Ophelia (12 page)

“Ophelia,” I whispered as I reached out and touched her. “Ophelia.” My finger pressed against the side of her neck searching for a hint of a pulse, and it was there. I found a feeble heartbeat, but to me it was the most powerful thing I had to hold onto her because she was all I had and all I wanted. The engagement I had planned, the wedding we had talked about and the kids we had agreed to have. All of this meant something. She had to go through that list of hers and remember all the good things we needed to get back to. She needed to come back to me.

“Sir, I suggest you don't move her. Let the paramedics take care of this,” a lady suggested.

“There are no fucking paramedics and she needs me. She always needs me.” My voice was weak. I couldn't remember the last time I felt that weak. All power gone.

“Stay there with her but, do not move her.” I could tell by the tone in her voice that she wanted me to understand the gravity of the situation.

I had left her for two hours. For those two hours, I had turned my back on her, left her alone, by herself and then, this happened. The words I told her disgusted me. Telling her I was done with her was a terrible lie. One that could cost her life. I hated myself. I had wanted to hurt her. No longer. Now I wanted to take it back. I would take her any way I could get her, as long as I had her alive. My Chopin.

People were staring at us. I had no idea where the driver of the car was. I didn’t fucking care. I was a sobbing mess and her body was still unresponsive. A man tried to pull me away from her, but I fought with all the strength I had. My place was by her side. I wasn’t done with her, I needed her like I needed oxygen. Ophelia was everything to me. She fixed everything that was wrong in my life. She filled every void my family had left empty.

“Sir, I suggest you to step out of the way now.” A man said.

“I can’t leave her alone. She’s bleeding.” She had a cut on her scalp, which left her reddish hair damp with blood. I kissed her forehead one last time, hoping to see her eyes open, but they didn’t.

“The paramedics are here,” the same man added.

As I stepped out of their way, I grabbed her purse. The paramedics took her vitals. They could have been talking in Chinese and it wouldn’t have made a difference. They exchanged a few words here and there while they placed her on a stretcher.

I thought I saw her eyes open for an instant, but I was wrong. Her whole body started trembling. Never in my existence had I seen something that horrific. Well, yes, I had during the small period of time I hung out at my dad’s club before the girls and I moved here. I closed my eyes, trying to think of something else. Right now wasn’t the time to remember Dad. Ophelia was in shock, her whole body responding to the injuries.

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked them.

“We need to get her to the hospital now,” the paramedic said, not meeting my eyes, but keeping his on Ophelia. Fuck! I hated seeing her like this.

They didn’t asked me to go, I didn’t give them a choice. I sat in the back of the ambulance and held her hand, praying that she would be okay. I begged whoever was up there to let her be okay, she didn’t need any more drama in her life. I had done everything I could to keep her safe since the day we first spoke. Up until today, I had never given up on her.

I tried to keep my mind on positive thoughts, I couldn’t let anything negative surround her. Her hand was shaking and her whole body had spasms every few seconds. That scared the shit out of me.

We got to the hospital and everything blurred around me. It all went fast. They took her away, nurses and doctors taking over.

What am I supposed to do now?
I wanted to punch a hole into the wall. My mind couldn’t see clearly, my heart was hurting. I was a lost man.

I sat in the waiting room and it felt like a nightmare. I had seen scenes like this in movies where the person in my shoes would call the family, and the parents would run to the hospital, but we only had each other. Beverly was out of town.  Her phone sent me directly to the voicemail. I asked her to call me as soon as possible. I didn’t want to leave too many details, afraid that it would scare her.

Sitting for more than ten minutes was impossible. My legs trembled from all the adrenaline in my body. The images of Ophelia getting hit by the car were on repeat in my mind, and it was driving me fucking crazy. Her scream, the sound of the windshield breaking. Everything made me want to pull off my own head.

I went through the pictures on my phone of us in Australia. The promises we had made to each other, her smile, her. It represented everything I wanted. We had agreed on a life together, the one thing I wanted more than anything else. She had officially stopped taking the pill, although we were still being careful to give her body a break. We had started looking for rings. Why did I have to ruin everything and leave her? I was a pathetic idiot. Who would give up on a diamond? I fucking did and look where it got us.

