“Okay, D. Grab your bag and we’ll head on upstairs.”
“Right behind ya,” he replies as he cuts the engine and opens his door.
We reach the landing outside Elle’s apartment, and sure enough there is the yellow police tape wrapped around her front door.
“I guess this is the place,” Devon says, deadpan.
I scoff. “Yeah. Home, not so sweet, home.”
I turn the handle, but it’s locked. Pulling out Brax’s key, I unlock the door, apprehensively walking inside. Devon moves slowly behind me, spending the time to take in the scene in front of him. The living room looks untouched; nothing out of the ordinary. I walk into the kitchen, turning to see the tell-tale black smudges on the door frames and around Elle’s bedroom door from where the police dusted for prints. I turn my head and see the kitchen wall where I knocked the shooter out. There is a small dent in the drywall. I chuckle to myself. Bet the f**ker has a killer headache this morning.
“Was that your doing?” Devon asks.
I look over to him and smirk. “Yeah. Clocked him in the head and he crumbled like a little bitch. Pity he didn’t stay down.”
He puts his hand on my shoulder, gripping it firmly. “Next time, Shay, he won’t get up.”
I can’t take my eyes off her. Her hand feels warm, and I can see her chest rising and falling in time with the ventilator, but it still doesn’t seem real. I think I need to see her open those deep green eyes and smile at me with her grin that can light up a room. I want to be able to kiss those soft pink lips of hers and hold her close to me.
It’s been seven days since I’ve been able to touch her; to make love to her. My body has ached for her every day that I’ve been gone. My heart shattered into pieces the moment I walked out that door.
I remember the conversation we had just moments before she was shot. She said she didn’t care about any of it. Told me that nobody could hurt her except me, and that’s exactly what happened. She wouldn’t have been shot if I’d been there, protecting her. There was only so much Shay could do, and I know I can’t blame him for this happening.
But despite being heartbroken, she still loves me. She told me she couldn’t be without me. “I’m broken,” she said before I asked her to meet me in New Orleans. If only I’d called her sooner, or told Shay to bring her to me. I’ll never forgive myself. God, I hope she still wants me after this. I don’t know what I’ll do if she has changed her mind about us.
For all she knows, she got shot because of me. I need her to wake up. I’ll even pray if I have to. She has to be okay.
I look over and see a bag with Elle’s name on it on top of the cabinet beside the bed. I stand up and walk around, opening the bag to have a look. I see Elle’s blood splattered pajamas and her diamond infinity necklace lying on top. I reach inside the bag and pull it out, laying it over my hand as my finger traces the curves of the design. I’m still wearing my ring she gave me. It has not come off my finger even once since she gave it to me. In a way, it made me feel better when I was away, knowing I had a piece of her with me. Undoing the clasp and reaching over the bed, I place the necklace gently around her small frail neck, kissing her forehead before standing up again.
I sit down in the chair beside her again, remembering the last words she had said to me before that echoing blast rocked both our worlds. “I love you always,” she said.
“I love you too, sweetheart,” I murmur as I fall asleep next to her; my head on the bed, and my hand cradling hers.
I’ve been at Elle’s bedside for two days now. Forty-eight hours of holding her hand, talking to her, remembering the happy times over our past ten months together. I’ve been thinking of all the little things we would do. The sneaky gropes, the soft kisses Elle would give me all over my face when she woke me up.
I love how she has always shown me her cheeky side, even from the beginning. Of course, her cheeky side ended up being a hell of a lot more sultry towards the end, but I was so far gone, anything she gave me was a blessing.
I can’t wipe the smile off my face when I remember Shay’s birthday party and how much we teased each other until we couldn’t take it anymore. I had to touch her, to hear her cry out my name as I brought her to climax, to have her body grip mine as I moved inside her. That was one of these most memorable nights of my life.
I need her to survive this, so we can have more nights like that.
Three days.
Three of the longest days in my f**king life.
Three days of the whirring ventilator, the stream of nurses and doctors coming in and out, the constant poking and prodding, the tests, the sound of the blood pressure machine tightening and loosening, even the ticking of the clock on the wall. It’s all starting to get to me.
She needs to wake up.
She must wake up.
4
Four days have been and gone, and Elle is still in a medically induced coma. The doctors are happy with her progress and want to try taking her off the ventilator and removing the tube from her throat when she wakes up.
One of the nurses, Beverly, seems to have taken a shining to us. Being in the ICU, visiting hours are usually limited to enable patients to get as much rest as possible so that they can recover. Somehow, Beverly has managed to let me stay in Elle’s room overnight. That woman deserves a gold medal!
It’s Wednesday morning almost a week since Elle was shot and a week since my middle of the night dash across half the country to get back to her. I’ve barely left her side since I’ve been back, apart from the rare food and bathroom break, or quick showers in the nurse’s lounge before rushing back to her bedside.
We’re waiting for the doctors to do their rounds before they try to get her breathing on her own again. I’m a nervous wreck, more so today than the rest of the week. I suppose it’s because so much could go wrong. I sent Shay a text earlier, asking him to be close to the hospital this morning. I know I’ll need him if shit goes bad. I’m a mess as I wait for the moment she’s awake again. I need to see her open those beautiful green eyes to know she’ll be okay.
An hour later, Shay pops his head in to let me know he’s arrived just as the doctors and Beverly enter the room for their rounds.
“Let me know how it goes,” he says before leaving.
“Brax, this is Dr. Robinson. He’s the cardiothoracic surgeon who performed Elle’s surgery. And this is Dr. Jarvis. He’s the pulmonologist who will listen to Elle’s lungs once we’ve done everything. He just needs to have a final check to make sure Elise is ready to breathe on her own,” Beverly explains to me.