Jennie
I woke in the morning and could barely move, I groaned and lifted my head from the side of Lisa's bed, rubbing my aching neck. My back seemed to pop as I sat up, I don't really think it was a good idea to sleep bent over leaning on the bed.
My eyes immediately found Lisa, she was awake and just staring at me, a small sad smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. "Hey," she whispered.
"Hi, why didn't you wake me if you were awake?" I asked, rubbing my hand up her arm and trying to stifle a yawn. My whole body was hurting and aching, my eyes were still stinging and I could do with another few hours sleep at least.
She stroked the side of my face, "You know I like to watch you sleep," she said quietly.
I laughed and turned my head to kiss her hand. "I know pervert, but I would have much rather you have woken me up so I could have talked to you. I've missed you, you were asleep for a long time you know," I scolded playfully. She smiled but didn't say anything, her eyes were tighter than normal, her face so defeated and sad. I swallowed loudly, "What's wrong, Lisa?" I whispered.
"I can't feel my legs," she replied, looking away from me.
I felt my heart sink, had it not worked? Had she gone through all of that pain for nothing? Had she risked her life and nothing had changed? "Lisa, lets just wait for the Doctor, ok? He said they needed to wait a while before doing the tests. Maybe the swelling hasn't gone down yet, maybe you need more time to get over the surgery, it's only been a few hours," I said, trying to keep my voice level and devoid of any emotion.
She nodded but she didn't look like she believed me. "Yeah I guess."
"Please baby, just don't start stressing about it yet. Lets just let the Doctor do his thing and do the tests when you're ready to do them." I begged. "You could be working yourself up into a state for nothing, please Lisa, the Doctor said you needed to stay calm and rest."
She nodded and squeezed my hand, putting on a fake smile and looking back to me. "Yeah ok." She sighed and looked over my face slowly. "You still look tired Jennie bear, you should sleep some more."
I kissed her hand and shook my head, "If you're awake then I'm awake."
"Jennie, what if it doesn't work and I can't walk anymore? What do I do then?" she whispered, she looked like she was a couple of seconds from completely breaking down and it was scaring me a little. Lisa was always so strong, she was always the one in control and looking after me, and right now the roles had completely reversed for the first time ever.
"We'll deal with that if it happens. Let's just not think about it right now. What's the point in worrying about something that won't even happen?" I asked, trying to sound positive.
She closed her eyes and pulled on my hand, "Come lay with me for a little while. You should go back to sleep, you look like hell, Jennie bear."
I laughed and tried to look offended, "That's not the way to talk to the girl you're in love with, Lisa. If you're trying to get in my pants then you're going about it all wrong," I teased, as I climbed on the bed carefully. I laid along her side, barely touching her and staying as still as possible.
"I might not be able to do that again, Jennie, did you think about that?" she snapped.
I frowned at her anger but didn't say anything, I wasn't sure what I could say to make her feel better, so I just put my arm across her chest and kissed her shoulder. She hardly ever shouted at me or anything, so she must be really upset to be doing it now. If she needed someone to shout at and get her anger out on then I could be that person for her, I'd be anything she needed me to be.
After another hour, of us just laying in silence, the Doctor came in to do his rounds. He smiled as he walked in and I pushed myself up out of the bed, barely able to breathe. Was this it, was he going to do the tests now? I stood back as he looked at Lisa's IV, detaching her from all of the tubes and wires. He checked her eyes and her catheter before he smiled and came back up to the side of the bed.
"Ok, so the operation went well Lisa. I'm hopeful that there should be a marked improvement, I was able to repair everything that I could see. What I'm going to do is send you down for an MRI scan now and then when you're back I'll do a couple of physical tests," he said. A nurse walked in with a couple of orderlies and went to the head of Lisa's bed.
"Can I go with her?" I asked, not wanting Lisa out of my sight for a second more than necessary.
"Sure, you can go to the waiting room with her but you won't be allowed in the room while they do it." The doctor smiled and nodded, and the two orderlies started pushing the bed out of the room. I ran to catch up with it and held Lisa's hand as we went down the endless hallways. I kissed her lightly when we got there and she was wheeled into another room.
I sat there in the waiting room, trying to look at a magazine while I waited for her to come out, but I couldn't even tell you what the magazine was called. I was flicking through the pages without even looking at them properly, just so I would have something to do with my hands to stop them shaking.
