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“I refuse to leave your side,” she said.
I nodded and smirked as if to say I wasn’t going to let her even if she tried.
When the officer, sitting at the small security desk next to a sign that read ‘ER Admittance’, eyes bulged from his head I knew we must have looked something frightful. I couldn’t imagine what we looked like to him, both of us smothered in a sheet of dried blood.
“What happened to you two!” He screamed. His eyes went to my arm. “Hyacinth! Hyacinth! Get a gurney in here! We’ve got a gunshot wound! Smithy get me a wheelchair too!”
A nurse ran to us and asked if there was anything else wrong that we weren’t able to see and I shook my head.
“Yesterday he had his jaw broken by the guy who did this to us and can barely speak,” she said through tears.
“Oh my God,” the nurse said, crossing himself.
Hyacinth helped me onto a gurney and the nurse I assume was named Smithy helped Jules into the wheelchair.
“I can’t leave his side,” she said looking up at Smithy.
“I’m sorry sweetheart but he needs to be examined quickly and will probably be heading to surgery soon. You can’t go with him.”
She stood and firmly, but calmly repeated what she had said, “I told you, I can’t leave his side. You don’t know what we’ve been through,” her voice cracked.
He looked down at us and didn’t argue with her. Jules grabbed my hand and I felt our current’s relief. It made me feel sleepy it was so soothing and thrummed through my muscles and bones. The loss of blood just exacerbated the sensation.
As they examined my wound, I saw two doctors look at Jules’ head. They suspected a mild concussion but nothing major. They asked her to stand but she said she didn’t think she’d be able to. When they asked her why, she said that he had sliced the bottom of her feet so she couldn’t run and I almost lost my cool wishing I had gone ahead and hit him with the bat and cracked open his skull.
I felt awful. I noticed her limping in the snow on the way to my truck but I thought it was in attempt to help me. It made me feel like I was the worst person in the world. I had nothing but a small bullet wound in some muscle. I didn’t have to walk on my wounds. I almost got sick imagining the pain she must have felt with every step she took and my heavy body leaning against hers.
The doctor pulled Jules’ shirt back slightly to look at the ‘E’ carved into her chest and murmured to the nurse beside him that he’d need to put several stitches there as well. When the nurse named Hyacinth, saw the ‘E’ she forced a gasp back into her throat. I saw the doctor’s eyes widen at the extent of cruelty once he left the room, probably to regain the composure that was leaking from his expression while examining her.
Paying attention to Jules was infuriating the doctor examining me and he threatened to separate us. I settled down but never kept my eyes from Jules’. My poor Jules.
Eventually, they insisted we had to separate, so Jules could get a CT scan and have her head bandaged and her feet and chest could be stitched.
I was being prepared for surgery and got the distinct impression I’d wake, from my second surgery in two days, to the hysterical faces of my family lingering above me but what I really wanted when I woke, was Jules in my arms. I didn’t want her to be away from my touch ever again. She was mine to protect and admittedly I hadn’t done a very good job thus far, but that was all going to end. I promised myself.
I woke to the sound of beeps and soft murmurs.
I barely had to lift my lids before Jules said, “He’s awake!”
She leaned towards me, barely reaching my face since she was in a wheelchair.
She brushed hair from my face, tears in her eyes, “Hello my love.”
“Hello.Jules.,” I said, kissing her hand.
We were at a loss for words, just stared at each other in total awe of the other.
My mom broke the silence, “Elliott, honey....,” but she couldn’t finish.
“Mom.it’s.okay.”
“No, it’s not okay sweetheart but it will be. We love you baby. We are all so happy to see the two of you alive.”
I scanned the room and piled high to the rafters were our families. I could hear talking in the hall and recognized more family members.
“It’s not allowed but we didn’t care and they didn’t really put up much of a fight considering.....” my dad said.
He stood at the foot of the bed and squeezed my leg. We understood each other so well, no words were necessary. I nodded at him.
