“Yeah…?”
“Could you give me a minute with him? Like, do you mind stepping out for a second?”
“Sure.” He stands, sliding the tripod over so that Aaron’s face fills the screen more, and then tells me to just call him back when I’ve had enough time.
I peer up at Lauren. “Can you also do me a favor?”
“Anything…”
“Can you just be my interpreter for a minute? Like, not my girlfriend. Just, I don’t know, if you can shut that part of your brain offso I can speak to him?”
She smirks, sliding another stool over and sitting next to me. “You and I have blurred a lot of lines in the professional field over the past few months, but Idostill recall how to do my job, yes.”
I kiss her cheek. “Thank you.”
“Psst,” she teases. “If you want me to step out of girlfriend mode, you need to not kiss me.”
I nod, huffing out a dry chuckle. “Of course.”
Then I face the screen, studying Aaron’s blank gaze, directed at the ceiling, for a moment. Whatever I sign, Lauren speaks aloud. “Aaron, darling, if you can hear me, I want you to know something very important. If I could be there right now, I would. I miss you so,somuch, and I’m sorry as hell for what I did to you.”
I pause to wipe away moisture trying to leak out of my eyelids. He blinks. I continue, “Cam mentioned that he told you about Lauren, Marcus, and Brody, but I don’t know how much he told you. Please, please don’t be mad at me for moving on. I am going to do everything in my power to bring you home, here, with us. I know I failed you twice already. The first time being the accident, and then once more, when I couldn’t fight for you properly in court.”
Lauren continues to interpret for me, though it appears as if it’s physically paining her to say the things she has been insistent about me not being at fault for. Like a champ, though, she’s turning off her girlfriend brain.
“Aaron, after what happened I didn’t think I’d ever try to seek out love again, because I didn’t know if I had it in me to give a piece of my heart to someone else when you had already claimed the whole damn thing. But what I’ve learned by being with Marcus and Lauren is that I don’t have to chip off pieces of my heart to hand out to anyone. I’ve learned that it can make space and allow others in instead. It can grow and expand, right until it feels so full sometimes that it could explode.”
He blinks again, and this time, I swear I can see a tear forming in the very corner of one of his eyes. Could just be natural moisture, however, so I brush it off.
I carry on, the words coming to me easier now, the more I get them out, “Aaron, my love for you hasn’t diminished. It hasn’t faded. It hasn’t gotten drowned out. I haven’t replaced you. In fact, my partners are gunning for me to get you back, sweetheart. They want to see you, to meet you, and to help care for you just as much as I do. They’re backing me up on this. I want you to meet these amazing people because I want you to see just how much their love has helped fill in the holes left behind by grief and anguish.”
My vision is blurry, my eyes stinging with tears so I can’t see a damn thing while I keep on babbling, promising him that I haven’t—andwon’t—give up on him.
Lauren suddenly covers my hands, silencing me. “Babe, wait,” she says. “Look at the camera.”
I yank up the hem of my shirt, wiping away the tears. When I look at the screen, there are two wet streaks running down Aaron's cheeks. Is he—?
“He’s crying,” Lauren notes, her tone laced with disbelief. With my hands still clasped between hers, she shakes them excitedly. “Oh my god, he’s crying! He can hear me! He can understand you!”
I slip my hands from hers. “I don’t think that’s possible…”
She gapes at me, hope in her expression, then her eyes flick back to the screen. “Aaron, hunny?” she says skeptically. “This is just me, Lauren, speaking to you now—not interpreting for Caleb. Can you understand me?”
A blink. A coincidence, I’m sure. He’s never responded to outside stimuli other than just reflexively—not thatI’m aware of, anyway. Still, Lauren squeals as if there’s been some big breakthrough here, so while I hate to burst her bubble, Ihaveto.
“I think you might be getting your hopes up, Lauren. Medically speaking, it’s unlikely that he is responding to stimulus right now, since he’s been in this state for so long.”
She shakes her head, responding to me but never taking her eyes off the screen. “Caleb, Iknowthat it’s not likely. I was in nursing school before my assault. We did a whole unit on minimally conscious patients before. But just because it’s notlikelydoesn’t mean it’s notpossible.”
Then, Aaron does something that causes my stomach to drop so hard it feels like it could fall out of my ass. Slowly, he turns his head and looks straight into the camera.
“Sweetheart?” I sign, suddenly too stunned to remember my own warning to Lauren about getting her hopes up. “Can you blink twice if you are able understand me?” I ask insistently.
He blinks twice. Slowly.Purposefully.
Not a reflex.
Itcan’tbe, can it?
