Remember Us

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

My phone rings, waking me up. Well more like startling me. I hadn’t been able to sleep, having that feeling of something bad happening kept me awake. So I just tossed and turned for the majority of the night. That’s how I know it was precisely 12:06 when the phone rings.

“Hello?” I ask, wondering who would call me at such an hour.

“Hello, is this Juliana Richards?” a woman asks.

“yes.” I didn’t recognize the voice, making me worried.

“I’m Clara Gee, a receptionist at St. Michaels Hospital. We have you down as the contact person for Adam DiGerlando.” She says his last name wrong but I don’t bother on correcting her, not right now.

“yes, yes. Is he alright?” I ask, climbing out of bed now and getting dressed as quickly as possible.

“I don’t know ma’am, I’m just supposed to tell you he was admitted about twenty minutes ago.”

I curse and hang up on her, dialing Finns number instantly. I just get left with the answering machine on their line. I pick Katie up, grab my bag, and lock the door before running to my car. If anything happened to Adam…let’s just hope he’s alright.

“mom?” Katie asks sounding exhausted.

“yes sweetie?”

“where are we going?”

“you’re going to go stay with Dakota for a bit dear.”

“oh.” She falls back asleep, or maybe she was asleep, I’m not quite sure. I pull up to the house and hop out, grabbing my daughter once again. After about three seconds of pounding on the door I finally see a light switch on and the door opens.

“Julie, what are you doing here?” Finn asks, rubbing his eyes.

I hand him Katie, “Adam is in the hospital and I need to go now.” I say and without another word I hurry back to the car and drive off. I’m sure I’ll hear an earful from them later but I don’t care.

When I finally get to the hospital, and to his floor, one of the women stops me from going any further.

“miss, you can’t go through.”

“but-”

She looked like a doctor and I didn’t really want to argue with her but still, I had to try. “I’m assuming you’re here for Mr. DiGerlando?” I nod. “Well, they’re still doing some emergency surgery on him.”

Surgery? “what happened?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m only authorized to tell family the details.”

“I’m his fiancée.” I tell her, holding out my left hand as proof, proud of myself to have thought of the ring in such a rush.

“I’ll need-” she starts but I cut in.

“family to double check. I know. But guess what? All of his family is in Italy except for his six year old daughter. So unless you want me to go pick her up so that you can explain to her that her father got into an accident, than you’re going to tell me what’s going on.” I had no time or patience for the stupid hospital rules.

The doctor sighed, giving in. “He was driving home, I assume, from the airport and a drunk driver ran a red light and hit him.” He was coming home instead of leaving. He didn’t choose to go to Italy. “It’s one of those typical everyday stories that people always say ‘that won’t happen to me’ until it does.”

I tear up. I can’t lose him. Not now. “Is he going to be okay?”

“It’s hard to tell right now. Just take a seat, and we’ll tell you when we get new news.”

I sit down in one of the chairs trying to gather my thoughts. It’s amazing to think that the last time I was in a hospital was when Katie was born, six years ago.

“what the hell is going on?” I hear a panting Finn ask.

The tears were flowing freely now and it took all my strength to reply. “where’s Katie?”

“with Dakota at home. It’s just me. Now, what’s going on?”

I start to cry again, choking on my words, “he-he got into an acci-accident and mi-ight not make it. He’s in surgery now…”

Finn pulls me into a hug, “everything’s going to be alright. You hear me? Adam isn’t going anywhere Juliana. It won’t be like your parents”

I nod against his chest, only half-heartedly believing him.

“do you want me to call your brother?” I nod again, unable to speak. He holds me with one arm and takes out his phone with the other, dialing his number. Finn put it on speaker and I heard the soothing sound of my brothers voice.

“hey Finn, what’s up?”

I didn’t say anything so Finn took charge. “um, Adam has gotten into an accident.”

I could just imagine Blakes worried face, “oh shit. What kind of accident?”

“by her reaction, I’m going to go for a drunk driver hit him. Is that correct Jules?” Finn asks me.

“yeah,” I whisper

He goes back to the phone, “they’re doing surgeries right now and I think they don’t know yet on what his condition will be.”

I heard Blake take a deep breath, trying to keep calm for me. We never experienced anything this close to our parents’ death since that day seven years ago. And honestly, we never thought we’d have to face it again.

“Hey Juliana, listen to me clearly. Adam is going to make it. He wouldn’t leave you or Katie like this.”

“but-”

“no buts. He is going to be perfectly fine. Now, is Katie with you?”

I shake my head no before realizing that he wouldn’t be able to see that. “No, I left her with Dakota.” I was able to mutter out.

“Good. Jenny is packing right now and we’ll catch the next flight out of here. I know telling you to go home will be useless, but at least try to get some rest Julie.”

“Thank you.” Finn ends the call and slips it back into his pocket.

I fall asleep that early morning in Finns arms. It would look to others that we’d be brother and sister, waiting to hear about a parent. Instead though we were waiting to hear about his best friend.

Waiting to see my ex-boyfriend.