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I let out a deep breath and make my way to my locker to get my stuff for my next class. After I close the locker, I turn to head to my next class but am stopped in my tracks when I see Aaron running toward me.
His leg is doing much better, and I know he’s been going to physical therapy, but I had no idea he was doing this well to be running through the halls the way he is.
“Aaron, look at you run!” I say with so much excitement.
His expression causes me to pause as he steadies himself. “You need to come to the gym.”
“Why?”
He starts to pull me toward the gym. “It’s your dad.”
Once I hear it’s about my dad, I don’t need him to pull me anymore. I run willingly, faster than him actually, pushing my way through people to get to where my dad is all day.
Aaron didn’t tell me what was going on, but he didn’t need to. The pure panic he expressed was enough to tell me it was serious.
“Dad,” I yell as I turn the corner into the boys’ locker room.
When I see him lying on the floor with Coach Pop doing chest compressions, I scream in fear as I drop to my knees by his side.
Tears flow down my face as I lean down to him. “Dad, I’m here. You’re going to be okay. Help is on the way.”
Paramedics race into the locker room, and Coach Pop grabs me and pulls me back so they can do their job.
I grasp on to his arms as he engulfs me in a hug. My face is soaked with tears flowing out of control.
I sit in absolute fear, watching these men rip my dad’s shirt open and shock him with the paddles to try to get his heart beating again.
“I got a pulse,” one says.
“Let’s get him in the ambulance,” the other one says.
They lift him up, and before I know it, everyone races out of the locker room and to the waiting ambulance.
“I need to go with them.” I pop up and follow them.
Coach Pop stops me. “I’ll drive. Let me get my keys.”
I completely forgot Aaron was here until he wraps his arm around me and guides me to the parking lot, not saying a word as we focus on getting to the hospital.
We drive to the hospital, but everything around me is a blur. I’m sitting in the front passenger seat, and I feel Aaron’s hand on my shoulder, but I can’t register about what’s going on. It’s almost like I’m outside of my body, watching from above the seconds tick by, but not actually living them.
Coach Pop screeches his tires as he enters the emergency area of the hospital. He and Aaron exit the car, but I’m glued to my seat, feeling like my entire body no longer works. Every muscle, every bone has turned completely useless, I’m surprised I’m still able to breathe.
Aaron opens my door. “Come on.” He leans in and grabs me, lifting me to my feet and keeping his arm around me as he walks us through the sliding glass doors to the emergency room.
I can’t think straight long enough to make sense of anything going on around me.
“We’re here for Coach Z. They just brought him in from the high school,” Coach Pop says to the nurse standing at the check-in table. “Please keep us posted as soon as you hear anything.”
He doesn’t need to say anything more about who my dad is. Her wide-eyed expression shows she knows exactly who he is, and she pushes back from her chair and rushes to the back room to hopefully get us any news she can get.
“Come, sit,” Aaron says as he motions for me to go to the waiting room.
I follow him blindly, feeling like understanding what a chair actually is and that I can sit on it is too much information for me to process right now.
I stare ahead of me, but don’t actually see anything. Aaron reaches over and grabs my hand, holding it tightly.
When I finally feel like I can blink, I turn toward him with so many questions, concerns, and fears that I don’t even know where to start.