She could be dead, or fighting to stay alive, I had no idea.

I paced in the waiting room, from right to left and left to right.

A woman in scrubs hustled by and I hurried to her, grabbing her arm. “Excuse me, nurse, could I have any updates on my girlfriend?”

“Her name?”

“Ophelia Stewart. She was hit by a car.”

“The doctors are still with her. We’ll let you know as soon as we have an update on her status.”

I nodded instead of screaming. My body ran on anger and adrenaline. I wanted to crash through those doors that separated us and find her.

It had been two hours now, way too long of a wait. I rose from the chair as soon as I saw the doctor came out. “Ms. Ophelia Stewart.”

“I’m her family, her boyfriend. How is she?”

“She’s better. She is suffering from a moderate concussion, a broken wrist, a broken rib and...” He paused. And what? “We’re doing everything we can to save the baby, sir.”

“A baby, we are expecting? How far along is she?” I had all those questions hitting me, but I failed to ask more as the tears blurred my vision and my body surged back into panic mode.

A baby? A baby? A baby? I couldn't believe the words that came out of the doctor’s mouth.

“She’s with the best obstetrician we have in the hospital at the moment. She is trying to save the baby, but Ms. Steward lost a lot of blood. We’re still running some tests.”

“Save my baby. You have to save our baby.” It was all we had. The beginning of us, let it not be the end of us. Losing the baby was all on me, all my fault, and I didn't think I was going to be able to face her if the little one didn't make it. Tears of sadness and pain slid off to the side of my cheeks. The doctor squeezed my shoulder and went back to Ophelia. My life had turned into a total disaster.

Once I was left alone in the waiting room, all the questions I should have asked surged into my mind, but it was too late to get answers.

The man in me was completely broken, savagely torn to pieces. My heart hurt, my brain was flipping pictures of her at hundreds miles an hour, and my arms and fingers trembled like a leaf in the wind. I had to sit because my legs were so weak I couldn't stand.

I cried, I hurt and I hoped.

The ring of my phone awoke me from my nightmare. Beverly.

“Bev.” I said with a broken voice.

“What happened?” she asked, and I could hear the anxiety in her voice.

“She was hit by a car,” I told her, unable to control my tears. I explained to her everything that happened in the last couple of hours. Including our fight, London and the accident.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I was pretty sure she was crying at that point. They were sisters, regardless of blood.

Once we had hung up, the pressure I felt diminished a bit, though it remained as painful. Some part of me felt better because I wasn’t so alone anymore. What if Ophelia lost more blood? What if she didn’t make it? What if the baby didn’t make it? How is Ophelia going to react to losing her only family?  I knew how terrible I felt and how my life didn’t make sense anymore. I wanted her alive, most importantly, and I hoped that our little baby was going to survive, to be part of our family and cement us together.

My mind wandered as I closed my burning eyes for a moment. I needed a break, I needed to try and calm down. Even if nothing around me was right, I had to find some kind of peace. My soul called a time-out from this hell. This pain was all too similar to my mother’s death. I couldn’t be there with her, I never got to say goodbye. I couldn’t go through this with Ophelia. I simply couldn’t.

Two voices calling my name at the same time, the doctor and Beverly – who seemed to arrive at that precise time – got me back to reality within a second.

“Sir,” he paused and looked at me, probably wondering how much pain he was going to indulge me in. “We weren’t able to save the baby. We did everything we could but the placenta was damaged and there was nothing we could do after that”.

The weight of the whole universe fell on my shoulders. My knees failed to support me. It was all my fault. We had lost the one thing we both wanted, a family.

My heart was completely broken. I was certain that I had lost everything that mattered to me. Ophelia, our future. I’d made the mistake of turning my back on her. If I hadn’t done it, the baby would still be safely growing, and Ophelia would be happy but probably away in London.

I wished I could change the past, but unfortunately, I couldn’t. I had to live with this reality that looked too much like a nightmare.

“Sir, I suggest you take a seat, okay?”

I ignored her and shook my head no. “Can I see her now? It’s been hours.”

“Yes, but you can only stay for fifteen minutes. She needs to rest.”

