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"It's nothing to me, but it's everything to her," he said and pulled me into his arms.
“I love you,” I said tearfully, and we kissed.
“I love you,” he replied, his voice warm.
He was such a gem.
My eyes were blurred as we left the cat and caught a taxi to the King Shaka International Airport north of Durban along the coast of South Africa.
"I hate leaving you," I said, my arms around his neck.
We kissed and then I went through security. When I turned back, he was just one person in a sea of people, a bit taller than most, a sad expression on his handsome and very tanned face, a considerable amount of scruff on his jaw.
I blew him a kiss and watched while he pretended to catch it, turning his head to one side like he'd been struck by it. He smiled when he turned back.
I loved him...
I had the best seat I'd ever had on a plane and while I felt anxious about Candace, it was amazing being in first class. I made a video of the seat and the plane, which I would upload once I got on land and send to Luke and Candace. Candace had never flown first class either, so I knew that once she recovered, she would really enjoy living vicariously through me. I would show it to her once she was well-enough to see it.
By the time I arrived in Atlanta, Jan send me an update on Candace's status. She'd successfully come out of surgery to fix her leg and reduce the swelling on her brain. The neurosurgeon who took care of her was cautiously optimistic that she'd be fine, but the first twenty-four hours after surgery were always critical in a person with a brain injury, just in case there was swelling that couldn't be controlled or any residual bleeding on the brain.
I hoped she was okay while I was in flight, and I didn't arrive in Manhattan to a worse situation than when I left Durban. While I had Wi-Fi on the plane, I worried that Jan and Mara wouldn't keep me up to date on Candace's progress. I passed the flight alternately sleeping and worrying about her and the rest of the time missing Luke terribly. We'd been together for six months on the boat and I had grown so used to his being there right beside me. We were never more than twenty feet away from each other. I liked it that way. It told me that we'd made the right decision to get married and damn caution. Sure, we had both been burned before, but that was then.
This was now.
Now, I missed him and only my fear for Candace's life could take me away from his arms.
I arrived in Manhattan and after I landed, I called Jan once I was in the terminal waiting for my bag. She said Candace had a good night and the neurosurgeon thought she was out of the proverbial woods when it came to her injuries. Now, she had to get better and regain the use of her leg, once the cast came off and she did physical therapy. She wouldn't be running or hiking any time soon, but she was alive.
The cab pulled up to the hospital and I paid the driver and went inside, dragging my suitcase behind me. I went to the neuro ward where she was being kept and found my way to the nursing station, wanting to stop there and get an update from the nurses.
They repeated what Jan told me. I wanted to make sure she wasn't being overly optimistic about Candace's recovery, but she wasn't. That made me feel better. I exhaled in relief and dragged my bag to her room, a single room overlooking a small interior green space.
"Here I am," I said softly, and stood in the doorway to her room. She was asleep and Jan was sitting on a chair beside her bed, a tablet in hand.
"Alexa," Jan whispered and put down her tablet, standing up to come to me, her arms open. "I'm so glad you're here."
We hugged long and hard, for it had been a while since I saw her.
"I'm so sorry to pull you away from South Africa like this," she said. "Her brother couldn't get leave so it was you or no one since I'm in class during the day and then work most evenings. I knew you would want to come and be with her."
I smiled and I put my suitcase inside the room and went to Candace's bedside. The head of her bed was raised, and she had all kinds of monitors, tubes, and wires snaking onto and into her body, bandages on her head where I assumed she'd had surgery to relieve pressure on her skull. Her broken
leg was in a cast and had been raised using some kind of pulley attached to the ceiling. She looked frail in the bed, the blue hospital gown loose around her neck so the wires could go beneath them for the EKG.
"Oh, Candy," I whispered, not wanting to wake her up. I couldn't help it -- my eyes welled up with tears, my anxiety about her coming to a peak. I wanted to hug her, I wanted to squeeze her hand, but I didn't want to wake her up, so I just stared at her face for a while, taking everything in. Her eyes were hazel, but they were closed, and a bandage covered her head. There were abrasions on her cheek and forehead, probably where she scraped herself while falling off the platform and then off to the rails below, breaking her leg.
I turned to Jan and she waved me out of the room.
"Let's go get something to eat," she said and grabbed my hand. "Now that you're here, I can finally relax."
I nodded. Hopefully, by the time we were finished with the meal, Candace would wake up and I could talk to her. Until then, Jan and I could catch up on things.
I took one last look at her and followed Jan down the hall to the elevators and what I assumed was the way to the cafeteria. Hopefully, Candace would recover over the next few days from her very close call with death.
I was more than happy to be able to be there with her during her recovery.
Chapter Two
