“Well that’s one way to meet the parents. Good luck, and call me when you want me to come get you. I’ll have my phone on me all night.”
I took a deep breath and ended the call before walking dutifully down the hallway to the frazzled woman. “Excuse me, ma’am? Are you looking for Dillon?”
She turned and looked up at me, almost a half a foot shorter than I was. Tears filled her eyes and worry lines were etched around them. The same sparkling blue that Dillon’s eyes contained were looking up at me, but her pain dulled them. She was terrified that she was going to lose her child, and I couldn’t blame her. “My name is Berkley. I was with him when it happened. I came to the hospital with him from the fight.”
She didn’t speak, just stared up at me blankly like I was talking in a different language. A nurse walked up behind the counter with a chart. “Corina Jackson? You’re the mother?”
The small woman just turned and nodded silently. “Dillon is in critical condition. His airway collapsed during the fight, and he has a partially collapsed lung. His left eye socket is ruined and he’ll need reconstructive surgery once they fix his airway. The doctor’s main concern at this point is that he was deprived of oxygen, and there may be damage.”
I knew it wasn’t my place to ask but I couldn’t help myself, “What type of damage?”
The nurse scowled at me. “And who are you?”
“I… I came in with him. I was the one who was at the fight, I saw it all happen.”
The nurse frowned at me. “I’m sorry, but unless you’re family I can’t share any of this information with you.”
Suddenly Dillon’s mother grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly. “This girl might have saved his life. You can tell her anything that you can tell me.”
The nurse shrugged and scanned through the document once more. “There could be significant brain damage, but we won’t know how much until he wakes up after surgery. A doctor will be out to update you once they finish.”
She gave us a sad smile as she closed the chart and walked away. I felt Corina’s grip lessen and she started to lean into me.
“Would you like a cup of coffee, ma’am? The coffeehouse here is pretty good.” I remembered that from when my father had been here for surgeries. We’d literally spent weeks in this hospital, one of the best in the state.
She nodded and held my hand as we walked down the hallway together. Once we were in the waiting area, I sat her down in a plastic chair and was about to leave her but she wouldn’t let go. So instead I sat down next to her and we waited. We waited for hours without saying a single word to each other. Until finally the doctor came out pulling a mask off of his face.
“Ms. Jackson?”
Dillon’s mother rose from her seat and shuffled slowly over to him. I knew we were both praying for good news, but if it was bad? We would both fall apart on the linoleum floor.
“Dillon is in stable condition. His brain doesn’t seem to have swelled quite as much as we had anticipated. He’s still going to be unconscious for several hours, but it looks as though he’ll make it out of this. Your son is a very lucky man.”
I felt the relief flood my system as the waves of tension began to leave my body. Dillon was going to make it. And that was all that I needed to hear.
THIRTEEN
DILLON
I took a deep breath and winced. It felt like my insides were on fire. A machine buzzed next to me and Leo’s angry whispers came from what may have been the right side of my bed. I was in the hospital, I just knew it. I hated places like this, where people always try to make you feel better even though you might never be fixed. I remembered feeling like this when I broke my shoulder. Completely helpless, at the doctor’s mercy. I took another breath and again my lungs shuddered under the pain. Whatever those assholes had done to me, I would get them back for this. I had to.
Apparently I was asleep for almost three days. When I finally came to, they were able to remove the tube that was going down my throat so I could finally talk again. My mother was there, gripping my hands tightly between her own frail fingers. She was going to be really angry when she got a chance to get over the fact that I hadn’t died. I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation. I’d lied to everyone. The only person that actually knew that I was going to match was Berkley.
Berkley. I had seen her in my dreams a hundred times over the past few days. But now that my eyes were finally open and I was taking in the landscape around me, there she was, asleep in a hospital chair in the corner. She hadn’t been a dream. She was real. She’d been at the fight and had seen everything go down. She had been with me at my absolute worst. But she’d stayed, just like I wanted her to, even though I pushed her away. Jesus, I was lucky.
Leo was the first to notice that my eyes were open. “Berkley, wake up! He’s awake. How do you feel, son?”
“Like pickles,” I barely croaked out. My throat felt like there were needles all through it. I would consider that before I talked again.
My mom looked at me with sad eyes. She looked a lot older than she had last week. That was my fault. “I’m just glad you’re okay, honey. It’s going to take a while, but you’re going to be okay.” I realized I could only see out of my one eye, and I lifted my hand carefully to touch the other side of my face but was met with gauze instead. “They had to do surgery on your face, but they said it should heal in a few weeks. You’re alive, that’s all that matters.” I could hear the restraint in her voice, chasing away the tears. She was trying to be strong for me, and that meant that things were a lot worse than she was letting me know.
Somehow deep in my belly I knew that I’d almost died. Or maybe I did, maybe they brought me back to life. And that was also my fault. I always was my own worst enemy.
Leo gave me a loving look which I knew was going to be followed by serious talking to. He always took care of me, so it was his duty to be the one to let me have it. “What the hell were you thinking? Going off by yourself like that! To an underground fight! You knew what those chumps wanted to do to you. You had a death wish going there. And now you had your mother and Berkley and me worried. That’s on you.”
The pain in my throat was too severe to speak again so I simply nodded and cast my eyes down, trying to relieve myself of some of his shame. He was completely right. All of this was on me.
He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”