It’s the main reason I couldn’t be with Cross—or anyone.
I lie there on the hospital bed thinking about Cross, thinking of what I can say to him to make everything okay. But there’s nothing, so on my last night in the ICU, I can’t bring myself to say a word.
Sometime in the wee hours, I hear Cross murmuring into the phone. He sounds unhappy. My nurse—the older woman with the nice blue eyes—comes in, and I think she shoos him out. He comes back a few minutes later and gets back on his cot and I can feel him moving close to me. I hold my breath then, wanting his touch as much as I know I shouldn’t, but all he does is rest his forehead on the bars of my bed and breathe.
I still can’t bring myself to move or speak.
Morning comes—I know this only because the lights come on—and everyone in my room is excited. I’m doing better. Requiring less oxygen through these plastic tubes in my nose. They’re moving me to a regular room.
I leave my eyes shut, pretending that I’m resting, but really I just want to know if Cross will stay or go. I’m out of danger now. Maybe he won’t feel obligated to stay.
It’s not lost on me at all, as they wheel my bed through halls and into elevators, that I’m in Cross’s position. The exact same position that I left him in, in El Paso. It’s also not lost on me that I don’t hear his voice or see his body through my half-shut lids.
A FULL DAY passes. I’m alone in my room. The nurses come and go, and it’s all that I can do to force myself to speak to them. I know my body is healing, but I feel dead inside.
I’m napping when my door creaks. I slit my eyes open, because it feels too early in the afternoon for another vitals check. I turn my head a little, and my breath lodges inside my battered lungs. Before I can start to breathe properly again, Cross is at my bedside. He’s leaning down and pressing his face into my hair.
“I missed you.” He kisses my forehead and pulls a chair beside my bed, and while I lie there with my eyes shut, with my heart pounding, he just talks…like this is normal. He tells me about his parents, first.
“I had to leave because my mom came into town. Sometime while I was down in Mexico, she decided to leave him. My dad.”
My eyes are still shut. Cross takes my hand and starts tracing my fingers, the way I did one time to his.
“She’s kind of pissed off. At everyone. She doesn’t want the house in Napa anymore, she said, so she gave me all the keys. Apparently my dad’s been gone a week already.” I hear him shift, and I can sense that he’s leaned forward, closer to my bed. The railing on my hospital bed is folded down now, and I imagine I can feel the heat of his body through my blankets.
“Last night, at the hotel, I called my dad. I told him you’ve been evaluated by a psychiatrist here and that you’ve told ‘her’ what happened to you. I told him that you’re not sure what you want to do yet, but at least he knows if he were to want to…” Cross pauses. Sighs. “If he were to come after you or some shit, at least he knows he’d be the first suspect. And Merri—” he squeezes my unhurt right hand— “I don’t think he’d ever do that. I just wanted you to feel safe.”
Silence fills the room, and that’s when the tears start flowing. I didn’t plan to cry, but my body doesn’t ask permission. Cross does what I sense he will and leans down to wrap his arm around me. When he does, I lean into his neck and cry, “I’m married to Jesus!”
It’s the only way I can tell him, I guess. Like jumping into cold water, I just have to do it.
I feel his body stiffen, and I cry a little harder as I wait for him to pull away. Instead he gets in bed with me, curling over sideways so he doesn’t crowd me. After a minute or two of my crying and his arm holding tightly to me, he whispers, “Meredith, Jesus is dead.”
And then I’m crying so much harder, because it doesn’t matter. That’s not the only reason I can’t be with Cross.
“Meredith… Meredith. Please don’t cry. Talk to me.” He’s whispering into my throat and playing with my hair, and I’m sobbing so hard a nurse peeks in.
“Is there a problem here? Sir,” she says, “you need to give the patient space.”
“I’m fine,” I sob out. “He’s fine.”
Cross murmurs something to her; I can’t hear, because I’m too lost in my sobbing, but I think she leaves, and then he’s saying, “Merri, please don’t cry. It’s over. I swear baby, everything’s going to be okay.” He turns my shoulders slightly, so I’m facing him a little more, and he puts both arms around my back, rubbing soothing circles with his right hand until I’m able to stop gasping. I keep my head against his chest, because I don’t want to see the look on his face.