Page 76 of Come Back to Me

Just getting those few words out exhausts me, so I close my eyes and wait as we speed the rest of the way to the ER.

I don’t open my eyes again until I’m rushed through the ambulance bay doors and into the Trauma Room. When I get in there, I’m glad to see Janie is one of my nurses, but she audibly gasps when she sees it’s me.

I’m quickly examined by the ER doctor, and he tells Janie to page anesthesia to intubate my airway, saying there’s too much swelling for him to do it safely.

She picks up the phone in the room and tells the operator to page anesthesia.

The hospital-wide announcement pierces the air with, “Anesthesia stat, emergency room. Anesthesia stat, emergency room. Anesthesia stat, emergency room.”

I know it’s bad when they triple page like that, but if I didn’t know it by that, I know it for sure when Janie quietly tells the ER medic in the room, “Go get Annie. Now.”

Less than three minutes later, the anesthesiologist is in the room and he’s quickly preparing medications so he can put a tube down my throat to prevent the swelling from closing off my airway. I’m wheezing badly now and it’s getting harder to breathe, so the ER nurse has me on a continuous breathing treatment to help while we wait for the tube.

Seconds later, my brother Ben rushes into the room, and no one tries to stop him.Probably another bad sign. He grabs my hand and holds it. I look at him, my best friend for my entire life, and wheeze out, “Love you… Ben. Give… journal… Annie.”

He nods and tells me he loves me, then steps back to give them room to work.

Just as the anesthesiologist injects the medication to put me out, she’s there. Like a vision in the doorway… Annie.

I don’t honestly know if she’s truly there, or if it’s the drugs.

Or maybe I’m dying, because a second or two later everything fades away.

ANNIE

I’m on my way back down to the ER with one of the nurses after I helped her transport the elderly burn patient up to the burn unit. After hearing the triple page hailing anesthesia to the ER a few minutes ago, we started jogging back down there as fast as we can anyway with the unruly cot to manage.

As we come around the corner to the main part of the ER, Josh, our new medic, is coming out of the pediatric room. When he sees me, he heads in my direction.

“Annie, Janie sent me to tell you to get to the TraumaRoom. She said now,” Josh says. He’s new since Jack and I ended, so he doesn’t know this makes my stomach drop.

I let go of the cot and run down the hall. As I enter the doorway of the trauma room, I’m momentarily stilled. It’s not the smell of smoke in the room, or the wheezing sound that stuns me. It’s that, lying on the cot, looking right at me, is the man I love.

He holds my eyes for several seconds, and just as I will my muscles to move toward him, his eyes close and his jaw goes slack.

Everything that happens after that is a blur. I know the anesthesiologist gets the breathing tube in. The respiratory therapist connects him to a machine to breathe for him and, at some point, Ben pulls me over to where he stands and tries to comfort me as I stare silently at Jack.

Eventually, someone brings me a chair and some water.

Sitting in the ER Trauma Room, I listen to the beeping of the heart monitor and the whooshing of the machine breathing for the man I’ve been too afraid to give another chance.

And now…? Now I’m afraid that chance is gone.

CHAPTER 35

ANNIE

Once Jack has been transferred to the Burn ICU, I stay in the waiting area as long as I feel like I can—needing to be near where he is.

I want to stay longer, but his parents and siblings are here. I decide to head out since they’ve all arrived, not sure how they’ll feel about my presence since Jack and I broke up. However, Rose catches me as I’m waiting for the elevator.

“Honey, where are you going?” she asks, without a hint of anger or resentment in her voice.

“Oh, I just figured it should just be Jack’s family with him. I don’t want to intrude on your time,” I say. My cheeks heat with embarrassment.

“Oh, Annie,” she says softly, a sad smile on her face. “My boy loves you. That doesn’t just go away because you two aren’t currently together. He would want you here.Wewant you here.”

She hugs me, and we’re both crying by the time Shayna finds us and drags us back to the waiting room. His familyand I take turns sitting at Jack’s bedside for the next several hours.

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