Save Me

Chapter 18: Nothing, Everything

Erika
Everything was a blur. I just knew Lucas dragged me into the backseat and sat next to me. I didn't feel anything. I just stared into the windshield in front of my uncle speeding and my aunt crying.

"....Erika, it's me." I heard, but the voice was distorted, far away, not here. "Erika, it's me, Lucas. We're here at the hospital." I felt him pull me by the hand out of the car, gently but firmly. He put his arm around my shoulder and lead me into the building.

"Hi, we're here to see Marcus Kingsley," Terry said to the receptionist of the emergency room, holding his crying wife in his arms.

"What is your relation to him?"

"I'm his brother-in-law."

"I'm sorry, but I can't let you in. They are performing crucial-"

"I don't fucking care what they're doing! I need to see my brother!" Sophia yelled at the woman, through her tears. Lucas turned me in his arms so my face was in his chest. Sophia and the nurse kept arguing when Luke whispered in my ear.

"I need you to follow my lead," he said, looking at me. He looked up at the desk before slowly walking backwards into the waiting room. When the coast was clear, he took me by the hand into the hallway by the desk, toward the emergency rooms.

He took the lead, pulling me by the hand. Suddenly, we got passed by a group of two doctors running down the hallway, too harried to pay us any attention. Lucas looked in the direction they went and followed them. We ended up in a large open area of several emergency rooms with open doorways and peek-in windows. We drifted closer to a room with a significant amount of doctors.

They crowded around the patient and Lucas and I couldn't see who it was at first. My eyes focused on the blond male with a bloody face.

My dad.

I let go of Lucas and drifted to the window. He was wearing an oxygen mask and the doctors frantically adjusted EKG monitors to his chest.

"He has severe bruising across the ribcage and stomach. I suspect some internal bleeding."

"Can we get support for his neck? He has some whiplash."

"I'm monitoring heart rates now," the head doctor said and he ran a stethoscope over my dad's chest. Just as he did that, the EKG monitor beeped frantically. He ripped the stethoscope out of his ears.

"He's choking on the blood! Get me a syringe and get a room prepped for surgery, stat!"

I just stared at my father, not moving.

My bleeding father, choking on his own blood. He's...

Then everything came full force at me and brought me back to reality. My father was dying in the hospital. On my birthday.

Tears rolled slowly down my face and I covered my mouth with my hands. No sobs ripped through my throat — I felt it close instead. My heart began to race.

The only thing that ran through my head was utter dread: I'm going to lose my father today.

I constantly tried to catch my breath as I felt myself began to fade away. The room started to spin, my head and chest hurt, and my palms and neck began to sweat.

No, no. It's happening again.

Why do I feel everything crumbling around me? I don't want him to die, I don't want to lose him.

"Oh my god, Erika!" Lucas said, just as he caught me. I flinched at his touch and he let me go as soon as I was properly on my feet. He carefully lifted me up from the ground and took me into a room. When he went to close the door, I dropped to the floor.