APRIL
"I can't believe that I'm really doing this."
I had spent ten years avoiding it. Maybe this was some kind of proof that it had been inevitable all along, the need to forgive her and really move on. It felt like the only part of my life that had never been shut and completed. Maybe it was just because I was a mother now and I needed this, some kind of coming around full circle. It's hard to figure out why exactly, after all of these years, I'm suddenly ready to confront her. It wasn't like I hadn't seen her – I had. That was just a part of life, particularly when I had been in college, that I couldn't avoid. But we had never really talked about it. It had just been easier not to.
"You can't do this to me!" I screamed at my mother.
"I'm your mother, I can and a will."
Senior prom had been lonely. Standing there in a simple and conservative dress, barely knowing the people around me that had grown up with one another since they were all in kindergarten, I was the outsider. But it was no movie moment. No one came to rescue from my solitude or gave me the chance to fit in with the rest of them for just one night. I was utterly alone and far too aware of it. Everyone else danced the night away and I went home to my uncle's house before it ended, well aware that I would have to be up early to help him with the farm work. I wouldn't get to sleep in and bask in the memories from the night before. Like so many other things from senior year, I would just want to erase it from my mind.
It hadn't been as lonely as the first night I had spent there, staring at plain off-white walls and laying in an uncomfortable bed, all my belongings still in the bags packed around me. It took a week to unpack and it had only come when Uncle Bill had pitched a yelling fit.
Nearly, it had looked like the couple of nights that I had spent in the mental health facility after the nervous breakdown I'd had. The nights were so close together, they almost blur – white walls, the last place that I wanted to be. Missing Jackson, missing my sisters, wanting nothing more than for things to go back to the way that they had always been. I'd been torn between wanting to be on my knees, begging for my mother's forgiveness, and screaming in her face about her outdated beliefs that had no place in my life.
"Please, please, Mama! Don't do this! I'm still your little girl."
No amount of crying and begging would convince my mother, nearly dragging me by my ear out of the house and into the truck. Tear stains and snotty sobs meant nothing to her.
Now I was finally finding the middle ground.
Fixing the little laces on Quinn's shoes, I took a deep breath and adjusted her outfit before adjusting my own. Jackson had arranged a car to pick her up from the would save some awkwardness, maybe. It was hard to know. I couldn't imagine that any of this was going to be easy or simple. But I didn't know how she felt anymore.
There hasn't been a gap in my life without her. During my early formative years, she had been fine. And Catherine had been there for so much of my life, one way or another, that she felt like a mother to me in many ways. Now, well, she was my mother-in-law. Even though sometimes we didn't always get along perfectly, and we weren't always on the same page, I loved and respected her more than I did my own mother. That was something to be grateful for.
"I can hear you stressing over here," Jackson called out.
"Sorry." It wasn't like I could be quiet about it.
"Don't apologize," he replied quickly. "Just tell me what you're thinking. I'll try to help."
"It hasn't changed since last night. Or last week." I'd spent more than my fair share of time ranting away about everything I felt. I knew that he didn't forgive her. He wasn't subtle. "I'm just hoping that… all of this is going to get out of my system today."
"You will," Catherine spoke up. She was going to take Quinn to the park for a little while once my mother was here. If things didn't go well, I didn't want Mom to meet my daughter. I was holding it over her. "You're not the one in the wrong."
"I know." Perhaps the only thing I was certain of. Picking up Quinn, I walked her over to her carrier. "Thank you for doing this for us, Catherine. It's at least taking one thing off my mind."
She placed her hand on my shoulder. "Of course," she smiled. "Besides, you know that I would do anything if it means getting a little extra time with my sweet Queenie. And she loves her grandma, doesn't she?" Her fingers tickled my daughter's belly, causing high-pitched giggles.
"Thanks, Mom," Jackson stepped over, kissing his mother on the cheek. "Karen will be here any minute."
"Then we should get going." She replied.
