Absolutely Unforgivable (33 page)

My body began to shake and tears started to stream down my face yet again. Jeromy, hearing my distress, came into the room and wrapped me in his loving, supportive arms.

“It’s going to be okay, Stacy. You’ll see.”

“How is it going to be okay, Jeromy?” I really just didn’t understand how he could say that. It wasn’t going to be okay. My relationship with Billy may not have been that long, but he was my soul mate. The time we had together was the most amazing time of my life. He was my world and I didn’t know how I could go on without him.

“Listen, Stacy. I need you to really focus on my words right now. I need to make sure you understand some things.”

I rubbed the tears from my eyes and really tried to understand what Jeromy was saying to me. He had that serious look on his face that I hated all too much.

“We are about to head out and when we get to the hospital there are going to be some crowds. Are you sure you can handle this?”

Hospital? Why are we going to the hospital and not the funeral home?

But before I could ask Jeromy he continued. “Do you understand me, Stacy? I know they have you on a lot of meds right now to keep you calm, but I need you to try and pull yourself together. Billy needs you to be strong for him right now.”

I could hear every word Jeromy was saying but none of them made any sense. Billy was dead. I watched him die in my arms. I watched them put him on the stretcher and take him away. My mind flashed to that night and the image of him on the stretcher. Then I remember the IV bag hanging over the stretcher. Why would they give an IV to someone who was dead? My heart began to race.

“Jeromy, is Billy okay?”

“We don’t know yet. They’ve had him in a medically induced coma for the past few days while they operated on him. But today they are waking him up and that’s why we are going to the hospital.”

“To the ... hospital. Where Billy is. The hospital. In a coma.” I jumped up and a huge smile came over my face.

“Stacy, are you okay?”

“Oh my God, yes I am. I am wonderful. I can’t tell you how okay I am right now. Billy is alive and that is all that matters.”

On the way to the hospital, Jeromy introduced me to the brunette from earlier. Her name was Susan and she and Jeromy had been friends since high school. They recently ran into each other and revived their friendship.

When the car pulled up to the hospital, I jumped out. I couldn’t wait to see Billy. Vin was quickly by my side, trying to shield me from the onslaught of rushing fans and media. I didn’t care though. Let them take all of the pictures they wanted. Nothing was going to get me down today. Billy was alive. Just barely; but still we had a fighting chance and nothing was going to take that happiness away from me.

When we arrived, Billy had just started coming to. I wanted to leap in his arms but I could tell he was far too weak for that. I wanted to know the extent of his injuries and the nurse filled me in.

“The blade went through his back and puncture an intestine and then sliced through the lining of his stomach.”

“And that’s where all of that blood came from that night?” I asked squeamishly.

“Yes and the sudden loss of so much blood is what made him fall to the ground and pass out and that is when he must have hit his head on the concrete and had some swelling of the brain. That is why we’ve had him in a medically induced coma, to help facilitate his recovery. In essence, he slept off the swelling while we repaired his other injuries.”

“So he’s going to be okay now?”

“They have repaired the damage and he should be fine but it will be a slow and painful recovery. He’s not just going to pop up out of bed and be fine. He’ll need plenty of rest to give his body time to get better.”

I didn’t care how long it took though. At least there would be a recovery. That was all that mattered to me. I must have had a worried look on my face because Billy reached up and grabbed my hand and squeezed it as best he could while the nurse told me all that was going on.

When she left I sat down beside him and started crying. I couldn’t help it. I was just so happy that he was alive. Billy was weak but still he did his best to comfort me. “Please don’t cry. I’m going to be okay. I promise.”

“I know. It’s not that. I’m just so happy you are alive. I thought you were dead. I can’t even begin to tell you how horrible these past few days have been.”

After crying a bit more, there was a tap at the door. The rest of the gang wanted to know if they could visit. The nurses would only allow them to come in two at a time. Bran and Zander came in first, then Mindy and Bree, followed by Travis and Jeromy, then Darla and Starla, Patrick and Tiffany, then Trista and Brick.

I knew Billy was happy to see everyone but I could also tell it was taxing on him so when they left I turned down the lights and let Billy sleep. I sat in the corner reading a book Bree had gotten me from the gift shop.

He slept a lot but when he was awake I was there. We watched TV, Jeromy snuck in his iPad for us to watch movies on, and we talked. We talked about our plans for the future, our dreams, and talked about taking a trip to Rome, somewhere both of us wanted to visit. We wouldn’t be able to go right away, but perhaps next year.

Billy spent the next twelve days in the hospital recovering and I almost never left his side. One of the few things I did leave Billy for was to go to the bathroom to throw up, which I did quite often. One of the nurses finally pulled me aside and asked if I was okay. We were trying to be quiet as Billy was sleeping. I thanked her for her concern but assured her I would be fine. I had just been through a lot lately and my body was just trying to find a way to deal with the stress.

“Uh huh,” she said as she listened to me explain. Then she pulled a small cup with a lid fastened securely on top out of her pocket and said, “Here, go pee in this and we’ll see.”

“No really, I’m fine. I promise.”

“If you are fine then you won’t mind just doing this small thing for me. You need to take care of yourself so that you’ll be strong enough to take care of Billy. He needs you to be one hundred percent right now.”

“Fine,” I said as I grabbed the cup and went into the bathroom to fill it up. I mean, how could I really argue with her logic? Billy did need me right now and admittedly I had been vomiting for a while. It seemed like everything made me sick. Every smell seemed over-amplified and sent me running to the bathroom to throw up.

