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There was blood everywhere.
There were people in the room looking on in shock.
The man that had his hands inside my chest, manually pumping my heart, wore a look of complete and utter desperation.
“One more time.”
Paddles came out of nowhere, the man at the doctor’s side handing them to the doctor.
He pulled his hands out of my chest, his fingers coated slick with vibrant scarlet, and placed those paddles against my heart.
The shock hit me again, and this time, I gasped and came to for a second time, back inside the body.
Before I could comprehend what was going on, I heard, “We have no pulse!”
Then…nothing.
At least, not until I stared out at the water.
There was so much of it.
And I was walking on it.
I looked down at my bare feet and saw that, though I had a ripple where my feet were pressing against it, I was still suspended as if it was solid.
And the sense of profound peace stole over me.
I was…home.
I looked over the grassy hills and sunshine for miles and was surprised to see that I wasn’t alone.
“Jasper?”
Jasper looked up, a grin on his face. “I never thought it’d be so peaceful.”
Peaceful was an understatement.
Gorgeous.
Breathtaking.
So beautiful that it hurt to look at it.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I guess the same thing as you.”
• • •
MAVIS
I got the call to come to the waiting room on the third floor six hours and fifteen minutes later.
At receiving that call, and the lack of ‘he made it,’ I texted my sister and asked her to meet me at the hospital before turning my phone off and heading for the place where I was told to wait.
I’d just arrived at the location specified when I saw it.
The doctor came out of the room at the end of the hall, and I stared at him, trying to gauge whether he was there to deliver me bad news.
He looked…blank.
As in, he was trying very, very hard to hide his emotions.
I knew that I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.
“There was a lot of damage,” he said, face weary and broken.
CHAPTER 21
Just wing it. Life, eyeliner, everything.
-Facts of life
MAVIS
“He was dead on the table the moment that I opened his chest…had to be revived eight times…given up…heart didn’t want to work…”
I didn’t want to hear the rest of the words.
In fact, I’d all but shut down and collapsed against the wall while he explained everything that went wrong.
I was so wrapped up in the utter and complete grief—in the knowledge that I wouldn’t see Murphy again—that at first I didn’t hear Dr. Battle’s words.
“He’s alive.”
My eyes blinked open, and I stared warily at him as if he’d just spoken in a foreign language.
“What?” I croaked.
Dr. Battle smiled warily then. “He’s alive.”
I never thought to hear those words.
In fact, I was so in awe of what those words had evoked in me, that at first I didn’t notice the other words he was speaking before he said, “There’s still a high chance he won’t make it. He was in way worse shape than we thought he would be.”
I cleared my throat. “Today…tonight. I think he’d given up. I think today was the day that he was calling his last. He wouldn’t have woken up this morning.”
Dr. Battle nodded. “I could tell when I told him that he wouldn’t make it much longer that he was defeated. I’m glad that we could get it today. Despite where the heart came from.”
With that last comment, he then told me what I could expect over the next few days, not giving me a chance to question him.
“He’ll be in the ICU for the next week or so. We’re going to keep him sedated.” He continued to talk, telling me when I could and couldn’t visit. What I was allowed to do. When I was allowed to do it. And ultimately ending on, “But don’t get your hopes up, darlin’. He has to want to live first.”
Then he left, leaving me without a single doubt in my mind that it was a good thing Dr. Battle was on Murphy’s side. Because I had a feeling Murphy wouldn’t dare die after Dr. Battle had put that much work into him.
The next few minutes were spent with me trying to compose myself.
When I realized that Murphy had made it through surgery and died so many times that he shouldn’t be alive, and lived anyway…well, let’s just say that I had a feeling that he wouldn’t leave me again. He’d fight hard.
I walked down to the lobby and took the very first breath that I’d taken in a very long time. One that felt like it reached my soul.
Even the chaotic nature of the ER didn’t dim my happiness.
There were people milling about everywhere. Uniformed cops. Plainclothes. Hell, when I glanced outside, I could see reporters out there.
