the entrance of the hospital, though I never knew how they figured out he was being released that day. Caitlin flew up to the hospital entrance in the minivan we’d borrowed from Jamie’s mom so we could all be there to help him back to campus. Jeff and Jesse led us through the crowd of reporters as I pushed Jamie’s wheelchair with the nurse and Amber at our sides to keep the cameras back. We said nothing, didn’t even look at them until one who just wasn’t letting up followed us right to the van and said, “Jamie! What do you have to say about the man who abducted you?
I helped Jamie up, and the nurse took the wheelchair. He had crutches in the van but used me as leverage to get in. Right before he climbed inside, he looked back at the reporter and said, “Man, fuck that guy.”
I laughed as I followed him in. Jeff closed the door behind us as all the reporters scrambled to fix their live feeds.
???
The school was in awe when we showed back up. Word had long-since spread that we’d found Jamie, and they’d been watching me since I got back, but people were staring at us when we returned with him more than they’d even stared at me when he was gone.
Jamie looked mostly like himself again, only thinner. I’d helped him take a shower at the hospital and shave his face. Even though we weren’t worried about any body hair yet, well, I wasn’t, he was clean and reasonably ok with his looks. During the shower, he’d also tried to talk me into giving him a hand job, but I told him that was for when his strength was up, and he was feeling a little better. Then he gave me puppy dog eyes. So I caved and gave him a hand job, and the nurse ended up knocking to ask us what was taking so long.
Jamie’s mom had wanted him to go home and take a while to rest instead of going right back to school, but he insisted that he’d already missed too much. He didn’t want to get too far behind and have to repeat the year, or worse, get kicked out of the program. The school wasn’t being harsh on him, though, since he’d missed because he’d been kidnapped.
I didn’t have the same luxury of an excuse, but luckily my grades had been good enough that the little bit I’d slipped during those few weeks didn’t affect them badly enough to hinder me. Once Jamie was feeling a little better in the hospital, he’d noticed quickly that I appeared almost as rough as he did. “Caden, why are you so thin?” I told him I hadn’t felt like eating. He held me and reminded me that I knew he wouldn’t want me to make myself sick. I knew that, but I couldn’t help it. He made me get a tray and let him watch me eat in the hospital, so he knew I was eating properly again.
Once we were back on campus, I helped him to his dorm, our friends surrounding us as we walked. I didn’t care what all of those staring people thought. He was ok, and he was mine. Some of them called out as we passed by, telling him they were glad he was ok and that it was good to see him. Some of them told my friends and I that we’d done good for going out and finding him. Yeah, it was my pleasure.
Mark leapt up from his bed and caught Jamie in a hug when he hopped into the dorm room holding onto me while I carried his crutches. I didn’t want to let go of him. Ever. Mark had combed the woods with us multiple times while Jamie was missing. I’d even seen him cry a few times. He’d also never told another soul what he’d walked in on in his dorm room that night. “Oh, my god, I missed you so much,” he said, squeezing Jamie, “I can’t believe you’re really here.”
Jamie hugged him back. Then Mark added with a laugh, “I’m really glad you’re back. I was afraid they were going to stick someone mean in here with me.” Jamie laughed, too, giving him a little punch on the shoulder before hobbling over to his bed. He sprawled out on that twin mattress like it was a bed in the royal palace. It wasn’t a dirty, forty-year-old bed with springs jutting out, and it wasn’t a hospital bed, so maybe it did feel like a royal bed to him.
I stayed there with him that night. I didn’t want to let him out of my sight, and he didn’t seem to want to let go of me, either. He called me his hero. I told him I wasn’t a hero, just the person who loved him more than life. Somehow, the hearts in his eyes got even bigger with that.
???
