Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“If he’s comfortable, we should leave him in there,” she tells me, and I follow her to his room. He wakes up this time and then asks to come with us. He cuddles up to me as we sleep the three of us in the bed, and when I say sleep, I’m lying. Denise just watches him the whole night.
“How are you going to function tomorrow?” I whisper to her, and she just shrugs.
“This is nothing,” she says, and I look at her.
“I love you,” I tell her softly, and she just reaches out and comes closer.
“Love you more,” she says, and by the time I blink, her alarm is going off softly in her hands. She looks at Jack sleeping in my arms and reaches out to touch his head. “He’s warm.”
“No, he isn’t,” I tell her. “He’s stuck to me.”
“You need to make sure the minute his temperature goes up that you bring him in.”
“I know,” I tell her as she rushes around the room getting her things ready and quietly kissing us before walking out of the room. I hear the front door close softly and close my eyes, but then I hear the door again.
I rise on my elbow and look over at the door, listening to the footsteps again, this time coming back upstairs. I watch Denise come in the room.
“Did you forget something?” I ask her as she stands there and takes off her jacket.
“I can’t go to work like this. Half my head is here,” she says, kicking off her shoes. “Actually, my whole head is here.”
“Baby,” I say. Getting off the bed and going to her, I grab her face in my hands. “He’s going to be fine.”
“I know but”—she puts her hands on mine—“I can’t leave him.”
“Okay,” I whisper and kiss her lips. “Get back into your pjs.”
She climbs back into bed on her side while she watches him sleep, and I watch her. Grateful, so fucking grateful that I found her.
It’s a good thing she was checking because that night we notice his temperature is going up. Slowly but surely, it hits a fever, and she is wrapping him in her arms, and we are rushing him to the hospital.
We load up the car, and when we finally get to the hospital, Steve is waiting for us. “His temperature went from normal, and now he’s borderline.” Denise starts walking with him as he brings us to a room, and Jack groans in my arms.
“I’m tired,” he says and then closes his eyes, Denise starts to get a little frantic. She whips off her jacket once I lie him down and starts to call orders out when Steve looks at her.
“You need to step aside, Denise,” he says to her, and she just stops. “Go and stand with Zack.” She doesn’t have to say anything; instead, he steps in front of her and holds her hands.
She comes to stand next to me and puts her arms around my waist as we watch them hook Jack up to machines.
The beeping of his heart fills the room. “We need to start him on the meds,” Denise says, and Steve just nods at her.
“Don’t make me put you out of the room,” he tells her, and she lets go of my waist. “You aren’t in charge here.”
She looks like the devil just took over her body, and I have to put an arm around her. “Let them do what they need to do,” I tell her, and she just watches.
For the next thirty minutes, they take his blood pressure and temperature, and when Steve turns to us and walks past us, Denise knows to follow him. “I’m not going to tell you what you already know. I will tell you that we are doing the best thing for him. I administered the drug, and now I hate to say it, but it’s a waiting game.”
“That isn’t good enough,” Denise says. “Call Melissa and see what the backup plan is.”
“There isn’t a backup plan, and you know that.” He looks down. “The next twenty-four hours are critical.”
“What are you saying?” I finally speak.
“If his temperature doesn’t go down, chances are we’re going to lose him,” Steve says; his voice sounds almost disconnected, but I know that it’s killing him just to say this.
“What?” I whisper as I hear Denise from beside me.
“This is all my fault,” she says as her legs give out, and she leans against the wall, falling to the floor.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Denise
If it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t be here. If it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t be fighting for his life right now. I sit in the chapel, the lights from the candles filling the room and the soft sunlight coming into the stain glass windows.
It’s been twelve hours, twelve hours since he opened his eyes last, twelve hours since we heard his voice. Steve just about barred me from his room. Every single time the machine beeped or his pressure changed, I jumped up and questioned everything that he did. Zack just sat there, his eyes focused on the rise and fall of Jack’s chest. Lost in his own world of fear.