Chapter
29
By Rachel
The next time
I awoke I noticed I had tears running down my face and my whole body was
shaking. The next thing I noticed was my brother by my side rubbing my shoulder
to calm me down.
"Calm
down Bri. It is ok," he kept repeating until I finally calmed down.
"I wish you could tell me what is wrong Bri. The doc said he is going to
try to take your breathing tube out tomorrow and see if you can breath without
it, and if you can he will leave it out." Harry told me as he wiped the
tears off my face.
It was then I
wished I could tell him what was wrong also, because frankly what it was scared
the living daylights out of me. I had a nightmare about the plane crash and
that Nick died in my arms, that Kevin died of head injuries, that Howie and AJ
froze to death and I died because my internal bleeding was too severe.
I started
moaning and pointing to my throat hoping my brother would realize I needed to
ask him something and that he would do what our mother had done earlier and
that was let me write out what I wanted on a piece of paper. I knew that since
I felt stronger and not as groggy as before that I could write what I wanted
with not as much trouble.
Finally he
realized what I wanted and reached over towards the small table by my bedside
and grasped the small notepad and pen that Mom had left there earlier and
placed the pen in my hand while holding the notepad up so I would have
something to write against.
I raised my
hand up and shakily wrote out "other guys?" and rested my hand by my
side still shaking from the nightmare I had earlier.
Harry picked
up the notepad and looked at it giving me a confused look as he tried to read
what my illegible writing said.
I gave him the
dirtiest look I could come up with and bitterly thought, "Yeah you try
writing any better than that if you are in my condition. I'm so doped up I
could run a drug factory!"
Harry looked
at the notepad one last time and put it near my hand and looked me in the eye.
"Hey don't give me that look buddy. If you want info from me you have to
be nice," he said with a small grin. I grunted and rolled my eyes waiting
for him to continue. "Well last I checked, AJ and Howie were asleep in the
waiting room with their families and the Carters. Mom said she told you that
they are trying an experimental drug on Nick, but the doctor just told us the
drugs haven't started working yet so his condition unfortunately hasn't changed
much. But he is over there," he said as he pointed to the other side of
the room.
I weakly
raised my head to see where he was pointing and seen a figure in a hospital bed
surrounded by machines. All I heard was the rhythm of both of our machines and
since it was so quiet in the room, I could also faintly hear the rattling sound
of his breathing as the respirator breathed for him.
I looked up
into my brother's eyes and realized then that he didn't mention one person. I
hastily felt around for the notepad and when I finally felt it, I tried writing
"Kev?" on the paper without having to look down cause it caused me
too much pain and looked up at Harry when I was finished. He again reached down
for the notepad and looked at it and looked down at me.
"Your
doctor, Dr. Collins ordered Kev to get CAT scans taken to see if he had any
head injuries and they found out he had a severe concussion and they wanted to
keep him for observation. Aunt Ann and mom and dad are down there talking to
the doctor about you and Kev now." he explained to me. I nodded and
reached for my brother's hand, giving it a slight squeeze as exhaustion took
over me yet again and I fell back to sleep.
***
