The week drones on like a decade without Carter. I was in an out of the hospital, mainly only leaving to sleep, shower (which was a difficult feat with the stupid arm cast), get dressed and then go back to the hospital.
Carter had been in and out of surgery. The doctors were dating tests after tests to see how they should treat him. It felt like a decade from hell when in reality, it was only Saturday, exactly a week since the accident. Sitting in the waiting room of the hospital for any news about Carter, I felt exhausted even though I’d waken up just three hours earlier.
Andy was texting me, telling me that I should go back to the house. The hospital would call if anything changed. It was bad for me to just wait around like I was at the hospital, it wasn’t getting anything done. I didn’t care though.
I wanted to be there when Carter woke up. I had some AP homework to do to pass the time but it was hard to focus on anything except for Carter. I just didn’t feel whole without him there to talk to me. I mean, it would have been different if he got tired of me and threw me to the curb. I would get over him after a while if that happened. But this, this wasn’t a way to lose somebody. He was just lying in the hospital, breathing through a tube, while I waited around without a way to help him at all. I wasn’t even allowed to see him for more than half an hour at a time.
“Madison,” Dr. Barnes, Carter’s doctor, greeted me in the waiting room with a bright smile. Since I’d basically moved into the hospital since the accident and I’d demanded information about my boyfriend every hour on the hour until the doctor came out and personally informed us about what was going on, I’d known Dr. Barnes well. He’d come talk to me every day to tell me what was going on with Carter’s improvements and everything, which was really nice of him.
“Hello,” I responded with a yawn as I looked up from my AP Statistics text book. “Any news?”
“Yes, actually,” He confirmed with a nod and I brightened up at that prospect. “He’s been improving a lot over the past few days. It’s looking brighter now than it did in the beginning. We expect that if today goes well, he’ll make a full recovery.”
“If today goes well… what’s happening today?” I wondered with a concerned frown.
“We just have one more test to run, to make sure the diagnosis is correct,” He explained. “It should take a few hours. After that, I think that we’ll be ready to wake him up, if the injuries aren’t as severe as we had originally thought.”
“That’s amazing,” I said with an excited grin. “Really, that’s so great. I’ll know in just a few hours?”
He nodded. “I’ll personally come out and let you know what’s going on when I find out.”
“Thank you,” I smiled at him gratefully, feeling much more awake than I did moments ago now that I have some newfound hope for Carter. He was really going to be alright. He really was, I just knew it. He was fighting, and he was so strong so he’d make it out just fine.
But still, the thought of Carter hurting in the hospital with the horrid chance that he might not walk out of here alive. The thought made me want to vomit, but I just swallowed down my upset stomach and tried my best to focus on the math in front of me for a minute before I calmed myself down again enough to call Tom and tell him about what the doctor had told me. He’d spent a lot of time at the hospital too, even though he had a business trip planned for the past Wednesday to California. Right now, he was at home though, because even Tom realized that being at the hospital 24/7 wasn’t beneficial to anybody. I still couldn’t get myself to stay away, not when Carter was here, alone.
After a lot of distraction and some five minute mental breakdown breaks to cry, I got a chapter of my statistics work done in two hours of sitting in the waiting room. As I decided to get up and go get something to eat for lunch, I planned on reading some of my history book for a while.
I grabbed some McDonald’s from the food court and then returned to the ICU waiting room where I had my own little corner set up with a pillow, small blanket, and then my school work and laptop spread out among two of the waiting room seats and a small black side table. I knew that most people here including the visitors and nurses thought that I was pathetic for not wanting to leave, for not letting go. I didn’t care. Maybe it was pathetic or sad or ridiculous but I wasn’t leaving that hospital without Carter by my side (except for the nights to sleep and shower).
After eating my fast food lunch, I went on to start reading some of my history book but naturally, it was really boring. The Cold War just couldn’t be made interesting, no matter how many times I read about it. I tried to get through it for just a few hours, to wait until Carter woke up but only just forty-five minutes into reading the text, my eyes started to flutter shut. I hadn’t gotten much sleep in the past week so after my eyes shut, I found it pretty hard to keep myself awake and eventually, I was dozing off.
“Madison,” I was shaken awake by Dr. Barnes, standing right in front of me.
I blinked a few times and then sat up, wiping a small dab of drool from the corner of my mouth. “Yeah, what’s happening?”
He offered me a small smile and hope started bubble inside of me. “He’s awake.”
“Really?” I choked out, my whole body shaking with relief and I was on the brink of tears. Happy tears, of course, but I was almost about to break down crying. I held it all back though, and crossed my arms over my chest to keep myself together long enough to get the full news. “Can I see him now?”
“In just a few minutes,” He assured me. “The nurses are checking his vitals right now and basically just telling him what’s going on. I wanted to let you know now because I figured that you’d want to be the one to inform his family.”
“Yeah. Yes, I’ll call them right now,” I said quickly, pulling my phone out of my pocket, eager to give Tom the good news.