Finally, I was going to see her. I took Beverly in a heartfelt embrace. I kissed her cheek.

“I have to see her, Bev.” I pleaded. “I have to see that she’s alive.”

I only had fifteen minutes with Ophelia but I had hundreds of things to tell her. First thing, I loved her. I could breathe better now that I knew I was going to see her, but I knew, or I thought I knew what was to come.

I followed the doctor to her room, I wanted her to walk faster, I wanted to run. My fingers were trembling. I should have been by her side hours ago. This moment couldn’t come fast enough.

The doctor pushed open the door of her room. I took one or two long breaths before walking in. I knew I wasn’t going to like what I was about to see. I expected bruises, a cast and IV, but what I saw was ten thousand times worse. The side of her head, over her temple, was shaved and dotted with stitches. She had a small black eye that resemble smeared mascara. Her wrist was in a cast and I knew what it meant, she could no longer play piano. Not until it was removed. Her legs were hiding under a thin white blanket. Her skin tone worried me, she was ghostly white. Even her lips were colorless. I hated seeing her like this. I was responsible for everything that had happened to her. I approached her and sat in the wooden chair next to her. Tears escaped as I stared at her. Her breathing was stable and I thanked God numerous times to have her here, alive. I could’ve lost her, she could’ve died.

“I remember when I first saw you walking in at the center. You were seventeen, skinny and your hair was missing in a few spots. You avoided us all, you didn’t make any eye contact. You walked to your room and you stayed in there forever. Two mornings after your arrival, I saw you for the second time and what I saw intrigued me. You weren’t a rebel, you didn’t seem to be a troubled child. Clearly, you weren’t there for the same reason as I was. Your eyes were always hidden behind tears. I tried to talk to you a couple of times, but you were really good at ignoring me. I hated it and you nearly drove me crazy. I did a little research as soon as I found out your name, and I learned what had happened to you. I immediately understood why you had gotten a black cross tattooed on your neck, and I knew what made you so devastated. The other kids thought I had gone crazy when I started protecting you, but I was scared that my father’s club might have something to do with your parents’ death. It had nothing to do with them, thankfully. But I vowed always to watch over you. You had something I couldn’t live without. You had that fire. When you finally talked to me, you made me the proudest of them all. For all the families my father and his club had probably broken, I wanted to take care of you and make you happy. I didn’t care how much time it would take, I only needed you.” I kissed her arm, hoping she would react to my touch, but I got nothing except the sound coming from the machine. Beep, beep, beep. I listened to the only noise that proved she was alive.

As ironic as it was, the new scar on her scalp formed the letter T. I hated that I liked it. I knew my time with her was coming to an end. Fifteen minutes never seemed so short. There was a nightstand next to my chair and out of curiosity, I decided to look inside. Of course, I found a Bible but I also found a bag with all of her personal belongings. I opened the bag and went through her stuff. It smelled like her, the perfume I loved and craved so much. They had removed her jewelry, and what was left of her clothing. Dried blood covered her shirt, I remembered the scene in my head all too well. There was a lot of blood. At the bottom of the bag, there was a white pencil and I wondered why. I took it and turned it over. Immediately, I was reminded of the pregnancy test we had bought. She knew, before everything happened. I didn’t know what to think about this but it suddenly clicked in my head. She was probably about to leave for London when she took the test. As soon as she got the result, she probably ran to get to me. She didn’t seem sad or scared when I first saw her on the other side of the street. She was happy. She was finally happy. The thought of her pain only shattered me.

I still believed that if I hadn’t left her earlier, this wouldn’t have happened and our baby would still be perfectly safe.

“Moving to California was crazy. We were all so young. Beverly had a good life but we were both damaged. Your desire to learn and get a degree pushed me to work harder. I wanted to be enough for you, I wanted be good enough that you could eventually be proud of me.” I chuckled. “But you were wild. You partied hard and I did too, but never as much as you did. I wanted to protect you from the vultures waiting for me to fail. University ended up exactly like I thought it would. Loads of coffee and studies, but God, did we have fun.” I paused, remembering our wild days. “Once, you said you more than liked me. You were really wasted that night though. But you made my day anyway. You made it all worth it.”