"Bye-bye, sweetie." I bent down and placed a noisy kiss on Quinn's forehead, smiling at her and brushing our noses together. Part of me wanted her to stay so that I could hold her and hope she would keep me calm, but it wasn't for the best. Especially if there was going to be tension in the room. She was too empathic to not notice. "Have fun with grandma. Be good."
"We'll be fine," Catherine reassured me. Jackson picked up our daughter's carrier to help his mom into the car. I stood in the living room, watching them through the window until they were gone.
The front door open and shut as my husband came back into the house but I stood there for a moment longer. Soon, a car would pull up with my mother and presumably a bag of clothes for the three days that she was supposed to be here in Seattle. If she made it that long. I knew that Jackson had reserved a ticket for flying back out tonight, just in case. He hadn't told me about it – he'd left the page pulled up on the computer and I had just seen it. He meant well. He was preparing for every situation, just like I would have.
"You're going to be fine," Jackson reassured me, stepping up behind me and squeezing my shoulders gently. "I promise. We are going to get through this together."
"Thank you," I whispered.
Without anything to focus on, the only thing that I can do is stare out the front window. But I don't have to wait for long. A few minutes pass before a black car rolls to a stop on the street out in front of me. I freeze as the door opens and an older version of the mother that I remembered stepped out of the car, the driver getting out to help her with her suitcase.
"She's here," I announced.
Neither one of us rushed out to greet her. We waited until she was about halfway up to the door before Jackson moved to get the front door open, stepping out to help her with her suitcase. She doesn't back off or recoil from him as she might have in my worst dreams. Instead, she gave him a smile that I didn't believe. It was going to be hard to believe anything genuine from her unless she offered some kind of apology to match the forgiveness I needed to give her.
"Hi, Mom." I greeted her, hands folding stiffly in front of my stomach.
"Hi, Duckie." Some things hadn't changed, apparently. "Where's little Quinn?"
"She's with her grandmother." Even though my answer was factual, there was something coded there. The fact that my daughter did have a grandmother and it wasn't my mother.
"Can I get you something to drink?" Jackson questioned, cutting through some of the tension.
"A glass of water would be good, thank you."
Mom set her purse down on top of her suitcase and stepped into the living room, looking around. My eyes bore holes into her as I stared at her. I'd prepared so many things to say to her and yet my mouth was bone dry, unable to produce so much as a sentence from the speeches and speeches that I had prepared. So many had been prepared and I had even settled on one, yet it stays silent.
My mouth opened and no sound came out. Shutting it and sucking in a deep breath through my nose, I sat on the end of the couch, pressing my palms on top of my thighs.
"Here you go," Jackson said as he returned with a glass of water, setting out a coaster for her.
"Thank you, Jackson," she addressed him. "You both look well."
"We're doing really well." He spoke for both of us, glancing at me and I gave a small nod of my head. "We have really good jobs at the hospital together and there's a daycare there. Quinn's still adjusting to it, but she seems to be doing well there too. We're very happy."
"We are." So much more that I want to say and yet that was all that came out.
"I'm happy for you." Is that why you sent me away? "You really seem to have everything coming together now." My mother continued to speak, a polite smile resting on her features.
Jackson glanced at me with his brows drawn together. "We do."
"I'm glad that you were able to come out today, Mom." I finally managed to get more than a few words out of my mouth, but the tension doesn't leave my tight shoulders. "I've… I've wanted to be able to sit down and talk with you for a while now. It seems important now more than ever that I'm a mother." I began.
"You know that I'm always available to you, sweetheart." Her voice was so sweet that if history didn't point in so many other directions, I easily could have believed what she was saying. She'd always nailed the part of a sweet housewife.
"Right." I wouldn't say anything about that.
"Karen, I think there's something that April has been wanting to say to you." Jackson eased me in gently.
