Country Girl

You Can't Go Home

"You can't go home honey."

"I don't wanna be here. Can I at least see Travis?"

"That's probably not a good idea...."

"I don't fucking care! Let me see him!"

The nurse sighs loudly and smiles at me.

"Well, I'll go ask his doctor, but he's really beat up from the accident. He probably doesn't look like he usually does."

"I don't care what he looks like. I just want to see him and hug him and be in his arms. Please?"

"Alright I'll go ask. We got your heartbeat back up to normal. You're still a little bruised up, but you're free to walk around and go to the food court if you'd like."

"I'm waiting right here until I can see Travis."

The nurse rolls her eyes at me and walks out of the room. I reach over to my bedside table and turn on the tv. Dear John is playing on Fox so I lay back in my bed and watch it. A few minutes later, the nurse comes back and I sit up.

"Okay, so I talked to Travis's doctor. You can go visit him for a little bit if you want. He just woke up."

I jump up from my bed and dart out of the room. I make it about halfway down the hallway and read all those little name tag things on the doors, but can't find his. I run back to my room and thankfully the nurse is still in there.

"Where is his room?!"

"I knew you'd be back. Follow me."

The nurse, her name tag says Alice leads me down a few hallways and we go through a couple of swinging doors until we finally reach a door that says his last name beside it. Alice opens the door for me and walks away. I walk in the room and immediately see Travis lying in his bed. His face has a few deep gashes in it and there's a scar that I can see clearly even from a distance on his shoulder. He must hear me because he looks up from his bed and weakly smiles. I wave to him and walk over and drag a chair to the side of his bed.

"Hey Trav."

Travis forces a smile and mumbles a 'hi' to me. I take his hand in mine and comfortingly rub my thumb over it.

"I told you that ya should've pulled over."

"I know. I'm so sorry baby, I hurt you. Now I'll never be able to forgive myself."

"Travis please don't do this. Look, you didn't hurt me okay? The way I look at pain and things like this is that it just makes me stronger."

"I'm s----"

"Shhhh. It's okay. You're a lot more hurt than I am. I should've been more persistent in telling you to pull over."

"Don't blame it on yourself, Hales."

"I should've never told you to bring me to my hou---"

Travis sits up in his bed and detaches his hand from mine and bangs the edge of his bed.

"Fucking A Haley! Don't you listen?! It wasn't your fault."

The heart monitor is going crazy at this point and doctors and nurses come rushing in. One grabs me by the shoulder and guides me out of the room.

"Let go of me!"

"You're not allowed back in there again."

"I didn't fucking do anything!"

"Obviously he can't handle seeing you at this point. Go back to your room little girl."

"FUCK YOU!"

I run away from the doctor and go in my room to find Alice changing the sheets on my bed.

"GET ME OUT OF THIS PLACE. NOW!"

"You have to stay the night just to make sure you're stable enough."

"Then get the hell out of my room."

Alice glares at me and continue making my bed.

"GET. OUT!"

"You can't tell me what to do."

"I'll scream as loud as I can if you don't leave."

"You're a little brat."

"Thank you. Now get out of my room."

Alice thankfully walks away and I let out a sigh of relief and lie down on my bed. I pull my phone out of my pocket and call Travis. A few moments later, he picks up.

"Hello?"

"Trav. It's Haley."

"Bae.....I miss you. Come back."

"I can't. The stupid doctors kicked me out. They said I was the cause of your heart monitor freaking out."

"You do send my heart into overdrive, baby girl."

"Do you know when you can get out of this miserable place?"

"My heart doctor said its gonna be about another weak or so, I dunno I'm just glad I got the worst part of the impact instead of you. My truck is totaled though."

"Your truck can be replaced sweetheart, you can't. I want you to be the fighter that I know you are and get through this one too."

"I'll try my hardest, it hurts a lot though. I gotta go because they have to check my vitals."

"Alright, take it easy please and if you need to talk to me, call me and I'll answer before the first ring is even through."

Travis hangs up the phone and I turn the volume on my tv down a bit, then close my eyes and hope that I can catch at least a few hours of sleep. About an hour later or so, my phone rings and I jolt out of a sleep and answer it.

"Hello?"

"Babe. Please come in here...I dunno what's happening..but"

I throw my phone down on my bed and sprint to Travis's room as fast as my short legs can carry me. I go flying in through his door and my lip immediately starts to quiver. Blood is running down the front of Travis's face and it is pooled on top of his white bed sheets. I rush over to him in hopes of finding the source of the blood and press the button that calls for a nurse.

"Travis, why didn't you call for a nurse?"

"I dunno...I just...I wanted them to see that I was fine through the night...so I could go home sooner but..."

"Hey, hey. Shhh, it's okay. I'm gonna be here for as long as you are. I'm not going anywhere. If something like this happens again, I want you to call a nurse and then call me right after, you got it?"

Travis nods his head up and down, but winces from the pain.

"You might not wanna do that either."

I brush his hair away from his forehead and find the source of the blood. Just as I figured, one of the bigger cuts on his forehead broke open. About a beat later, a nurse comes in and lightly grabs me by the arm and tells me to sit down in the chair by Travis's bed. Apparently the late night staff are a lot nicer than then evening staff. The nurse cleans up Travis's cut and asks me a bunch of questions over the course of about forty five minutes.

"Is his head going to be okay, nurse?"

"He's going to be just fine, but that one cut of his is going to need stitches as soon as possible so I'm going to have to ask you to please leave."

"On one condition."

"Yes?"

"Promise me that Travis is gonna make it out of this place."

The nurse pauses for only about a beat, looks at Travis and looks me in the eyes.

"I don't make promises I can't keep."