As I enter Noah’s room, I witness Jacob leaning across his bed, grasping Noah’s hand tightly. “Noah, hold on, help is coming. I need you to fight, Noah. You have to fight.”
After dashing to the other side of Noah’s bed, I grab his free hand. “Please, baby, hold on,” I plead over the heart monitors alarming that he’s flat-lining.
“Move now!”
After pulling Jacob away from Noah’s bed, a nurse lowers it until it sits flat.The hand Jacob was holding flops lifelessly off his bed as his room fills with nurses.
“We need the defibrillator!”
Jacob paces back and forth while running his fingers roughly through his hair. The veins in his neck are bulging, and his fists are clenched tightly as he mutters angrily about Dr. Miller being senseless.
“You need to let us help him,” pleads a nurse while staring at me with sympathetic eyes.
I shake my head, rudely ignoring her demand.
I can't leave him.
Not now.
Not ever.
I willnotlive without him.
While a nurse rushes a machine to Noah's bedside, Jacob bands his arms around my waist and yanks me back. I fight him as viciously as I did Ryan months ago.
Once again, my effort is fruitless, and I’m forced to fight with words. “Noah!” I scream while tears stream down my face. “Please, Noah, fight!”
He can’t leave me.
He can’t leave us.
He was doing so well.
What happened while I was gone?
I should haveneverleft him. I won’t make the same mistake twice.
Nurses and doctors move around Noah, gathering equipment, and placing pads on his now exposed chest. They remove the guitar pendant Jacob gave him from around his neck and put it on the side table before attaching the paddles to the pads.
“Charging, fully charged, stand back, clear!” yells Dr. Kirkpatrick before he shocks Noah’s heart with the defibrillator.
Tears roll down my cheeks when Noah’s torso bends harshly off the bed. The electricity surging through his withered body is felt by mine. Dizziness overwhelms me as I stumble haphazardly.
Just before I crash onto the hard tiled floor, Jacob grabs ahold of me. He cradles me in close to his chest as a visual I never want to see again confronts me.
Noah is leaving me. He is leaving us.
No!I won’t let you leave me. You can’t leave us!
“Please, Noah! Fight!”
Tears stream down my cheeks when Dr. Kirkpatrick murmurs, “Still no cardiac output. Charge again." While the nurses do that, he commences CPR compressions on Noah's chest. "Come on, Noah."
He climbs onto Noah's bed to ensure his compressions are strong enough for Noah's tired heart to feel.
“Fully charged,” informs a nurse before she hands the shock paddles to Dr. Kirkpatrick.
“Stand back,” he yells before zapping Noah for the second time. “Clear.”
