I stopped just short of them, unable to take another step. What if he’s telling them that Josh didn’t make it?
Elizabeth glanced in my direction and immediately walked over and took me in her arms. “He’s going to be okay, baby girl. Breathe. Just breathe, Heather. ”
Oh god. That was what Josh told me all the time when he knew I was upset or nervous.
I pulled back and looked at her. She took her thumbs and wiped the tears away from my face.
“He’s going to be okay? But I thought he was in critical…” I couldn’t finish.
When I started to sob, Ari rubbed her hand on my back, trying to soothe me.
“Come on, Dr. Michaels was Josh’s surgeon. He just came out to talk to us. ”
As we walked over to the surgeon, Jeff’s phone started to ring. All I heard him say was, “Hi, Gunner. ” Poor Ellie. She just had her baby, and she doesn’t need this added stress.
“Dr. Michaels, this is Heather Lambert, Josh’s girlfriend,” Elizabeth said as she gave me the sweetest smile.
After Dr. Michaels and I greeted one another, he began to tell us about Josh. “It looks like we were able to stop the internal bleeding from the blunt force trauma to his abdomen. His spleen was lacerated, probably by one of his two broken ribs. With a procedure called exploratory laparotomy, we were able to stop the bleeding by using a heat probe to seal the blood vessels. He lost a lot of blood, so we also had to give him a transfusion. His brain scans show that he suffered a slight trauma to the head, resulting in minor swelling. We’re treating that with IV steroids and mannitol, and we’ll observe him. We won’t really know any more until he wakes up. He is stable now, and he’s breathing very well on his own. His blood pressure is good, and all his vitals are normal. ”
Greg cleared his throat. “What about his head trauma? Do we know if he had any significant injury to his brain?”
“We’ll have to wait until he wakes up to see how significant it was. All the brain scans appear to be normal, and the swelling is steadily going down, so I didn’t see the need to induce a coma. ”
Looking over at me, Dr. Michaels gave me a weak but genuine smile. I smiled back the best I could, but my heart was racing.
He’s going to be okay.
“We’re going to keep him in the ICU overnight, and then we’ll move him to another room tomorrow. Although he’s not awake, y’all are more than welcome to go in. We just ask for only two people to visit at a time. ”
“Of course, of course,” Elizabeth said.
My heart started racing even more. Oh god.
“We’ll be right back. ” Greg leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
I watched as Josh’s parents followed the doctor through the double doors. Jeff must have sensed what was about to happen because he rushed to my side and grabbed on to me when my knees gave out. With Ari on one side of me and Jeff on the other, we walked over to the small sofa.
After Ari and I sat down, I just let go. I had never cried so hard in my life. Even after my parents passed, I’d tried not to cry. This time though, I couldn’t hold it in. Thinking back to the last forty-eight hours, every emotion I’d felt came crashing down on me,the beautiful moment in the rain when Josh had made love to me, my anger over him and Lynda and the fight we’d had before I left, the excitement about Alex, Josh’s car accident, and how scared to death I was when I’d thought I lost him.
As Ari gently held me in her arms, I let it all slip away.
He’s okay.
We’ll be okay.
Twenty-Four Hours Before the Accident
Chapter Two
I looked down at my cell phone in my hand. Fuck, why is Lynda calling me again?
Heather was staring at two dresses on my bed, trying to decide which one to wear to my mother’s office Christmas party tonight.
“I’ll be right back, babe,” I said as I turned and walked out into the hall.
“Lynda, what do you need?” I asked in a hushed voice as I quickly made my way down the stairs.
I headed through the kitchen and out onto the back patio. The last thing I wanted was for Heather to hear me talking to Lynda.