Dangerous Love//Shawn Mendes

Chapter 61

'Call 911' I said frantically, my voice coming out in a whisper through my tears.

'Just give him a second to wake up, I-I'm sure he's fine.' Will said, and I shook my head.

'Just fucking call 911' I screamed as I traced my fingers along his face, our noses almost touching. Springing into action, I rolled him onto his side then took his hand, squeezing it tightly to my chest.

'Shawn please.' I begged to his unconscious body as his arm hung limply in my hands.

'Please be okay, you have to be okay.' I whispered into his hand, feeling the faint pulse underneath my fingertips. Will swore under his breath then went outside to wait for the ambulance, and I could barely breathe as I waited for the sirens to approach.

The paramedics swarmed upstairs, immediately fitting an oxygen mask to Shawn's face and a brace around his neck, before transporting him down the stairs. One ambulance officer turned to me, asking me what had happened; what were the pills scattered across the bench, how had this happened, how hard did he fall? I could barely answer her questions through my tears, and I had no idea how I would explain this and who was at fault. I told her that the pills had spilled out of the bottle, the boys had been fighting and Shawn had fallen, but I didn't know much more than that.

I rode in the ambulance with Shawn, where he was linked up to a monitor. I watched his heart beat steadily on the screen, taking comfort in the fact that he was still breathing and the steady beeping of the machine as I sobbed. Suddenly the beeps grew louder and closer together, and the paramedics sprung into action.

'He's in V-fib, push 1 of epi' One yelled, and I looked around frantically to gauge what was happening. The lines of Shawn's heartrate monitor were jumping all over the place, and there was a medic giving CPR. I felt my heart fall to the floor as I watched helplessly, sobbing into my hands, unable to watch what happened.

The paramedics pulled out a defibrillator and pressed it to his chest, and the cabin fell to silence as we waited for his pulse to steady. They recharged the machine and shocked him again, and I sobbed silently as I waited. He couldn't die, I couldn't lose him, I couldn't do this without him, I couldn't live if he wasn't here, and the thought that he might never wake up made me sick to my stomach.

The paramedics breathed a collective sigh of relief as his pulse rate steadied, and one approached me and told me he was stable, whatever that meant. Soon we were ushered out of the ambulance and I was brought into a waiting room, where Will was already sitting. I knew this was serious, I knew this was critical, and that there was a big chance that this wouldn't be okay.

The hardest thing about these situations was that they were inconsolable, there was nothing anybody could say that would make me feel better or fix the situation. It wasn't okay, and it might truly never be okay again.

Will didn't say a word as I settled in the chair next to him and pulled my knees up to my chest, my breathing shallow and my head spinning. I couldn't bring myself to look at him, knowing that he had done this, he had hurt Shawn in that way.

Shortly after I arrived, a doctor entered the room and came towards us, and I felt a wave of nausea pass through me as I contemplated what she might be about to tell me.

'Hello, I'm Doctor Wilson' She introduced herself, before pulling a chair over so she could sit down facing us. I knew this couldn't mean good news.

'We've done some preliminary scans, and it appears Shawn has significant cerebral edema.' She said, and I waited, having no idea what this meant and being too afraid to ask for the answer. 'It appears that Shawn obtained quite a severe brain injury, which has caused his brain to swell, and he requires emergency surgery to relieve his intracranial pressure.' She spoke very slowly, allowing us to process this, but still it wasn't sinking in.

'So-so what does that mean, is-is he gonna be okay?' I forced myself to ask the question, I needed to know the answer, whatever it was.

'His condition is critical, but the doctors will do everything they can to decompress his brain. We'll know more after the surgery.' She said, and I felt my world crumble. This didn't feel real, he couldn't be dying, he had to live, there was just no way this was happening after everything we'd been through. I broke down into tears as it all dawned on me, but Will made no move to comfort me. I wanted somebody to tell me that this would be okay, to wrap their arms around me and hold me until I stopped feeling so alone, but I knew I was on my own, and that nobody could help me.

'Can I-can I see him?' I pleaded, hoping that it wasn't too late. What if this was goodbye? The nurse nodded and beckoned for me to follow her, and we walked down several long corridors before she stopped in a large ward in front of a pair of curtains.

'The doctors will be in in 5 minutes to take him to surgery.' She said, placing her hand on my arm sympathetically, before opening one of the sets of curtains.