“Dani! Dani!”
I’m jolted awake for the second time tonight. I didn’t even realize that I had closed my eyes when I open them and see my parents rushing toward me and Zach in the waiting room. My mother throws her arms around me, and I collapse into them.
“Natalie and Brian are at the desk trying to get information. We should head that way, and hopefully they have something on what’s going on.”
In between my tears, I respond, “They wouldn’t tell us anything, not where he is, not how he’s doing—nothing.”
Mom tries to calm me down by stroking the back of my head. “Shh, it’ll be okay, sweetheart. Just have faith,” Mom reassures me in that soothing tone. I shake my head, and she gives me a weak smile. My dad places his hand on my mom’s shoulder, and I watch her lip quiver slightly before she straightens up. It’s as if she needed my father’s reassurance and strength to get her through this. That is what Em is to me—my strength.
We walk the few feet over to join Natalie, Brian, and Haylee, who are standing at the desk talking to the nurse who wouldn’t give us any information earlier. Haylee wraps her arms around me and squeezes for dear life.
“My brother is going to be okay. He’s going to be okay.”
I don’t know if Haylee keeps repeating that for me or herself. I’m not sure how she is in one piece at the moment; if the roles were reversed and this was Zach I had no information on, I would be crawling over the counter demanding information. In fact, that sounds like a pretty good idea. I look over at the desk, and as I go to make a scene, the nurse says, “Ah. Emmett Hanks, here we are.”
The nurse stands and walks around the front desk to escort us through a set of wooden doors and into a small private room. She lets us know the doctor will be in in just a moment. I am sick of waiting. My dad suggests I sit down because my pacing back and forth might wear a hole into the carpet. I don’t really care. It seems like we’ve been here for hours. Looking around, I see the walls in this room are white and there is no decoration. Why do I feel like we’re about to be sentenced, potentially for a lifetime of pain?
“Why can’t we just go see him,” Haylee shouts.
Her father places his hand over hers in an attempt to calm her down, but it doesn’t do much. They’ve been in the car for two hours or, well, under, thanks to my dad’s lack of respect for the speed limit. We know nothing—why can’t they just tell us what room he’s in so I can run and throw my arms around him?
I continue to pace, and I quickly feel a pull on my hand and instantly drop into the chair. I look up to see my brother holding my hand with a sad smile on his face. I guess my pacing was making him anxious. Zach and I stare at each other in an attempt to draw strength to get through whatever is about to happen. I can tell he is as anxious as I am as to why it’s taking them so long to talk to us. I won’t cry, I won’t cry.
I break our staring contest to pull my legs up to my chest. I’m wearing the hoodie that I had taken from the back of Em’s desk chair while racing out of the apartment to get here…only just to wait and wait and wait some more. I place my head on my knees and take a deep breath of his scent. He’s worn the same cologne since he was younger, a scent that makes me feel safe and at home. It’s a comforting scent that I can’t wait to inhale while actually lying with him, trapped in his arms.
From the corner of my eye, I see a figure enter in a white doctor’s coat. Oh look, something else white in this room. Jesus, they need some color here; it’s so depressing. I quickly rise to my feet, and there’s some feeling deep down that instinctually tells me to take my brother’s hand and not let go. I can’t figure out what that feeling is, but at this moment in time, I refuse to not listen to it. Haylee walks over and takes my other hand. I guess she had the same f
eeling.
Surrounded by my best friend and my brother, I’m ready for them to tell me we can go see him now, that it was all a misunderstanding and that Em is just fine, like he was in my dream. I’m ready for him to heal so we can begin planning the changes to the apartment for once I move in there in the fall.
“Mr. and Mrs. Hanks,” the doctor says. “I’m Dr. Foster. I was the doctor that was on call when your son, Emmett, was brought in. As the nurse had informed you, Emmett was in an automobile accident earlier this evening…”
All of a sudden all of the air is ripped from my lungs and I am gasping for air. My vision blurs and I want to wake up from this nightmare.
“…We did everything we could…”
No, no, no, no, this isn’t happening. They clearly didn’t do all they could or they would still be working on him. My ears are filled with devastating wails. I begin to shake, and my brother’s arms are around me, keeping me upright as I rock back and forth.
“No!” I hear Ms. Natalie scream through her tears as Mr. Brian tries to console her. My parents currently have Haylee in an embrace while her body shakes uncontrollably. This can’t be real—this can’t be happening. I turn and grip Zach’s shirt and place my head into his chest. I hit his chest with my fists, not in anger at him but anger at the world. He allows me to release my feelings on him. I can feel liquid running down my forehead and realize they are not my tears but the tears of my brother, who just lost his best friend.
I start to whisper to no one in particular, “No! He’s not gone—we have plans, he told me we did. He said, ‘I’ve got big plans for us, Cupcake.’ We’re supposed to be celebrating my early acceptance right now.”
He is supposed to be holding me in bed and finding ways to celebrate me getting into the same college. The doctor continues to talk, although I’m unsure if anyone is actually listening to him. I hear, “… injuries too extensive … say goodbye … I’m sorry.” The tears I had fought back earlier start to fall as if a dam just broke. How can he be gone? We spoke only a few hours ago.
Haylee has since gone to the comfort of her parents’ arms, and my dad has pulled Zach into a hug while my mom joins me sitting on the floor. She strokes my hair as I rock back and forth. “I am so sorry, Danielle,” she keeps saying over and over.
Zach’s sobs overtake my mother’s soothing words, not that her soothing tone will make me feel any better. He has always been the rock between us, so to watch him fall apart and crumble to pieces breaks my heart even more. I’m so thankful for my dad holding him right now because when one holds everyone together all the time as the rock, it makes you wonder who’s there to hold them together?
I’m not sure how much time passes from the time the doctor left the room till now. Time stopped for me the instant I heard “He’s gone.” How can he be gone? My mother stands and brings me to my feet although I need to lean fully on her. If she releases me, I may just fall back to the ground. I can’t make eye contact with anyone, but in my searching for something else to look at, I sadly lock eyes with Ms. Natalie and she instantly begins to sob louder. I pull from my mother’s arms and fall to the ground in front of where Ms. Natalie is sitting and sob uncontrollably in her lap.
“Oh Dani, I’m sorry. I can’t believe this. It’s a nightmare I’m ready to wake up from. My baby boy can’t be gone.”
All I can do is shake my head. There are no words to speak. If I were to open my mouth right now, I might just scream. I can feel the pain building in my chest ready to burst. My heart has been torn from my chest and smashed into a million pieces. Reality hits me in the face with the words the doctor said I had tuned out. They keep replaying on repeat in my mind: “There was not much we could do by the time he arrived here, but we did everything we could.”
He was suffering as I was sleeping in his bed…our bed. We were just a few short months from me graduating and moving to Philly to the apartment where we would share that bed full-time, and it was all taken away in a blink of an eye.
Mr. Brian tries to compose himself. “Dr. Foster said we are able to go back two at a time to…to…” But he doesn’t need to continue for us all to know what he was going to say. There is a deadly silence throughout the room where no one wants to admit what is about to happen nor anyone wanting to volunteer to go first. Mr. Brian stands up and offers his hand to his wife. I rise to my feet as well when I feel my mother’s arms on my shoulders.