Chapter 34
Stella:
After what feels like forever, we finally pull into the parking lot of the of the hospital. James and I jump out of the truck and race inside, I am beyond anxious to see Scarlet. The nurse at the front desk looks up from her paperwork almost surprised by our entrance. "How can I help y'all?" She smiles at us and waits patiently for one of us to answer her question.
"Yes, I am Stella, and this is James we are here to see Scarlet, she is in the ICU." My words come out in a rush only taking me one breath. James squeezes my hand gently in reassurance and reminding me to take a breath to calm myself. I take the deepest breath I can manage and picture the air filling my lungs and focus for a second on calming my heart rate. Before I open my eyes, I take another second to remind myself that Scarlet is awake now and that this is a good thing, she is making progress finally. When I open my eyes again, I feel grounded which is an important thing because I don't want to bring stressful energy around Scar because that could cause her to have more issues again. The nurse holds out the visitor passes to us, and I take them with a smile on my knowing that I will finally be able to see my bestest friend for the first time in so long. "Thank you so very much!"
We quickly find the signs that direct us to the ICU which happens to be upstairs. I feel beyond excited and scared all at the same time. I tried to mentally prepare myself for the way she might look, whether she is unrecognizable or if she is just bruised. Cam and Jace didn't tell me what she physically looks like, I am finding that the more I think about it the more my knees shake. James must have noticed because he wraps his hands around my waist and whispers in my ear, "Baby you got this. I am here with you. Be strong." And just like that I feel better and more confident, I am so lucky I have no idea what I would have done in this situation without him.
"Hi there y'all must be James and Stella. The nurse downstairs called and said that you would be on your way up. Gimme just a second let me go grab Jace." She scurries off into a room down a hallway and out of sight. I look at James once again feeling weak in my knees, he gives me a gentle smile and nods his head at me once. When the nurse returns Jace is behind her looking as though he has become a caveman, usually he has his face cleaned up with nothing more than his chinstrap although today he has way more than that, he actually has a small beard. Jace approaches us and gives me a tight hug and shakes James' hand.
"Thank you so much for coming it really means a lot to me. I am sure that it will mean so much more to Scar. She has been resting a lot which her doctor says is completely normal considering that she has just woken from a coma. I manage to get her a replacement phone this morning and got all of the stuff from her old phone onto the new one. Anyways fallow me I will show you to her room." We all turn together, and we fallow him down the same hallway that the nurse had disappeared down when she went to grab Jace.
When we enter her room, I can see that she has many bruises covering most of her face and any other exposed skin that I can see. I can see that she seems to mostly be ok, no broken bones that I can see, the only thing that I can see is that she has some form of a brace on her right leg. I recall that Jace had said that she had torn some muscles in her right leg in the accident but other than that she didn't have any other injuries. Before I get to ask Jace any questions I notice that the monitor that seems to be monitoring her heartbeat is increasing by a lot which makes me panic, "Is she in pain? Please don't tell me that she is suffering." Jace nods his head no telling me that she is not in pain, and it appears that this is something that is normal for her at this time. I watch as he approaches the side of her bed and gently runs his fingers through her hair in a soothing fashion.
Jace speaks in such a gentle voice I can hardly make out what he is saying to her, and I can see that he truly and deeply loves her in ways that I don't know that I will ever fully understand. "Baby girl its ok, breath my love. I am right here. I actually have a surprise for you. You have some very important guests here to see you." I can hear that her heart rate is slowing to a normal rhythm once again. I hear her speak weakly and it just about breaks my heart, she used to be the life of the room shy and all and now she is so quiet that I don't know if she will ever be fully ok again. "Wait who is here to see me? Who all knows what happened?" She sounds so panicked even though she can't speak very loudly. She sounds so sad in the moment of asking who else knows what happened that I almost feel guilty for surprising everyone.
Jace looks at me and nods his head signaling to me to step up to the other side of her bed and I quickly comply ready to speak to my best friend. "Hey Scar Scar. It's just little ole me. I've been so worried about you since I heard about your accident. Jace and Cam have kept me in the loop the entire process thus far and I decided that it was finally time to make an appearance." I give her a gentle hug the best I can around all of the wires and tubes hooking her to the machines. She smiles at me as if I am her most favorite person in the world and even though her face is completely covered in bruises, I can still tell exactly who she is.
"Ella! I am so happy to see you! I had been wondering if you had been told what happened to me." She pauses for a moment looking at me, then all of a sudden, the smile on her lips is replaced with a panicked look, she turns as white as a ghost and looks as if she is going to be sick. "Ella is everything ok? Before my accident just before everything went black...I had a bad feeling...like you were in trouble and that you needed me... I went to text you but..." She pauses and I see tears running down her cheeks, "...my phone was dead...I don't know how I could forget to charge it...my phone died El..." She sobs and it sounds as though her heart is shattering. "I had gotten on Beast so that I could get home quickly to plug in my phone so I could text you...and then the next thing I know I wake up here with tubes down my throat...What happened?" She looks at my with tears still spilling from her eyes and sliding down her face. Even with her face bruised so badly she still looks as beautiful as she did before the accident.
"You were worried about me before your accident!? Ay Scar you don't need to worry about me! Wait..." in my mind I run through what she has just said to me and what I know about the timeline of her accident, and I run through what happened to me at the time of her accident and I feel as though I am going to puke. The blood in my veins run cold as ice, I know that she is looking at me waiting for my answer, but I know that I can't make eye contact with her at this exact moment I need to get my emotions in check first.
I contemplate whether I should tell her the truth or if I should just lie to her about the whole situation considering that she has enough to worry about, such as getting better so that we can take her home finally. I chew my lip as I deliberate what I should tell her, I can't even lie to her...she always knows when I am lying...hell I can't even just tell her part of the truth she knows when I am keeping something from her too. So, I guess the only thing that I can do at this point is just tell her the full truth and hope that it doesn't cause her to panic or stress and cause her condition to deteriorate further.
"Someone broke into our apartment...I had gotten off of work and I was walking up the stairs when I seen a figure all dressed in black getting into the apartment...I ran as fast as I could down the stairs and threw myself into Mr. Lemon and locked all of the doors and cried in fear not fully understanding exactly what I just witnessed. James found me in my car having a panic attack and I told him what had happened, he went upstairs and checked the apartment, but nothing was missing, and the intruder was nowhere to be seen." Scarlet looks horrified as she lets me words fully sink in; I half expect her to speak but instead Jace is the one to speak.
"Stella what in the actual fuck! Why didn't you tell me this? I would have come back for you and brought you here." I have never seen Jace angry and right now he is more than angry he is absolutely livid. He looks as though he is about to flip out. I look down at my hands because I am too afraid to look him in the face at this point in time knowing how angry he is.
"Jace...I am so sorry I didn't say anything.... I just..." I take a deep breath afraid that my next words may make him even more angry than he already is. "I just figured that you had enough on your plate then to have to worry about something or someone other than Scar..." I finally drop my hands and force myself to look at his face, he has the scariest glare on his face I have ever seen. 'Holy shit if looks could kill...'
"Stella that is the stupidest thing that I have ever heard in my life. You are like a sister to me for one, for two you are so important to Scarlet, and I would never let anything happen to you or her. If anything happened to you it would be absolutely devastating for her and that could very well be the end of her..." His phone is ringing in his pocket, I watch as he fishes his phone from his pocket and then I see a look of worry cross his face. "I'll be back we will finish this conversation later. I have to take this." He turns and leaves Scarlet's room and I feel as though I am in huge trouble.