When she parked and didn’t start crying or saying that we were there because the man I loved was dying—again. I lost it.
Too close to home.
I wanted to leave.
Actually, I wanted to smack Wes and then I wanted to leave. How dare he scare me like that!
“Hey!” Lisa grabbed my hand. “You need to do this.”
“I don’t want to.” I knew I sounded like a whiny child, and Wes had probably gone to a lot of trouble to use the little chapel at the hospital. But I didn’t…I couldn’t. My throat felt thick as I tried to swallow.
I hadn’t had a panic attack in a really long time.
But being back in that hospital, even in the parking garage, was doing some serious damage to my nervous system.
I didn’t want to stay and fight. I wanted to run away. I wanted to run in the opposite direction of the memories of Wes lying in that hospital bed. Of the look on his face when he said goodbye. My breath hitched in my chest as my stomach clenched with fear.
Of the tears in his eyes when he wasn’t sure if it was going to be for a few hours—or forever.
I sniffled.
Lisa handed me a tissue and started slowly rubbing my back. “Talk to me, Kiersten.”
“It feels like yesterday,” I whispered. “I’m terrified that when I walk in that door, he’s going to be back in that hospital bed, or worse, something’s going to happen. I just—I know it’s not logical but I don’t feel very logical right now.”
“It’s your wedding day.” Lisa shrugged. “Who says you have to be logical?”
I smiled through my tears.
“If it makes you feel better.” She continued rubbing my back, totally something my mom would have done. I loved that girl, I would seriously die for Lisa, and I think she knew that. “I haven’t gone back either.”
“To the hospital?”
“No.” She stopped rubbing for a minute. “Home. I haven’t faced my demons at all. It doesn’t make it easier you know.”
“Are you sure?” My lips trembled as a few tears ran over them.
“Positive.” Lisa handed me another tissue. “Just because you avoid something, doesn’t make it disappear. I think we’d like to imagine life works that way. But I’m sure if I went back home…everything would be just how I left it and I’d be bombarded with the same memories, the same regrets, the giant never really dies Kiersten, not until you throw the damn rock.”
“Nice metaphor. Hanging out with Wes too much I see.”
Lisa snorted. “Swear his philosophies just rub off on everyone in his path.”
I twisted the tissue between my hands. “Your giants…what are they?”
A troubled expression clouded her eyes, and Lisa sighed. “They’re ugly.”
“Like the ones you see in movies?”
“Yeah, Kiersten, like the ones with giant warts and giant feet and…” She shuddered. “There’s a very good reason I came up to Seattle.” Her smile was forced. “Look at it this way. At least you have someone willing to fight alongside you. And he’s waiting inside.”
“What about you? Where’s your partner?”
Lisa was silent for a minute, then she reached for the handle to open the car door. “He no longer exists.”
She didn’t offer any more information, but the momentary distraction of her story was enough to get me out of the car and walking towards the elevator.
The smell of medicine burned my nostrils.
We rode the elevator up to the main floor, but when the doors should have opened it just kept going.
“Um?” I pointed at the buttons. “Did we miss our floor?”
“Nope.” Lisa looked straight ahead, a smile curving at her lips.
When the doors opened—it was to floor where they had performed Wes’s surgery. I’d remember it anywhere. The nurses’ station was decorated with so many flowers it was almost impossible to see their heads as they waved at me from the table.
A banner hung across the hallway. “Wes and Kiersten.” There were hearts on either side of our names.
Music started playing from somewhere. My legs had officially stopped working—so much that Lisa had to push me. I walked numbly towards the nurses station, as each of them stood directly in my path, holding a rose.
A song started to play over the loudspeaker or it sounded like it, the music was slow, eerie, gentle as it softly played in cadence with my footsteps as I neared the nurses.
Every nurse held out a single rose, and I accepted them from each in turn as I passed, still holding onto my sense of numbness. Lisa took the roses from me and placed them in a type of bouquet. I couldn’t make out the shape.
“We’re so proud of you guys.” One of the nurses who had been in the operating room pulled me in for a hug and kissed me on the cheek.
Okay, so Wes was seriously trying to make it so that I had no makeup by the time I saw him.
As I collected the last rose—I think around ten nurses total had each handed me one of the red flowers—I found myself at the end of the line.
The doctor that had performed the surgery stood waiting.
He was the one who had spent countless hours making sure the love of my life survived.
I hadn’t been back to the hospital.
I’d thanked him.
But I hadn’t really thanked him.
Without thinking, I threw myself against his chest and wound my arms around his neck. He went completely still for a minute and then returned my hug.