Page 116 of All I Have Left

“How old were you?”

“I was sixteen when I met him.”

“So you got pregnant right away then because weren’t you seventeen when we were born?”

She nods. “Yep. Two months later, I found I was pregnant. We were young and so in love,” she whispers, smiling. “I have so many bad memories of him, but I have good ones too. He loved me, he did, but he didn’t know how to express that love in a way that was healthy. After I had you guys, he got jealous because I had two babies to take care of and suddenly he was no longer the center of my attention.”

A flash of color in the sky catches my eyes. “And then he started hitting you?”

“I was holding you in my arms, breastfeeding and Ethan was crying. Given I was a child myself, with no help from my parents, I was crying, I was frustrated, and he asked if I needed him to take Ethan.” Her eyes gloss over, staring at her wine, remembering a time she probably wants to forget. “I snapped and said something along the lines of what do you think? I’m not sure what I said, but it set him off and the next thing I remember is dropping you on the ground and the sting of my face. He’d punched me so hard the force ruptured my ear drum.”

I gasp. “Oh my God. Did he say anything after that?”

“I don’t remember, but I apologized because I distinctly recall feeling guilty that I’d snapped at him.”

“You shouldn’t have felt guilty,” I tell her, not realizing I’m crying but then again, have I ever stopped in the last five days?

“And neither should you.” Taking my hand in hers, she holds it tightly. “None of this is your fault.”

I swallow over that familiar lump. “But it is. If I would have said something earlier, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Mom sighs. “Evie, men like your dad and Shane, they don’t quit just because you break up with them. To them, that’s betrayal. It didn’t matter how you went about it, he was always going to react, whether it was hurting you to the point where you couldn’t leave, or Grayson. And if Grayson hadn’t been here, he would have gone for me or Ethan.”

Part of me is relieved hearing this from her because she’s right; he wouldn’t have stopped, and I knew that. I held on, thinking if I played nice, avoided him but didn’t ignore him, eventually he’d lose interest in me.

But he didn’t.

54

EVIE

Eight days after his second surgery, we’re offered another miracle. Grayson’s pressure in his head has come down and they’re able to ease off his sedation.

We have another moment, though brief, where he wakes up and holds my hand. He’s frustrated and angry that he can’t get up, and more so with the breathing tube. I talk to him and when I’m in the room, Leigha tells me he’s at least calmer, though I’m surprised by this because I’ve never seen him so agitated before.

“Is this normal?” I ask Leigha when he manages to kick a tray near the foot of the bed and send it crashing to the ground.

“Yes, very much so,” she tells me, watching him sleep now. “Not only are they trying to make sense of their surroundings but the tube is not comfortable at all. He wants to talk and he can’t. He wants out of the bed, but we can’t do that until he starts physical therapy and he can’t start therapy until the tube is out.”

“And he can’t get it out until he passes the breathing tests,” I deduce, feeling defeated for him. I watch the monitors and then his face. The bruising is fading, the deep black has turned purple and shades of yellow and green on the outer edges.

“His lung is what we’re worried about. It just needs a few more days.”

“Are all the patients like this after brain surgery?” I ask, and then regret it. Two days ago they had a patient die. He was sixteen and had been in a car accident. He made it through surgery but died three days later when his brain herniated onto his brain stem. The agonizing cries from his parents had me appreciating every single milestone we had with Grayson. Even if it meant him kicking over trays and refusing to partake in neuro exams.

“The younger men are the ones that always give us a run for our money,” Leigha notes, smiling at Grayson. “Hang in there, honey. This determined side is what’s going to make the difference in his recovery.”

I want to believe her. And I do, because if there’s anyone who can push through this kind of injury, it’s Grayson.

It’s three more days,three failed breathing tests, and an incredible amount of frustration from Grayson, before they extubated him. He’s incredibly irritable, flips the doctor off when they refuse to take it out and writes a note that says, “Fuck off,” to a nurse who tells him they’ll try again tomorrow.

That’s when I know he’s going to make it. I smile and I don’t think he appreciates my smile since he doesn’t get his breathing tube out, but his stubbornness is what’s getting him better. He’s a fighter, like they said.

He gets his tube out on Thursday the following week when they’re sure his lung has healed. Watching him get extubated is awful. It looks painful when they suction his lungs. He fights through it, his body restrained to keep from ripping it out himself. And I think in those moments, that might be what bothers him the most. Being constrained to the bed. Wyatt’swords come back to me and what he braved in Iraq. I have images of what I think happened, ideas of what prisoners of war endure. It’s probably nowhere close to the actual evil he was subjected to.

That same night, he has to be intubated again because his throat swells. They try having him inhale epinephrine and steroids, but it doesn’t work and the tube goes back in, much to his discontent. They end up having to sedate him just to do it.

Three more days of failed breathing tests and his inability to breathe on his own, he’s not happy. With anyone.

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