A Little Bit of Hope

Chapter 8- What Now?

I sat on the couch, staring at nothing. I'd stopped crying and settled into a numb trance, barely noticing as a paramedic draped a blanket around my shoulders. A police officer pulled up a chair in front of me and said something, but he left after a few minutes of silence. I knew I would have to respond sometime, but I didn't want to. Not yet. Not when I could still see Ian lying on the kitchen floor, dying. My throat was raw from screaming after the ambulance, but no one would answer me -or could answer me- when I begged to know if he would be okay. I didn't stop screaming until I felt a prick in my shoulder and a sedative making its way through my bloodstream, dulling my senses and loosening my muscles. I faded out for a few hours and woke into this dreamlike state.

Soon enough, all but one of the cops had left, and the one who stayed made awkward excuses about "keeping an eye on the house from his cruiser". Tina sat down next to me and we kept a silent vigil. Twice Tina got up to make a phone call.

"Can't you tell us anything else?" she demanded. "I know I'm not kin, but- yeah, I understand. Will you let us know if there are any drastic changes? Please? Thank you."

And later, I think around midnight:

"Hey. It's me. Sorry, I know it's late, but it's an emergency. Ian's in the hospital.... he- he got shot. It's a long story, and he might be perfectly fine-the hospital won't tell me anything- but Molly isn't doing too well. Yeah. I thought maybe you could come over tomorrow? Early as you can? That would be best. Thanks."

She wandered back over to me. I pretended not to notice, but the fog in my brain was clearing up faster than I wanted it to.

"Molly," she began. "You have to get some sleep. The hospital said we can visit Ian at eight o'clock sharp tomorrow, and he won't want to see you looking dead on your feet."

I forced a nod and stumbled up the stairs. I managed to sleep for maybe an hour or so before the sky started getting light, and I went to clean myself up. My clothes from yesterday were ruined, caked in blood, and it was smeared up into my hair as well.

I clambered into the shower and scrubbed. My skin was nearly as red as the blood by the time I was through, and I still felt like it was coating me in a sticky layer. I dressed quickly and stumbled downstairs. Tina sat at the kitchen table, staring glumly into a cup of coffee. It was plain from the dark circles under her eyes that she had gotten as little sleep as I had.

"Can we go?" I rasped.

Tina gave a curt nod. "Clara's going to drive us there," she said tonelessly.

We sat and waited, drinking so many cups of coffee that we nearly passed out from the caffeine.

Finally, around seven o'clock, Clara knocked at the door. I got up to answer it, and she enveloped me in a cookie-scented hug.

"Oh my goodness!" she wailed when she saw my face. "Sweetheart, this is just killing you! Come on, get in the car."

We hurried into the car, and I'm sure we broke every traffic law in the book on the way to the hospital. Thank god there weren't any cops on patrol.

The receptionist was nice enough, and she pointed us down a hall labeled Post-Op Recovery.

The cloying scent of disinfectant makes my stomach turn as we made our way to the end of the aisle. A nurse pulled back the dividing curtain for us, and I gasped.

Tubes were stuck into Ian's arms and mouth, and blood-soaked bandages covered his abdomen. A heart monitor beeped steadily beside the bed, and his eyelids fluttered restlessly.

"It's much better than it looks," the nurse explained. I glanced at her nametag, which read Judy. She bustled around the room, emptying two syringes into the IV drips. "The bullet just glanced off a major artery, but the doctors managed to fish out the bullet without doing any more damage. He had a blood transfusion about two hours ago, and it doesn't look like he'll need another one."