Trust Me

Chapter 30

Olivia

The pungent odor of disinfectant filled my nose as I inhaled. My entire body felt heavy, from my eyelids to my toes. I felt weighed down and sore as if an elephant had sat on me. A beeping noise grew more clear as my awareness came back to me with each second that passed. My eyes fluttered open only halfway despite my efforts to widen them fully. 

My head rolled to the side in what felt like slow motion. They'd given me some type of painkillers because although my body was weighed down, my mind felt as if it were floating. 

I blinked a few times in an attempt to clear my vision, noticing Jason standing in the large hospital window. Both his hands were tucked into the pockets of his navy pants, his shoulders rose and fell rhythmically as he breathed.

"Jason?" I called out to him, my hoarse voice hardly audible. But he heard me and spun around on his heels, hurrying over to me with concern written all over his face. His blue eyes held a world of hurt in them as he looked into my own, taking a seat on the bed beside me.

"Hey, sweetheart." He smiled, stroking my hair gently with his fingers. "I'm glad you're up."

My brows pulled together in agony as memories of the accident began to flash through my head as if I had a projector inside of it. Scenes from the accident flashed across it like a motion picture movie.

"C-Cassie..." I trailed off. "Is she-"

"She's alive," Jason assured me, cutting me off.

The sense of relief that washed over me was so calming, almost euphoric. 

"She's alive, but..." Jason continued, grabbing ahold of my hand and cupping it between his two much larger ones. "She's critical, Liv. She had to have surgery to fix her broken femur, and she had to have a procedure done to remove the built-up fluid on her brain. Her pelvis was also broken in that accident."

"Oh my god." I gasped as the short-lived relief washed away just as quickly as it had come. "W-what about her baby?"

"The baby's okay, miraculously," Jason stated, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Because of the state of her body, they don't know how long she'll be able to carry him for long...it probably won't be full-term, and she'll need a c-section."

"What? I-I mean, if he comes too soon, will he be able to make it?"

"We don't know, sweetheart, it depends on how soon he comes...they did say she'd have to carry him to at least 22 weeks to give him a fair shot. Anything less than that is almost certainly unsurvivable."

My heart sank to my stomach as the grave reality of the situation sank in. Cassie and the baby may be fine for now, but we could lose one or both of them at any moment.

"So she just...she just needs to keep fighting to carry him for three more weeks, right?"

Jason nodded his head, squeezing my hand. "Russ told me that's what the doctors were saying right now, and they're looking at delivering him at 22 weeks if she's not a lot better by then. Things could get better or worse...it just depends." 

"God, Jason, I can't take this." I cried out, sinking back into my pillow as I was unable to hold myself up anymore. "I can't."

Jason shifted to where he was fully on the bed beside me now, taking my body into his arms as the tears rushed from my eyes, leaving salty streaks stained on my cheeks.

"Shhh, you have to calm down, baby. You're not well either." He reminded me, pressing a gentle kiss to my temple.

I gripped onto the arm he wrapped around me, holding onto it as if it were keeping me afloat from drowning.