“I’ll have the nurse come get you when they’re ready,” Dr. Barnes told me as he started to walk away but I stopped him by trapping him in my arms, hugging him tightly just because I was so relieved and I needed to hug somebody and he was the closest person around.
“Thank you so much,” I breathed before pulling away and then he laughed, nodded at me and then walked away to do his job. It took me a good thirty seconds to find Tom’s number in my contacts list because my fingers were so shaky.
“Hello?” He answered the phone as I ran my fingers through my hair, hoping that I looked okay. My back was aching from sleeping in the chair for the past few hours but I was ignoring that pain because Carter was awake, after a week of worrying and crying and not knowing if he was going to be okay, he was finally awake.
“He’s awake,” I said to Tom, my voice shaking from held back sobs of relief. “He just woke up.”
“Maddie, that’s great,” He sighed on the other end and I could hear the relief wash over him too, just like it had with me just a few moments earlier. “I’ll grab the boys and we’ll be on our way.”
“Sure, I’ll see you soon,” I said to him before he was hanging up, eager to get to the hospital to see his son.
Just then the two nurses that I recognized as two of the nurses that cared for Carter came out into the waiting room and waved to me so I walked over to them and followed them down the hallway.
“He doesn’t remember the accident,” One of them told me. “And he’s still a little groggy and confused, so it’ll help if you talk slowly and clearly.”
I nodded to show that I understood what they were saying. I didn’t remember the accident either, so it wasn’t like I could try to jog his memory though, if that was what they were trying to imply. I didn’t say that though, I was too caught up on the idea of seeing Carter again. Awake and without all of those tubes that were making his body function.
When we got to the room, one of them opened the door and I stepped inside before they had the chance to walk in before me. Apparently, that was enough for them to decide that I wanted my privacy with my boyfriend because they didn’t follow me into the room, they just shut the door behind me, leaving me alone with him.
He was sitting in the hospital bed, looking a bit broken with his leg in a cast under the thin blanket that was covering him from the waist down and red marks on his neck from where the neck brace had dug into his skin but that’s gone now. His hair is dirty and disheveled on his head and the hospital gown that he was wearing was so baggy that it made him look so thin.
“Hey,” He breathed when I walked in, his big brown eyes landing on me and his red lips curled into a small, tired smile.
And that was when I started to cry as I ran over to him, gingerly wrapping my arms around my boyfriend that I’ve missed so much and I cried into his shoulder, trying my best not to hit him with my cast. “I was so afraid for you,” I sobbed. “I was so afraid.”
“Well, you don’t have to be afraid anymore because I’m right here,” He countered with a light laugh. “I’m alright.”
“But you weren’t,” I countered, sitting on the edge of his bed as I looked at him, wiping the tears away from my face. “You were in a coma and they… they didn’t know what was going to happen. It’s been a week and I… I don’t know what I would have done.”
“You won’t ever have to find out,” Carter assured me, pulling me closer to him. “Because I’m here now and you can’t get rid of me that easily. I’m glad that you’re alright too. Except for that,” He said, running his cold thumb across my forehead where there was a cut from the dashboard of the car where I was hit and concussed.
“I’m fine,” I said to him, not wanting him to worry about me right now.
“So am I,” He said with a raspy laugh. “I’m not leaving you.”
“You still had me so scared,” I mumbled. “Everybody’s on their way to come see you. I called them before I came in here.”
“How long do you think that gives us to make out?” He wondered boyishly but there were still bags under his eyes and there were probably bags under my eyes too, just for different reasons.
“Carter, you literally just came out of a coma,” I reminded him, wiping the last of my tears from my face and I couldn’t help but let out a little laugh.
“Which is exactly why I want to kiss you right now,” Carter informed me, holding my hand in his. “Because the doctor said that I was a strong fighter, and I’m pretty sure that I was fighting for you. And you know that you miss kissing me.”
“You are a very good kisser,” I mumbled with a blush.
“I am,” He agreed jokingly and then he tugged slowly on my hand so that I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his and it was a slow kiss although I wanted it to be fast and passionate with moaning and groaning and clothes ripping and all of that but I let Carter control the pace of the kiss. Not only because we were in a public hospital and his family was on the way here but also because he was just getting used to being awake again.
We were only kissing for a few minutes and Carter’s hand started leading mine down his lap in a very perverse manner when the door clicked open and I quickly pulled my hand away from his as I sat up and turned to see Tom coming into the room, glancing between Carter and I. He obviously knew what was going on and that made me blush even more.
“I’ll give you guys some time,” I mumbled before turning and kissing Carter’s cheek before leaving the room to get my heart to stop racing and as I passed Tom to get out of the room, I avoided his gaze at all cost.
As I approached the waiting room full of all of the Fishers, I couldn’t help but grin widely at how everything turned out. Sure, this past week had been hell but Carter was okay now. He was healthy (for the most part) and awake and although his lips were try, he didn’t lose his ability to kiss in the coma. We were perfect now.
And everything was right in the world yet again.