My throat is burning.
My eyes are burning.
Everything is burning.
I feel arms wrap protectively around my stomach from behind, holding me back.
I fight them.
Fight them harder than I've ever fought anything in my life.
"Tommy" I whimper. "Please, please."
He only holds tighter, draws me to him.
He keeps my feet planted, doesn't let me move.
But he lets me watch.
He lets me see.
They have her on the gurney.
Stretched flat.
There are hands around her, everywhere, touching her.
I want them to be my hands.
They should be my hands.
"They're going to help her." he whispers into my ear. "Let them help her."
The hands rip her shirt open, and the wound is exposed.
I gasp.
Desperate for air.
Desperate for anything but the feelings that I am feeling.
Everything shakes.
Everything. Burns.
Despite my job, despite all the death I've seen, this is too much.
This is more than I bargained for.
This is going to break me.
I rip away from his arms and double over.
My heart is pounding in my ears.
My stomach is churning.
My mind is racing.
I can't stop the bile that is building in my throat.
It pushes forward until I'm coughing and gasping for air.
Air.
It's all I can think about.
The air that I am breathing, and the air that she is not.
I am gasping.
Gasping for something, anything to bring me back to life.
And then I feel him.
One hand rubs my back as the other holds my hair.
Tommy.
My Tommy.
The only man who has ever truly treated me right;
loved me right.
He is the best brother.
The best friend.
I finally finish heaving and his arms come around me once more.
He helps me to my feet, just in time to see the doors of the ambulance slam shut.
A sob is born from the back of my throat.
He puts his hands on my shoulders, turns me to face him.
He has her eyes.
Suddenly everything is so real, so crisp.
Those eyes look at me from behind thick eyelashes and I realize.
I realize that I may never see them again.
See Jane's eyes.
Hear Jane's laugh.
Feel Jane's heart.
I reach for Tommy, the closest thing I have to her.
But I falter.
My fingers stretch out but fumble.
Trip on the fact that she could be gone.
That this could be it.
I feel my knees buckle from the weight, the pressure.
And he catches me.
He sweeps me into his arms and lets me cling to him.
Lets me wrap his shirt into my fists.
Lets me cry into his shoulder.
"Relax, Maura. Try and relax."
How can I relax?
How can I ever be calm again?
Suddenly there is a flutter within me.
A rolling sensation that comes along with being pregnant.
Being filled.
I feel it, feel her.
And I know Tommy feels it too, because he goes stiff.
"You're going to be okay." He whispers.
I'm not sure who he's talking to, who he's trying to convince.
But it's enough.
Enough to make me breathe.
Make me find the air that I so desperately need.
When we finally reach the hospital, she is in surgery.
I'm sitting in a chair.
A stupid hospital chair that is so painfully uncomfortable.
But I don't care.
People walk around me.
Sit next to me.
Try and hold my hand.
But I can't feel them.
I see them, though.
I see Angela reach out to me and pull me in.
I see the tears glistening in her eyes.
On her cheeks.
But I don't feel her.
I don't feel anything but numbness.
I fix my eyes on the wall in front of me and do not move.
Do not look.
Because the moment I focus on this family, I will lose it.
The moment I look into the eyes of my pretend mother, my Angela, my heart will melt.
And it will never heal.
Her hand is on the back of my neck, rubbing, soothing.
She is bent forward, looking into my eyes.
But I do not look back.
"Maura." she is begging. "Maura please."
Angela's breath hitches in her throat as my name tumbles painfully from her lips.
I wish I could help her.
I wish I could love her properly.
But I don't know how.
Everything inside of me is tired, exhausted.
And the baby will not stop moving.
She will not settle down.
And it is scaring me.
She kicks hard into my ribcage and it makes me jump, knocks the wind out of me.
I rub circles across my stomach, trying to soothe her.
Nothing is working.
Suddenly, Angela covers my hands with her own, traces my movements as I continue soothing, loving.
My breath hitches in my throat and I gasp once more as her feet connect with my ribs.
"She wont stop," I breathe.
They're the first words I've spoken since the shot.
Since my Jane.
And I speak them just loud enough so that only Angela can hear.
"Do you want me to call a doctor?" she questions.