After I finished I sat the cup on the sink like she had instructed. She came in behind me and pulled a little white testing strip out of her pocket. She looked around to make sure nobody else was coming, as if nobody else knew what she was doing, and then stuck the strip in my urine.

She pulled it out and within seconds three blue lines appeared on the strip and a big smile came across her face. “That’s what I thought,” she said as she emptied the cup and tossed it in the trash. “Stacy Keller, you are going to be a mommy.”

I stood there looking at her in disbelief. “You need to make an appointment to go see your doctor soon. You are probably not that far along, but still it’s important you see your doctor right away. With all the stress you’ve been under from the attack it’s probably not good for the baby; so you’ll want to get everything checked out.”

I nodded my head indicating that I understood what she was saying to me. But still in my mind I was frantically trying to do the math. How long has it really been since I have been with Jeromy? Could this baby be his or is it Billy’s?
Oh how proud my parents must be. Their daughter is knocked up, unmarried and she doesn’t know who the father is.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized there was no way it could be Jeromy’s. Even though I was on the pill, we had always used a condom, plus I hadn’t been with Jeromy for a while now. I would probably be showing by now if it was his. The baby could only be Billy’s.

“How is this even possible though? I’m on the pill and have been for years.”

The nurse gave me a sympathetic look and explained. “The pill isn’t one hundred percent effective and becomes even less so with outside factors. Drinking alcohol could reduce the effectiveness, other medications like antibiotics and even some over the counter allergy pills.”

“What about sedatives?”

“Possibly, some can. And also if you ever miss a day of taking your pill. That’s how most girls on the pill find themselves in this situation. The pill is something you have to take every day without fail.”

Between the sedatives, the drinking and a few days here and there I’ve missed taking the pill, I guess it was only a matter of time before this happened.
How could I have been so irresponsible?

The nurse walked out of the bathroom and noticed Billy was awake. “I’ll leave you two alone. I’m sure you have a lot to talk about.”

Billy looked at me, wondering what the nurse meant, but I didn’t know how to answer him. I really didn’t know how to explain what I had just learned moments ago. My head was still spinning. I fell back into the chair near Billy’s bed but I still didn’t speak.

“Babe, please. What’s going on? Are they not letting me go home today? Did something happen?”

“Yes, no. Everything is fine with .... You are coming home with me today. I … The doctor … I think he should be here any minute to sign off on your release.”

“What has you so freaked out? I’ve never seen you like this before.”

I took a deep breath and then walked over to his bed. I grabbed his hand and intertwined my fingers with his. “Billy, do you remember what you said to me before ... well, before that crazy man attacked you?”

He sat up in his bed. “Of course I do. And I meant every word of it. I want you to be my wife. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life showing you exactly how much I love you. I know we haven’t been together that long, but I knew from the first moment I saw you that I wanted to spend the rest of my life looking at that beautiful face of yours. You have no idea how in love with you I am.”

I looked at him and smiled. “That’s good because I don’t want my baby to grow up without a daddy.”

He paused, looking at me, letting what I had just said sink in, and then he looked around as if trying to get familiar with the environment, wondering if maybe he had stepped into the Twilight Zone. Billy looked at me in bewilderment, and then let go of my hand. His blue eyes widened and then darted to my stomach.

“Are you?”

I nodded and smiled as tears started to form in my eyes. Billy jumped out of bed and hugged me as he put his hand to my stomach.

“How far along are you? Is it a boy or girl?”

“I don’t know. I just found out. The nurse thinks I’m not really that far along. I’m going to make an appointment with the doctor tomorrow and find out the rest.”

Billy’s doctor came in the room and Billy sat back down on his bed. The doctor glanced at his chart, and then signed off to let him be released but not before reminding us that he should take it easy and not even consider being intimate, exercising or heavy lifting for the next three months minimum. I assured his doctor Billy would be well looked after and wouldn’t do anything he shouldn’t. Then after filling out a mountain of paperwork we were on our way back home. I stood by Billy’s side as the nurse wheeled him out of the hospital and to the black limousine that was waiting for us.

The crowds had ballooned and were double in size what they had been when I first arrived at the hospital. Billy held up his hand to wave at his adoring fans and then got into the back of the car. When he did we found Brick and Trista were there waiting for us. They couldn’t wait to tell us the good news.

When Billy and I were creating our special love song, the one we sang that morning on
Good Morning Houston
, we had recorded our sessions. Billy said it would help us figure out which parts of the song worked and which ones didn’t. There were easily ten or fifteen hours of footage of us singing that song and Brick had pieced it all together with Patrick and Tiffany’s help and they had released the song on iTunes. The song has now had over one million downloads.

They played their version of the song for us on the ride home. They had done a great job piecing the final song together but still I wasn’t so sure if I liked that they released it without talking to us first. That was our love song.

“Billy and Stacy are the absolute biggest thing out there right now,” Trista proudly told us. “You are megastars. The house is mobbed with a legion of fans outside of the gate every day, all night and all day. They never leave.”

I squeezed Billy’s hand. I was nervous about all of this. I was happy that Billy and his band were finally having the huge success I really always knew they would, but the thought of all of those screaming girls worried me and the possibility of another crazy man scared me to death. That probably worried me most of all.

I leaned in and put my head on Billy’s chest as Brick and Trista continued to talk about all that was going on with the requests for interviews, the offer to sign the band with a major record label, and all of the merchandise they were moving from the website. Billy didn’t say anything to Trista and Brick. He listened to what they had to say, smiled and nodded, but no words actually left his mouth.