Page 100 of These Rough Waters

I’m forced out of the way but I don’t go far. I watch as they gently remove her lifeless body from the car, placing her in a C collar and on a backboard. Rain lashes her still body, her skin pale and covered in blood. Part of me didn’t believe she was alive. How could she be?

They move her into the back of an ambulance, closing the doors and all I can do is watch as they take her away from me.

Night has since fallen, and the rain has stopped. The hospital around me was a ghost town save for a nurse that rushes through every few minutes. The sterile waiting room was so quiet I could hear the electricity buzzing through the walls, could hear the ticking of the clock down the hall.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

No one has answers for me, no one can tell me how she is.Whereshe is.

The cops asked me questions, but I had nothing for them.

Restless, I get to my feet and pace the room for what feels like the thousandth time.

Everett was out of surgery; I knew that much but they’d induced a coma and seeing my youngest brother like that made panic seize my heart. I don’t know what went down on that boat but from what the doctors could tell me, it was that his body had gone through one hell of a beating along with the bullet that had remained in his shoulder. There were tubes and wires coming out of him, beeping machines and drips that had been inserted into his veins.

But Maya. I wasn’t allowed in to see Maya.

“Mr. Avery?” A quiet female voice says from the corridor behind me.

“Yes?” I spin on the young nurse.

“You’re Miss Hargrove’s fiancé?”

“Yes,” I start toward her, “Where is she?”

Her eyes dart around, and she chews her lip nervously, “Look, visiting hours ended a while ago and since she’s in the ICU, she’s not technically allowed visitors right now.”

“So?”

“You’ve been here since she was brought in.” She fidgets.

“Please,” I beg, “Please let me see her. I need to see her.”

She nods, “Just be quiet, okay?”

“Yes!”

I follow the nurse down the long, white halls and hold my breath when she opens a door to a private room.

“She’s sleeping right now; she had surgery on a broken wrist to set the bone and stitches for her head. It looks like she suffered a couple of broken ribs as well, but I’ll be honest, Mr. Avery, she’s very lucky.”

Luck.

This wasn’t luck.

This was my girl fighting. This was her will to live a new life.

This was all her.

Not fucking luck.

This was my little doe.

I don’t answer as I step into the room, seeing my girl laid out on the hospital bed, wires and tubes just like my brother coming out of her and hooked onto the machines. Her chest was rising and falling steadily, her eyes closed. There was a mash of color on her face, bruises in various shades and scrapes and cuts, a white gauze on her brow to cover the stitches the nurse told me about.

The door clicks closed quietly behind me and for a long moment I stand at the bedside staring at her, staring at her breathing.

She was alive.

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