Baby Come Back

Chapter 11

I love Lauren Jauregui. I love her perfect smirk. I love the way she chews her gum. I love her bright green eyes. I love the way she stumbles her feet around in those adorable boots. I love the way her voice gives me shivers and how she doesn't understand personal space. I love her dangerous motorcycle she drives everywhere. I love her smokey vanilla smell. I love her handwriting. And I love how she thinks of forever with me.

I'm not one to normally dwell on certain things. Incidents happen in life for a reason, and a person can choice to wish for a different tomorrow or a happier today. You lose a friend, you lose weight, you lose a sock, you lose faith, you lose the race. Change is a part of life, without it we'd inevitably be stuck in a spiral of routine.

Change is what brought me to her. It brought me to her in pulses and rushes and tidal waves. It brought me to her in soft touches, in stolen glances and silent promises of a happy ending.

Change is also what brought me here. It brought me here, sitting beside the broken body of my love, my sweetheart. Here with tears and sobs wracking my body like bullets and bombs. It brought the doctor with news of tragic standards, of blood clots in her brain and the action of half of her head being shaved for the surgery. It brought her almost definite immobility from the waist down. It brought heartache and a stinging in my chest that makes me want to fade away and dissolve into nothing. It made me want to give up.

26 days have passed and she hasn't made any form of moment. Her brain activity is deteriorating, almost non existent.

My heart and soul, my end and my beginning, my happiness and my world is now lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to life support machines and blood drips. Casts and plasters hugged her body, bruises kissed her skin in a sickly way.

We're in the mists of autumn now, a time which I wish I could share with her; but I knew winter was her favourite season. The way she talked about snow, as if it was an out of this world substance. I remember the day she told me that. We were on a bus, on our way to a day trip up north. She took me to Greynolds Park then we got dinner in a little Italian restaurant. Of course she insisted we get spaghetti and meatballs so we could re-inact the scene in Lady And The Trap. She got sauce on her nose and i got everyone in the places' eyes on me. But that didnt stop me from kisses it off her nose and reminding her how I'll always love her and her adorable ways.

I could see it in the doctors eyes that they were losing hope. I had read 6 different books on brain activity, trying to understand what she was going through. Unfortunately, as each day passes, the chances of her waking up are slimmed down. Hour by hour, minute by minute. She still looked beautiful to me, even with the scar the stretched from behind her ear all the way to her hair line and her bruises and bumps. A slight fuzz of hair had started to grow back where they had shaved it. I was annoyed that they did it without consideration of the result. Literally half her head was without hair, and every time I caught a glimpse of deep scar I flinched. She was as vulnerable as a newly born baby.

I read in one of the books that brain activity can be triggered by one of the senses, which I'm trying out today. I brought from her shed; her perfume, her oldest book and one of my old jumpers. I had other ideas up my sleeve too. I remembered the song she sang to me on the night we kissed and I learned the song off by heart, cords and all. I finally brought her copy of Catcher in The Rye to read to her.

Claire had been like the mother I wish I had the past two weeks. She excepted me in every way I needed and I grew to love her so much. Shane is perfect for her and I'm happy she has him to fall back on, but I've got no one. She is my Shane. She's the Noah to my Ally and the Jack to my Rose, and I missed her so much. She lay before me but she was miles away. Claire also, was in fact pregnant. She planned on telling us on Sunday, when her and Shane were going to invite us to dinner. They also were going to ask us both to be godparents, which, when I heard, I excepted in a heartbeat; and I knew Laurens response would have been the same.

Jake has been under house arrest since that day Lauren was brought in, but both him and his father are still unaware that Lauren is Jakes half brother, and Mr.Hansons daughter. Hes meant to have his trail in the next few days, which i chose not to attend, And claire gracefully stepped in and said she'll go to represent me. It was just fate that lead to the biological connection between him and Lauren not being detected all this time. Lauren took her mothers surname when she was born, and her father had changed his name when he left them, obviously in an attempted to start his life over and cover up his tracks. They didnt even look alike, apart from their eyes. Jake obviously took after his mother, causing the resemblance to be non existent. It took me a while it get my brain around it, but once I did it was almost laughable.

I sat beside her, guitar in my lap, praying this would work. It was my last hope and my hands shaking while the reality set in. I ran my hands over the strings and started the song.

What would I do without your smart mouth,

Drawing me in, and you kicking me out,

Got my head spinning, no kidding, I can't pin you down,

What's going on in that beautiful mind,

I'm your magical mystery ride,

And I'm so dizzy, don't know what hit me, but I'll be alright.

I took in a shaky breath and tired to compose myself, but I couldn't. Agony ran through my veins at the prospect of losing her. My eyes scanned her body, trying to find any form of movement, but I was met with silence apart from the steady rhythm of her heart beat. My hands were shaking too much to go on, so instead I picked up Catcher In The Rye and flipped to a page she had marked and started to read;

"Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles."

I tried not to let tears fall from my eyes as she remained motionless in her bed. I felt as if the walls were closing in around me and I was suffocating. I tried to push the thoughts out of my mind as I continued.

"You'll learn from them-if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry."

My voice cracked on the last few words and with that I stopped. I couldn't take it anymore.

"Lauren god damn it you open your eyes right now!" I half yelled as I was met with silence.

"You promised me! You promised me you'd protect me! You promised me happiness and security and love! You promised me forever Lauren! I need you to fight through this and wake up because its so fucking hard having to do this alone. People look at me here and they throw me pitied looks, but I'm not the one they should be sad for, it's you. You're here because of me and if you don't wake up I'll never be able to live with myself. You're really going to leave me alone?! After everything that's happened you're going to give up on us?!"

The words fell from my mouth without filter and I'm sure the people on the streets outside could hear me. But I couldn't care less.

"You're the best thing that ever happened to me Lauren, please don't let me go," I sob out and collapse onto the floor. I felt the walls of my world collapse on me as sadness enveloped me. I covered my face as I let out angry, tearless sobs.

Then all at once I heard the steady beat of her heart pick up through the machine, in response I shot quickly to her side and grabbed her hand.

"Lauren baby please, just show me you're still with me," I beg out.

The hand I'm holding in mine slowly but surly starts to squeeze back and I almost collapse with relief. I let out a shaky breath before I hear just above a whisper.

"I'll never break a promise to you my love," she didn't even have her eyes open but she was there, she spoke to me and my heart soared.

The erratic behaviour heartbeat beckoned in hoards of doctors and nurses, all trying to asses the frail girl in front of me. I didn't even care I was being shoved out of the way and tossed around the room like a rag doll, I knew in that moment she would fight for me and she'd be alright; and that was enough for me.