Beating Heart// Lashton

Chapter 20

Brother, why'd you have to go?

You left us all so soon

Remember that song I wrote about your family years ago

Well they're waiting for you to come home

What do I do? What do I say?

And dad tells me to pray

So I prayed and prayed but the hurt won't go away

The pain gets worse, it never stops

And I've asked the lord for us to swap

I beg and plead cause you have kids to feed

-Brother by Falling In Reverse

Luke's POV

I was a storm of emotions. It's been a little over three hours and still no news on Ashton. I was beyond worried, I was frightened. I was cycling through the different stages of grief before I even knew if there was a reason to be in grief. 

Nia was pacing, biting her nails. She was really shaken up, which is completely understandable. She hasn't told us exactly how she found Ash, but Michael knew. Nia needed to tell someone. 

I kept thinking about how that could have been me, I could have been the one to find him. I may have been able to find him soon enough that he wouldn't require all this surgery. I had walked to his house after I broke it off. I wanted to see him. 

Something pulled me to his house, I should have just gone in. I could have saved him. But I didn't. I turned around and walked home. While he was in his bathroom dying. And now it may be too late just because I couldn't face the sadness of not having Ash anymore.

I heard a door open and out came the doctor and a nurse.

"Irwin?" The doctor called out. We all stood up, Nia finally standing in place, and Anne Marie rushing towards the doctor.

"Yes, is he okay, please God tell me he's okay," she pleaded, as if that prayer would be answered, reversing any bad that had happened.

"He's recovering from surgery. We had to do a lengthy procedure and he had lost a lot of blood. His vitals are still thready, and he's very pale. He's resting right now, we're hoping he wakes up soon. He's on an IV with dexltrose and high flow oxygen. We're monitoring him closely and checking his wounds periodically. He's on morphine to make him comfortable. We expect that he'll be asleep a little longer, his body needs rest. He should be awake in the next thirty minutes, if he doesn't wake up then we'll be concerned. We've called psychiatry and they will talk to him once he's medically stable," The doctor told us.

"So he's alive?" I asked meekly. 

"Yes, although we nearly lost him several times during surgery, but he pushed through."

I was overjoyed that he was okay, even if he barely was. I turned and hugged Calum tightly, needing to express how grateful I was that Ash didn't die.

"We do want to know exactly what happened," The doctor turned to Nia, "You found him, correct?"

Nia nodded.

"Could you tell us everything you know? Ashton's assigned psychiatriatric team needs as much of the picture as they can get, and it may have more medical information for us," the doctor explained.

"Yeah, anything to help him," Nia said with urgency.

"Okay, if you can come with us, we're going to meet in private with the psychiatric team."