"Yeah," I breathed out with a nod. "I've been thinking a lot about everything in my life since I have Quinn. It's made me reevaluate everything, especially… how I was raised and all of the things that happened. Being a mother, wanting to do better for her. I know that I was lucky in a lot of ways. I understand that. And there's a lot that I have to thank you for. You always made sure that we had clean clothes and food on the table. But I think that somewhere in your mind, you know that what you did to me and to Jackson senior year just… wasn't right. I think that you have to know that."
Before I can get any further, my mother spoke up. "Everything I ever did was just for the best, sweetheart. That's all that I ever wanted to do for you and all of your sisters. I always had your very best interest in mind, even if you never saw it at the time. Maybe now that you're a mother, you'll be able to see it for yourself."
"I forgive you for what you did, Mom." Whether she thought that she needed it or not, I did. "You hurt me, very badly. But now that I'm a mom, I can't hold grudges against you or anyone else. So I forgive you."
"I don't think that I did anything that warrants forgiveness," she sat up straight.
"Maybe you're not hearing what April is trying to say." Jackson inserted himself. I caught his eye, giving a small shake of my head.
"It's… it's okay if you don't see what you did to me. I do. Jackson does. I have a family here and now that loves me and understands me in ways that… you just didn't. That's okay. I spent a lot of time thinking about all of it." Perhaps too much time. "I still forgive you, even if you don't think you need it."
Mom stared at me for a long moment. "Well, if that's what you think you need to say, then I accept it."
"Thank you."
Peace was the only thing that I could hope to gain from her at this point. Forgiving her was the best thing that I could do for me and my daughter. I had Jackson and Catherine, and so many other friends around me. Forgiving her was closing the door completely and making sure that my life going forward was going to be without any regrets or grudges.
"I'd still like the chance to meet my granddaughter if you'll let me," Mom spoke again, her gaze darting between us.
"My mom will be back with Quinn soon. She took her to the park for some fresh air." Jackson informed her.
"She's a little difficult with new people," I warned, trying to loosen up a little more.
"That's okay," Mom smiled. "You were too when you were a baby. I'm sure that it has nothing to do with the Down Syndrome." I can't help but cringe the way that she says it, something about it not quite sitting right with me, but I let it go. I've learned with her, I have to let go of a lot of things.
When Catherine returned with Quinn, things aren't as tense as I expect them to be. I thought that she and my mother might go at it for things that had happened so many years ago and I'm almost positive that it was Catherine who was the one keeping her head on straight to avoid that happening. It's hard to cause a scene when there was such a sweet baby in the room. No one wants to do something to make the baby cry.
Even if my own mother had not been great with her own children by the time that they had grown enough to have their own independent thoughts and feelings, she was still just as good with babies as I remembered her being. Even if Quinn wasn't entirely happy to go in her arms for the first few minutes, once she calmed down and got used to the fact that she was someone new, she calmed down significantly. She doesn't cry out, looking up at my mother and around the rest of the room with big, sea blue eyes. It was like she just wanted to know what the big deal was.
Maybe there wasn't one.
But it's the first night in what feels like a long time that I get a good amount of rest. It's not like Quinn sleeps through the night without interruption – she still wakes up. She's just a baby, after all, not an all-intuitive higher being that knows when her mother needs a break. But I was finally free of any kind of inner turmoil. I didn't know the last time that happened.
It makes it easy to get up in the morning before Jackson does, though that was typical. Pulling on a robe around my shoulders, I make my way to the nursery where Quinn was sleeping.
She was still sound asleep. I should have just let her lay there and not disturbed her – she'd been fed and burped a couple of hours ago, and her diaper didn't smell dirty just yet. Quinn looked utterly peaceful as she laid there, little lips spread apart and a bit of drool slipping out of her mouth. I reached down and wiped it off of her chin gently before I slipped my arms underneath her tiny frame and picked her up, cuddling her against my chest and inhaling deeply.
