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Breathe, Baby Girl.
Slow and easy.
I'm right here with you.
Just breathe.
I’ve probably lost my mind, but I don’t care. I clutch whatever part of Mark I have left.
I obey his soothing tones inside my head, slowing my breathing despite my tears. I become aware of Monica squeezing my shoulders, murmuring words of consolation. She places a box of tissues beside me. “I’ll give you some privacy. Call me if you need me.” Then she slips out, leaving me alone to wrestle with my emotions.
Breathe, his voice insists inside my head.
I’m right here, Baby Girl. Breathe.
When I can finally speak, I move my chair closer.
“Mark?” I whisper, seeking his right hand beneath the smooth sheets. I uncover it, clinging to it, inspecting his battered fingers. “Mark, I’m here. You’re going to be fine.” My laugh is shaky. “You didn’t have to do this to get me to visit. I’d drop anything for you.” My voice trails off as I study his bruised, swollen face. I recognize the thin scar embedded in one puffy eyebrow. Its familiarity gives me hope that he’s still in there. That he’s listening.
That he won’t leave me.
I stand and lean close to his ear, dodging his numerous tubes and lines. “I’m here, Mark. You’re going to be okay. I won’t give up on you. Just please don’t quit on me, please. I need you too much, Big Guy.” I press a soft kiss to his purpled cheek, then sit in the chair again, leaning against his bed. I grip his large hand and whisper the same words over and over, hoping he’ll hear me and listen. “Please don’t leave me, Mark. Please. I need you.”
I wake much later, still grasping his hand, my head on the bed beside him. Someone’s tucked a blanket around my shoulders. A folded piece of paper sits beside the tissue box. I open it to find a short note written in neat script.
It’s always darkest just before the dawn. Be strong.
Monica
CHAPTER FOUR
CHARLIE
I’m exhausted by the time I return to my hotel room. It’s just after midnight, but it feels like I’ve been awake for days. I drop my keys on the desk beside the paper sack containing a sandwich and toe off my sneakers. Then I flop on the bed with my phone, calling Tucker and Lila for a video chat. I’m under orders to call them as soon as I return to the hotel.
“Hey, Lila,” I say when her worried eyes come into view. “Sorry it’s so late.”
“Hang on, Tucker’s coming,” she says, glancing over her shoulder.
Sure enough, within a few seconds, Tucker’s dark blue eyes are peering at me from beside her. “You okay, Charlie?” he asks.
I swallow hard, my throat tight. “He’s bad, Tuck. Really bad.”
“Tell me everything the doctor said,” Lila says. Her voice is firm, but she’s twirling her curls around her fingers, the way she does when she’s nervous.
“He has a Coup-contrecoup head injury,” I say quietly. “Bleeding and swelling in the frontal and occipital lobes. He’s got Burr holes and drains. Even with them, his intracranial pressure is high, and he may need surgery. They can’t tell yet how much damage he’s sustained.”
“Time out,” Tucker says. “Contray-what?”
“It’s like shaken-baby syndrome,” I tell him. “It’s the same type of head injury.” It’s the one I was most worried about, because it’s insidiously dangerous, invisible to the naked eye.
I wait while Lila explains about a fragile brain smashing into a rigid skull, trying desperately not to picture it as she speaks. I know Tucker understands when his expression freezes.
“So – so Mark has brain damage?”
“Head injuries take time,” Lila says, trying to reassure him. She’s shifted into clinical mode, the way I’d tried to earlier, but unlike me, she’s successful, probably because she’s seven hundred miles away and not staring at her best friend lying broken in a hospital bed. “We won’t know anything until the swelling’s gone down and he wakes up.”
“But he will wake up?” Tucker asks.
