When we were young | Chris Evans

Chapter 34

A loud vibration woke me up. I glanced at my phone on the bedside table. It was 3:54 in the morning, I didn't recognise the caller ID so I accepted the call.

"Miss Olivia Rose?" a man on the end of the line asked.

"Yeah that's me" I replied, my voice sounding hoarse.

"Your father Peter Rose has been taken into Boston Hospital after being in an accident. Your are his emergency contact is that correct?"

"Yes that's correct" I answered, my eyes welling up.

"Is it possible for you to come in? We have some news"

"Yes I'll be right there!" I cut him off before hanging up. Everything began started to feel slow and faint.

"Liv, who was on the phone?" Chris asked groggily as he watched me rush around the room gathering my things.

"Dad was rushed into hospital, he was in some kind of accident and they need me to come in" I blurted out, I was too focused of getting out and on a plane, I'm pretty sure I wasn't even making any sense.

"Calm down, explain what happened" He answered, rubbing his eyes sleepily and getting up from the bed.

"I can't calm down! My dad is in hospital and I don't even know how he is or whats wrong with him or when I can even get there!" I snapped, tears rolling down my face.

"Okay, its okay we will get you there" Chris reassured, grabbing my face and making me look at him.

"I can't lose him" I whispered.

"Your not going to. Come on lets get packed. I'll look at flights" He pecked me on the forehead and started picking up clothes and shoving them in a bag.

12 long hours later. We were sat in a waiting room. A waiting room waiting for someone. For anyone to tell us anything about what was happening. Each time the door opened and a doctor entered I would leap up in hope of some kind of news. But there was nothing, but waiting.

"Mr Rose?" a doctor called out from a clipboard.

"Yes" I replied, standing up and the doctor approached me cautiously.

"Do you want to sit down?" he asked.

"Do I need to?" I quipped back.

"I would suggest you do" he answered. I reluctantly sat back down next to Chris and he took my hand in his.

"Mr Rose was involved in a head on collision, he was unconscious when he arrived and we took him straight up to surgery, there was a lot of internal bleeding.."

I began to zone out, not wanting to hear the words coming out of his mouth. The idea of losing my dad, the man who had been my rock for my whole life. The man who learnt ballet to help my prance about when I was 5. The man who would fix everything that broke, whether it was my bike or my heart. He was the one who stayed up with me until 5am eating ice cream when I was sad. The idea that he could die became a crushing reality. A reality I wasn't quite ready to face. I'd been too young to even remember my mum but even that affected me, but I knew my dad, I'd known him my whole life, he was still the person who would fix my shower if I needed him to, he was the one who would drop anything and everything to come to my need.

"C-can I see him?" I croaked, a lump in the back of my throat making it difficult not to break down right here and now.

"He is still in surgery I'm afraid but I will let you know when he's out and in the ICU"

"Okay thank you" Chris answered, picking up on the fact I was too overwhelmed to respond. "He's going to be okay, baby" he whispered softly, squeezing my hand reassuringly. "You need to eat something, do you want to go down to the canteen?"

"I'm not hungry" I muttered back.

Footsteps came running down the hallway, I glanced up and saw an extremely distressed Jess and Seb looking around desperately. I stood up to go to her and she sighed with relief, engulfing me in a hug.

"I came as soon as I heard!" she burst out, I clung onto her sobbing and she started to cry with me.

"Hey thank you for coming" I let go of Jess and hugged Seb.

"Of course" he smiled. Jess hugged Chris quickly then took my hand guiding me back over to where we were sat.

"What's the latest?" she asked.

"He's still in surgery" Chris answered for me.

"I'll go find us some coffee" Seb stood up and made his way over to one of the hallways in this maze of a hospital.

Another hour passes and the four of us are sat in complete silence. The screams of joy and upset filled the void of silence. As time passed, one by one of the people would leave the waiting room. Whether it was good news or bad. I begun to play a game in my head, guessing the life stories of each individual, desperately trying to pass the time. The old lady in the corner was a nurse but since retiring she became a fulltime grandparent to her grandchildren, reading them stories tucking them into bed and she had many cats. The little boy a few seats away was awaiting a new sibling, he wanted to be an astronaut. Each time I would draw it to a finish with a happy ending, an ending I was desperately trying to manifest into existence. Praying that at any moment my dad would walk through the door harm-free, laughing at the worked up state I was getting myself into, he would say, "Liv I'm perfectly fine! Just a little bump and a scratch" the exact words he said when he tripped over, smacking his hand on the radiator and breaking it after rushing into my room because of the night terror I was having. I needed him to be okay so he could protect me from the night terror I was living in right now.

Just as my eyes began to gloss over for the hundredth time in the space of 13 hours the doctor walks in. "Miss Rose?"

"That's me!" I replied, jolting up.

"Could you come with me please?" he asked. The slither of hope that he was taking me to my dad was crushed as he led me into a quiet room. Colourful beanbags were dotted around, trying to make the room look less depressing. "There were complications in your dads surgery, he flatlined" my heart dropped, I flinched as if to brace myself for the news that was about to come. "We were able to resuscitate him long enough to fix the internal bleeding, but due to the amount of stress placed on his body, we had to put him into an induced coma and there is no way of telling if there is any brain damage until he wakes up"

~ fun fact, my dad actually did break a bone in his hand from tripping over my simba toy and hitting his hand on the radiator while I was having a night terror~