Page 106 of Get to You
“I don’t know her condition just yet,” she holds up her hand to stop me as my mouth opens to respond. “Sugar, they only have a little to go on, and from what was reported over the radios. You'll just have to let us work. I promise everyone will do their best to save your girl."
She takes my hand and leads me to a small waiting room outside a set of double doors. She sits me in a chair and pats my shoulder as I look up at her. The corner of her mouth is turned down in a frown. She makes a soft noise before turning and walking from the room. Moments later she returns with a bottle of water.
"Now you wait here, and I'll come back as often as I can to let you know how things are going. Okay?"
I nod my head, my throat too dry to speak. I don't want her to leave. She is my only life line to Sammy, but I need her to go. The tears I held back for so long hit me now. I drop my head into my hands, still hearing here soft footfalls down the hall.
I can’t remember the last time I actually prayed for something, but I begin praying for her. I pray for her heart to keep beating. I pray she will make it through.
Brian walks through the doors an hour or so later. My tears have dried, but I brush my fingers under my eye self-consciously.
We sit in silence. Every minute feels like an hour, every hour feels like a day.
Eventually the nurse, Linda, returns to the waiting room. Most of the news is good, but the details of her injuries will forever haunt me.
“She's had a transfusion, to help with blood loss,” Linda frowns deeply at us. “She’s severely dehydrated, so she’ll need constant IV fluids and a heavy round of antibiotics.” She sighs, continuing, “Her heart rate and blood pressure are back to a more normal range, and a cat scan shows that the internal bleeding in her abdomen stopped on its own.”
Linda reassures me several times that it’s quite common for small hemorrhages to heal themselves. It had been hours, possibly a day, since she sustained the injury.
I think how easily she could have died and the pain she must have endured. I want to scream but know I can’t. She must have been so scared.
I sit, stewing in my own rage. I want to visit the same torture upon him. I want to feel his bones snap under my hands. My hands shake as I try to regain my self-control. I can’t focus.
Brian’s hand is on my shoulder. I can barely feel it. My thoughts are spiraling.
Linda continues to update us on Samantha's condition, and it’s these updates that keep me here, waiting when all I want to do is find him and kill him.
“Her right hand and arm will require surgery to repair the damage.”
“When will they do the surgery?”
“We are waiting for her to gain consciousness. The biggest concern now is that she hasn't woken up yet.”
Linda leaves soon after, and Brain goes back to his motel room to get some rest, asking me three times to come with him, before accepting that I'm not leaving.
It's late when Linda peeks her head into the room, “You’re not sleeping?”
I shake my head. It’s not that I haven’t tried, but my brain just won't stop thinking about everything. Her shoulders slump and nose scrunches up, squinting her eyes. “Im really not supposed to do this…” she looks down the hall in both directions. “Come on.” Her hand motions me forward.
I’m out of the chair and at the door, following behind her in seconds. Taking mercy on me she delivers me to Sam's room with a warning that I only have a precious few minutes.
I push past the door and peer inside. The room is dim, with only a light coming from just above her bed. She looks small and frail lying there. I listen to her heart beat over the monitor. It’s the only sound in the room. Taking a few steps closer, I bite my lip. I’m tempted to try and wake her. Her left arm is cocooned in white bandages. The sight of her face covered in bruises threatens to shatter the tiny bit of composure I have left.
I brush my fingers over the shell of her ear, pushing back the few hairs that have fallen over her shoulder. “Oh Sammy,” I curl my arm up over her head, careful not to touch her and drop my forehead to the mattress beside her.
Too soon, I feel someone enter the room. A palm lands on my shoulder, and I know my time is up. Standing, I wipe away the evidence of my tears before turning around.
Linda ushers me back to the waiting room, a small crinkly pillow and a thin white blanket in her hands. She offers them to me and nods at a long bench.
I sleep restlessly. In my mind, I still hear the sound of her heart beat.
