Jaime POV
I was in that room again. But this time, I was lying on the floor.
"You've been so brave, Jaime," a voice above my head said. I looked up and Mom was sitting at my head, my head in her lap, and she was running her fingers through my hair like she did when I was little and got sick. Wait... hair? I reached my hand up and felt my head. My hair. I had my hair.
"Mom?" I said.
"Hi, sweetheart," she smiled down at me.
"Why am I here?" I asked, trying to sit up. I couldn't move much.
"Shh, shh," Mom said. "It's okay."
"I don't want to be here!" I exclaimed. "If I'm here, I'm dying. Or dead. I'm not ready!"
"Jaime, you still have a choice. You always have a choice. But sweetheart, you've been so brave. You've fought so hard. It's time to rest now," Mom said.
I couldn't imagine Mom wanting me to give up.
"You gave up. I don't want to. I promised Dad I'd fight like hell. I promised Bronx and Saint and Marvel. You kept me away from all of them!"
"Jaime, I did what I thought was best for you and me."
"No," I said, forcing myself into a sitting position. "You did was was best for you! You didn't ever stop to think how I might have felt about it!"
"Jaime, he wasn't ready to be a father. He was going out on tour. He was going to be gone for months. He would never have been around. We would have only held him back."
"You don't know that! He could have made it work. He wanted to make it work! You made that decision for everyone else! And you never told me anything about him! I have two brothers and a little sister! I could have known who he was all this time. But you took that from me! And then, when it got too hard for you you gave up!"
"Jaime, it hurt. I was in constant pain. You know what I was feeling. You've felt it yourself. I couldn't handle the pain anymore. I didn't have the energy to fight anymore. And we didn't have the money."
I stared at her.
"You gave up," I said, tears coming to my eyes. "You gave up and you sent me to live with strangers! He didn't have to be a stranger. He would have helped."
"He didn't need us as a burden. Look where he is now. We would have held him back."
"You don't know that!" I shouted. "He has three kids, and he still manages to be a great dad and a musician! You took him from me, and you think you did us a favour?!"
"Jaime, he wouldn't have gone on that tour if he'd known I was pregnant with you. And they wouldn't have become who they are."
I shook my head.
"You screwed up my life!" I yelled. "And you're still trying to screw it up! I'm not ready to die! Yeah, cancer sucks. And yeah, I hurt. A lot. But I have a family that is pulling for me. I didn't want you to die. I did what I could to try to keep you alive. But you gave up anyway!"
"Jaime, I couldn't fight anymore. The treatments hurt. The cancer hurt. I wasn't who I used to be. And I wouldn't have been the same person I was. I made the best decision for you that I could."
"There you go again! You make decisions for everyone but you never stop to think about whether your decision is even the right decision! You only think about yourself!"
Mom's face changed. I didn't recognize her anymore. She opened her mouth and a horrible sound came out. I closed my eyes to the noise and covered my ears.
"Jaime? Jaime? Can you hear me?"
I opened my eyes. The light was too bright. Everything was white and too, too bright. I closed my eyes.
"Turn out the light and close the curtains," I heard a voice whisper. It sounded like Dad.
"Dad?" I croaked out.
"Jaime?" His face swam into my sight line. "Jaime, are you awake?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Can you open your eyes? We turned out the lights and covered the window. It's as dark as we can make it in here."
I opened my eyes again. The light was a lot dimmer. It still hurt, but it was better.
"Hi there," Dad smiled at me. I looked around. Meagan was on my other side. She smiled as I looked over at her. She picked up my left hand and kissed my knuckles.
"Hi, Jaime," she whispered.
"What happened?" I asked.
"How much do you want to know?" Dad asked.
"All of it," I said.
Dad told me everything that had happened. That I'd run a really high fever. I'd coded twice in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and was in an active code for a third time when they arrived. They'd worked on me for what felt like forever before they got me stabilized. I'd been in a coma for the past week. My temperature hadn't wanted to come down. I had pneumonia and my lungs had been so full of fluid they'd had to place a chest tube to help drain my lungs.
I'd died. I had been clinically dead three times. Dad had been asked if he wanted them to keep trying. Dad had had to decide whether he got them to keep trying to keep me alive or if he would let me go.
"It was the hardest decision I ever had to make. After I had to decide to let Tanya go all those years ago. It took me a long time to get over your mom, Jaime. I didn't want to lose you, but I didn't want you to suffer. And then, you rallied. Your heartbeat got stronger, your temperature came down. You started breathing on your own. Your lungs started clearing."
He smiled at me.
"You came back."