Once we were back in her room, we had to wait a little while before her surgeon came back in. I just held Lisa's hand tightly, trying to talk to her but she just answered yes or no to everything I said, my attempts to distract her weren't working at all. She was so distant and quiet that it was making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. My heart was aching because Lisa was keeping her feelings bottled up, she never kept things from me, but she was obviously doing it now. Every time I looked at her it seemed like she was sinking further and further into a depression and there was nothing I could say or do to bring her out of it.
Dr. Kirk came back in and did the physical tests on Lisa's feet and legs. He kept poking her with a sharp needle like thing, putting some sort of cloth that he had dipped into a liquid, onto various parts of Lisa's legs, asking her if she could feel the cold. To every question Lisa answered no, and I saw the devastation building in her eyes with each passing second.
The doctor threw the things in the trash and smiled reassuringly. "Ok, so there's obviously some swelling still there, that's clear from the MRI, I had a look at that before I came in. It could just be too early to tell," he said.
"What does that mean?" Lisa asked, looking a little confused.
The doctor sighed and looked at her apologetically, "It's just a wait and see thing, I'm sorry, I know that's hard to do but there's not much else we can do at this point but just wait and see how your body reacts. The more the swelling goes down, the more we'll be able to see how much mobility there is there," he said, scribbling on Lisa's chart.
"How much mobility, what does that mean? Does that mean even if it was successful, then I wouldn't be back to normal?" Lisa asked, trying to move in the bed as she hissed through her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut.
The doctor pushed on her shoulder. "Just stay still. Give your body a chance, Lisa. This isn't an overnight thing. I know it's hard but you need to be patient and rest as much as you can."
I stepped forward again and stroked her face. "Lisa just relax. Please, listen to the doctor he knows what he's talking about." I said desperately.
"We'll leave it another day and then send you down for another MRI and CT scan tomorrow, once the swelling has gone down some more. This is perfectly normal, Lisa. Just be patient, I know it's hard but it's the only thing you can do right now," the doctor patted her on the shoulder. He waited a few seconds, scribbling on his chart again before nodding. "I'll let you two have some privacy, and I'll come back later. Any problems press the buzzer." He nodded to the little hand held button hanging on the wall.
When he walked out of the room Lisa turned to look at me. The look on her face broke my heart a little more. She was so sad, sadder than I had ever seen her look, and if I could take her place I would do it in a heartbeat. She looked like she knew her fate already, she had already given up hope of being able to walk again.
"Everything's fine, baby. We just need to wait a little while, those tests don't mean anything, Lisa. Just wait for the swelling to go down like he said, don't get yourself upset about it, ok?" I begged, hearing my voice break a little even though I was trying to be strong.
Suddenly her eyes turned from sad and desperate, to angry, her eyes locked on mine and were hard and accusing, "I need you to leave, Jennie," she growled.
I looked at her shocked, what the hell does that mean? Oh God she's blaming me for this, she thinks this is all my fault because if GD wasn't stalking me then she wouldn't have gotten hurt. It was my fault, I knew that and I would never forgive myself, but the hard look on her face was actually like physical pain.
"What?" I whispered, looking at her like she was crazy. She didn't really want me to leave, did she?
"You need to leave. Now," she stated.
"Lisa, please. I'm so sorry, I'm so so sorry," I whispered. The tears that I had held at bay while I was in front of her, started to fall uncontrollably down my face.
She shook her head, "You don't need to be sorry Jennie, just leave," she said sternly.
"I can't," I whispered.
How long did she want me to leave for, how long would it take her to forgive me for what GD did to her because of me? An hour? A day? A week? I couldn't make myself walk out of the door and leave her, I couldn't. Is this why she'd been cold and distant with me all morning? Because she was angry with me about it, was she planning this all morning?
We both knew that this was my fault but I never thought in a million years that she'd ask me to leave her. If there was one thing that I would bet my life on it's that Lisa would never cut me out of her life, never. But that was exactly what she was doing now. I looked at her, my heart breaking, the pain was unbearable. I wasn't going to live through this, this pain was going to kill me. To be apart from her would kill me. Surely she wasn't this angry with me, surely she'd forgive me, wouldn't she?
"Why? Please let me stay, I know this is my fault but please Lisa, I love you. I'm so sorry this happened to you." I cried bending and putting my face in the side of her neck being careful of tube sticking out of her chest.
