And that’s when Emily really lost it.
“Please, Gavin, you can’t do this to us.” She brought a hand to his cheek, her body trembling as she sobbed. “You’re the reason I’m breathing. I’m carrying the child our love created. Remember? The love they make movies about? That’s us, Gavin. Our past is imperfect, but our future’s breathtaking. You can’t leave me. You can’t. I need you. I need your bottle caps and twenty questions. I need your wiseass comments and that stupid look you give me when I try to cook for us. Please. God, Gavin, please fight. Fight for us. Fight for Noah. There’re too many things I won’t be able to teach him without you.” Rain gurgled in a drainpipe outside the window as she waited for a sign. For a whisper of life. For anything that said he heard her, felt her.
Again… nothing.
“God, please. Please…” Her cries trailed off as she buried her face against his shoulder. The strong shoulder Gavin had so many times before tossed her over. She breathed in his musky scent that had made her dizzy for him the first time he was close to her. As she thought of every spoken and unspoken word they’d shared, her body jerked as an alarm suddenly sounded. Her eyes flew to one of the machines, its screen rapidly flashing red. Emily swallowed and stumbled back when a nurse ran into the room.
“I’ve got a Code Blue!” she yelled as she quickly unhooked the tube from Gavin’s mouth. Screwing another in, she squeezed a bag over his mouth, manually pumping air into his lungs. “I need someone with a crash cart in here, stat!”
Eyes wide with horror, Emily heard the Code Blue called over the speakers as another nurse flew into the room. Frantically, the woman unsnapped Gavin’s hospital gown and pulled it down. She pressed against his chest, hard and fast. Emily tried to breathe as another nurse tore in, dragging a cart with a machine on it behind her. Crying, Emily’s vision blurred, voices muting, garbled in slow motion.
A male’s voice hit the air. “What’s his status?”
“V-fib,” one of the nurses replied, continuing to press against Gavin’s chest.
“Prepare to shock at two hundred joules.”
After two large stickers were placed on his skin, another voice said, “Preparing to shock. All clear?”
Shaking uncontrollably, Emily watched the workers surrounding Gavin back away from the bed.
“All clear.”
Thump… Gavin’s body jerked…
Emily took a shuddering breath.
A second, a minute, an hour… Emily didn’t know how long had passed. She couldn’t think, couldn’t move. Eyes glued to Gavin, her heart raced as she prayed his would continue to beat.
Thump… Gavin’s body jerked once again…
The chaos around him continued as they proceeded to pump air into his lungs and press with vigor against his chest. Emily felt her back hit up against the wall, her mind a freight train of emotions as she cried out in hysterics, vaguely aware of Colton at her shoulder, trying to guide her frozen body out of the room.
“He’s in astystole!” the nurse yelled.
The doctor looked at the monitor. “Push one milligram of epi.”
Not a sound ushered through Emily’s mind as she brought her eyes from Gavin’s motionless body to the monitor, the mountainous waves on the screen, disappearing into a single flat line. There wasn’t a long, drawn out beep, or if there was, Emily couldn’t hear it. The only thing she could hear was Gavin’s sweet words from the night before.
“I wonder if he’ll know how much I’m going to love him and his mother until the day I take my last, dying breath.”
“My last, dying breath…”
“Last…dying…breath…”
“Time of death: 10:28 p.m.,” the doctor said somberly.
Emily’s world skipped forward a few seconds, memories lost in a wicked lightning flash of pure darkness. She felt her throat twist and tighten. Her wide, green eyes stung. She willed her body to keep standing, but it couldn’t. Backing away and hyperventilating, she landed painfully on all fours just outside the room. Words from others came and went in a fuzzy blur. Even Lillian’s screams were distant. Far away cries from a mother who’d lost her youngest son.
Eyes soaked with tears, heart drenched with pain, and unknowing of whose hand was helping her from the floor, Emily tried to swallow. Tried to breathe. Trevor’s trembling arms blanketed her body. He buried his weary face against her shoulder as he cried with her. Tonight, in the year her life was going to change in so many beautiful ways, fate had broken its promise and decided to fuck with everyone in Emily’s life. In a haze, she watched a brother mourn his only sibling, a father cry out for his son, and friends gather in despair over the loss of someone they’d grown up with. Yet in all of the grief the hallway held, in that moment, Emily knew the largest loss belonged to the child she was carrying. His father was gone. Never to walk this earth again. Never to share a late night talk with his son. Never to hold his child in his arms for the first time.
He was gone…
No more stolen breaths before a kiss…
No more racing hearts from a simple look…
No more tingling skin without a touch…
He was… gone.
Breathe…
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Breathe…
“Emily.”
Breathe…
He’s gone…
“Emily,” the voice called louder.
With a gasp hurdling up her throat, Emily’s eyes flew open, as she tried to adjust to the bright lights above her. Drenched in sweat and coughing, she sat up, kicking off the sheets. The sound of quickened footsteps grew nearer.