Finally, I turn and meet her eyes.
They are big and brown and just hard enough to keep me grounded.
Hold me in place.
I nod.
My bottom lip trembles.
Then she stands, and is gone.
Two hours later and I am in a wheel chair.
And Jane is out of surgery.
"Stay off your feet." my doctor had told me. "Try not to stress."
I almost laughed in her face.
People come in and out of her room like clockwork.
Doctors come to check her pulse.
Read her chart.
Ask me if I'm okay.
The answer is always no, but I'd never say that.
Never out loud, at least.
Angela sits with me, behind me, just out of sight.
She has yet to leave my side.
Yet to stop worrying.
"Maura," she calls my name, gentle and soft.
"Maura, please can you talk to me?" I hear her voice shaking. "I need to get out of my head."
I nod. "Okay."
I look down at my wife and I feel tears burning my throat.
But I push them away.
My left hand is laced with right, fingers intertwined.
I wish hers would hold mine back.
But they don't.
They stay limp.
I stretch my fingers outward and my ring catches the light from the window, casting rainbows on the walls.
"What do you want me to talk about?" I ask.
"Anything." She responds.
I could talk about Jane, but that's too painful.
I could talk about science, but it'll just make her more nervous.
"Anything," she repeats once more, so quiet I almost don't hear it. I'm not sure if she even knows she said it.
"Once," I begin. "When I was seventeen, I had this hamster.
I'd had him for two months exactly. His name was Edison."
"Why Edison?" She asks quietly.
"Thomas Edison." I explain quickly. "He invented the lightbulb."
I hear her soft giggle and it spurs me forward.
"I was living in my dorm at BCU that year... I had no one to talk to. And when I got home that summer, my parents were traveling through Europe.
And still, I had no one to talk to.
So I got this...hamster.
This dumb hamster that was secretly a little escape artist.
And all I could think about was how stupid it was for him to keep running.
Keep fleeing.
It's not like he was going to get anywhere.
But every few days I would return to my room and he would be gone."
I shake my head, run my free hand through my hair.
I don't know where this story is going, but I continue.
"And then eventually, after he'd escaped again, I never found him.
He was just gone.
Still, to this day, I have no idea where he went.
I liked to think that he somehow got outside and was living happily in the wild.
But I could never be sure.
And after that, I spent almost every single day of that summer alone.
By myself.
I bought that hamster to keep me company; to be my friend.
But he didn't want that.
He wanted to do anything but stay with me."
I feel tears burning the back of my throat once more as I get closer and closer to the point that I didn't even realize I was making.
"And that's when I realized something.
I realized that I was better off on my own, where people couldn't just do that.
Couldn't just walk in and out of my world.
I kept my distance from everyone, making acquaintances, but never friends.
I'd had a few boyfriends, but eventually they left too.
And I got used to it.
I got used to being unwanted.
Lonely.
And I lived every day from that day forward expecting everyone to walk away.
To not want to stay.
And then I met Jane.
And she changed all of that
Even before we were together. Before we fell in love.
She was my friend.
The only one I ever had.
And even though she had every reason to turn and walk away, she never did.
And I don't know why...
Maybe I never will.
But all of a sudden, I found myself trusting her; believing her when she promised to never leave.
And every broken part of me healed.
And I stopped waiting for the hat to drop.
Stopped waiting for her goodbye."
Suddenly there are hands on my shoulders.
I turn and Angela is there, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Maura,"
She says my name again, as she has done so many times today.
And I respond.
"I love her, Angela."
She nods.
I choke back the hurt that is building inside of my chest.
"I love you, Angela."
With that she is beside me, pulling me to her.
And I let myself go.
I finally let myself sink into the arms that have been waiting patently for this moment all day long.
And it feels good.
It feels like home.
Then, like magic, there is movement beside me.
There are trembling fingers and trembling breaths.
And that hand.
The hand that I had been staring at,
waiting for a response from,
finally gave me that response.
That beautiful hand with the crescent shaped scars twitched,
and stretched,
and finally,
finally,
held mine back.
Thank you for your lovely reviews.
I hope this is living up to your expectations.
Feedback is always appreciated.
Blessings
O