"Hi, sweet girl," I murmured and pressed a kiss on top of her head. "You still smell like last night's bath."
Ignoring that I should get up and get ready for the half day of work I had, taking off to spend a little bit of time with my mother and try to figure out where exactly we stood, I sit there and just hold her. She was still half asleep and didn't make a fuss in my arms. At that moment, she couldn't have been any more perfect for me.
Until she needed a diaper change, the two of us just sat there. Hopefully, she would keep up the calm mood for the few hours that she spent with my mother while Jackson and I were at work. That was more for her own sake than my mother's.
"Are you sure that you don't mind watching her for a few hours?" I asked my mother, nitpicking and adjusting the beanie on Quinn's head. "I'm sure that Owen wouldn't mind covering for me."
"Quinnie and I will be fine, April." Mom reassured me. "You go work."
"Queenie." I corrected her. "We call her Queenie."
By the time that the three days with my mother have come and gone and we've driven home from dropping her off at the airport, I'm not quite as exhausted as I thought I would be. It does take an emotional toll, but as much as it had taken, I felt like I had been given something at the same time. At the same time, I was grateful to put down Quinn for an afternoon nap so I had a few minutes to just catch up with myself and process everything before the rest of our lives resumed.
"How are you feeling?" Jackson asked as he sat down next to me on the couch, pressing a quick kiss against my temple.
"Alright," I smiled softly, lacing our fingers together.
His thumb brushed against the back of my knuckles. "I'm glad. So that was good for you?"
"I think so," I gave a small nod "I feel.. a little lighter. Like I've been able to let go of everything that happened because of what she did. Not forgotten, but… it just doesn't really feel like it's holding me down or holding me back, or anything like that." I explained.
"I'm happy for you." His other arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me in closer, hand rubbing against my arm gently. "You seem to be happy."
"I have you and Quinn." My head turned to look up at him. "How could I be anything else?"
Dipping down his head, his lips captured mine in a gentle kiss that I returned, making a content noise. "I love you so very much," I reminded him. reaching up to cup his face. My thumb stroked across the short stubble that was growing there, in need of a shave – but I don't mind. I like the little bit of texture there even if it's a little itchy in certain places.
"I love you more." Jackson gave the cliche response that still managed to make my heart skip a beat as I looked up at him.
"Not possible," I replied with a shake of my head.
"It is too." His nose brushed against mine and he gave a gentle chuckle. "It just happens to be the truth."
"We used to have this little argument when we were kids," I reminisced with a small smile on my face. Of course, then when we had used words such as like and love, it hadn't meant the same thing that it did. It hadn't been nearly as intense and all-consuming as my feelings for him were now. "And I always won it then." I reminded him, a little smirk curling onto my lips as I looked up at him.
"You've always been stubborn." He pointed out, his thumb brushing back some hair behind my ear. "Some things never change."
"You got lucky." I smiled at him. "You missed out on my Taylor Swift phase. You would have hated that." Even though we had been on the same page about so many things, music taste had never been one of them. It still wasn't.
"Oh, god," he laughed and clutched his chest. "Don't even."
"Say you'll remember me, standing in a nice dress, staring at the sunset babe…" I sang out. "Red lips and rosy cheeks, say you'll see me again even if it's just in your wildest dreams."
"Eh, maybe it's not so bad when you're the one singing." Jackson smiled.
I pushed at him playfully. "That was very cheesy of you."
"See? Proof I love you more." He leaned forward for another kiss. "Otherwise, I could never be so cheesy."
"Dork." I smiled.
Life resumed to normal with my mother back home in Ohio, leaving the two of us to do our own thing.
Specialist appointment after appointment rolls around, as do the early invention therapy sessions that we start to take Quinn to every week. We played games nonstop in the hours that we don't work: doing sit ups and push ups on the yoga balls as a family, making texture books, smelling spices, playing in syrup and cheerios, and scooting her in a bucket around the house to teach her to balance. All of them came from the therapist – and in a weird way, I felt as if we had it easier than some parents. We had a wonderful therapist guiding us through week after week to help her reach all of those little milestones. A day shy of six months old, she even managed to roll over on her own.