Her hands tangled in the back of my hair as she kissed the top of my head. "I don't blame you, Jennie. This wasn't your fault, but I can't love you, Jennie. I'm sorry, but you need to go so I can concentrate on recovering without having to think about you all the time."
I gripped the front of her hospital gown, holding onto it for dear life, if I let go I don't know what I'd do. Could I live without Lisa in my life, even for a second? Those few hours when I wasn't sure if she'd make it, or the hours when she was in surgery, those were the worse of my life and I knew that if she'd died I would have wanted to die too.
I thought about what she said. She wanted to concentrate on recovering? What was that supposed to mean? She wasn't making sense! If this wasn't because she was blaming me then what was it about?
"Why?" I screamed against the skin of her neck, making her hand tighten in the back of my hair as I sobbed uncontrollably.
"I can't have you here while I'm like this Jennie, I can't have you tied to someone like me," she whispered.
Suddenly everything clicked into place, she did want me, she thought she was doing this for me. I pulled back to look at her. This was some kind of sick way of letting me go because she didn't want me to have to be with her if she couldn't walk. Is she seriously thinking I won't want to be with her because of that? Does she not know me at all? All these years she's known me and she thinks I would walk away because there's a chance that she'll be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life? I could feel my anger building up inside, there was no way this was happening, no way in hell she was sending me away from her for my own benefit.
"What the hell are you talking about, Lisa? Are you kidding me right now? Tell me why you want me to go, tell me why you don't want me anymore!" I cried, swallowing the lump in my throat.
There had to be something else, that couldn't be the reason. Lisa has always been selfless and put my happiness over the top of hers, but she had to know that this would kill me. She wouldn't make me leave because she thought she was doing the right thing for me, would she?
She sighed and turned her head away from me, "Just go Jennie."
"No," I said fiercely.
"Just get the hell out! I don't want you here! I don't want you stuck with a fucking cripple just because you feel guilty or something stupid. I don't want to take everything away from you, I don't want to disappoint you because I can't make love to you anymore! I don't want to let this go on and then you leave me in a few years time for someone who can walk and give you children, someone who can give you everything you deserve out of life. It's going to be easier for me to just get over you now, do it all in one go, rather than start to rely on you and then you leave me. Just get out and don't ever come back!" she shouted, glaring at me angrily. She gripped hold of my arm and shoved me towards the door as one of the nurses came bursting in, obviously hearing her little outburst.
"What on earth is going on in here? Lisa you need to calm down. You've just had surgery you need to relax and let your body recover." the nurse cried angrily as she headed over to Lisa's side, pressing the button on the little heart monitor. The beeping was so fast that it actually scared the crap out of me. Lisa was gasping for breath as the nurse pushed on her shoulder, making her settle down, the nurse put a little oxygen mask over her face, looking at her worriedly.
"What's wrong? Is she ok?" I asked weakly. I had never been so scared in my life, Lisa's eyes flicked to me and I saw no indecision in her eyes. This was it, everything I thought would last forever, was over. She really wanted me to leave and the look on her face broke my heart into a million pieces.
"Get out, Jennie," she muttered weakly, pulling the mask off of her face.
"I love you, Lisa," I whispered, begging her with my eyes. I couldn't leave her, not ever. She was my life, how could she not understand that? There was no way I would leave her for someone else in a couple of years, no chance of that happening at all. I loved her with all of my heart and it hurt me that she would doubt me like that, she should know me better.
She shook her head, "You don't love me enough for this," she said breathlessly. She turned to the nurse who was trying to get the mask back on her face, "Make her leave. Get security, get her out of here. I don't want her here!" she shouted, making the nurse flinch slightly from the anger in her voice.
The nurse turned to me, looking at me apologetically, "Please leave. She needs to relax and you being here is working her up. Just leave, come back in a couple of hours." She put her hand on my arm and nodded towards the door.
"I don't want her back in a couple of hours! Just get her the hell out!" Lisa cried, gasping for breath as she tried to push herself up in the bed but by the looks of it she was too weak as she instantly slumped back down again, hissing in pain.
I looked from the nurse to Lisa and back again. I had to leave, I was doing that to her, making her feel like that. I was making her worse, making her ill and she needed to relax, the doctor had said so.
"I'll go. Look after her," I whispered as I turned and ran out of the door as fast as my legs could carry me.