Reaching six months with her feels amazing. Celebratory, even. It would be double that length of time before we could have a real party to celebrate the milestones, but it felt like we had already accomplished so much with her. Her motor skills were coming along and her strength was building up. She was everything that we could have asked for and more.
Work continued. Being a trauma surgeon attending at a level one trauma center was more intense than I could have ever imagined. Maybe a part of it was just from coming off of the extended maternity leave and being thrown in head first again, but I couldn't imagine that there was anything more rewarding than what I was doing. I was saving lives. I was stopping death. Every day, I was making a real and positive difference in people's life.
"Hey," Izzie breathed out with a bright smile. "It's busy down here today, isn't it?"
"Yeah," I nodded and gave a glance around. "I mean, it has been. It's taking a breather right now. Not all of the beds are full, so that seems like something good." I shrugged my shoulders. Busy was normal. "What are you doing down here?"
"Hunt paged me," she explained. "Paramedics are bringing in one of my patients. Complications from surgery, apparently. Makes me wish that I had them stay a day longer."
"I'm sure you did what was right," I commented with a concerned glance.
Izzie took a deep breath, her normal sunshine demeanor falling for a moment. "I hope so." She moved to grab a trauma gown and a pair of gloves, and I followed.
"Do you need an extra set of hands?" I asked.
"Hunt said that he was going to scrub in with me." She glanced over at me. "Makes me feel like I'm in trouble."
"I'm sure that you're not. He probably just wants to make sure that everything's okay." I reassured.
"Patient should be here any minute," Owen announced his own presence with the words, and I glanced up at him. He didn't seem angry or annoyed – and he had always been terrible at hiding how he felt. He must not have blamed her for anything. Insecurities ate away a lot. I knew Izzie was like me in that way. "You need something, Kepner?"
"No," I shook my head quickly. "Izzie was just telling me about her patient and I wanted to see if there was anything that I could do help."
"You can take over for me if you want." Without me even needing to say anything, Dr. Hunt began pulling off his blue gloves and taking a step back. "She just needs a second set of hands and I've got some paperwork that I need to catch up on."
I blinked in surprise. He hated paperwork. "Really?"
"Of course," he gave a prompt nod of his head. "Take over. I trust you."
Brightening my features as I looked between him and Owen, I gave him a little nod of my own to confirm that I would take over, bouncing over to grab my own trauma gown and a pair of gloves. As I returned to Izzie, I gave her a toothy smile. "See? He just wanted to make sure the patient was okay. He doesn't think you screwed up."
"I guess you're right." Izzie gave me a small smile. We both stepped up as the ambulance approached with its ringing sirens. "Thanks."
As the ambulance pulled to a stop in front of the two of us and the back doors opened up, I hopped up to help the paramedic get the patient out of the ambulance and rolled into the emergency room. Complications from neurosurgery aren't rare, even if most of them usually take place in the hospital. Some people were more scared of waking up from a brain surgery than they were of the actual surgery. But our patient doesn't stay down in the E.R. for long, moved quickly for scans and more surgery.
After surgery, the patient does stabilize. It took a little longer than I expected it to but I don't get paged away for another case or cases coming into the E.R., which was a surprise. It was nice to just get a chance to operate with Izzie without the stress of deadlines and other things lingering over my head.
It's past the end of my shift by the time that we were finally scrubbing out. I don't mind staying late, of course. It happens all the time. Jackson and I frequently chose not to drive to work together on the chance that one of us had to stay late.
"You got any plans tonight?" Izzie asked as I grabbed a towel, drying my hands.
"Nope." I popped the syllable. "Just going home. Do you?"
"Date night with Alex." She beamed. "I actually convinced him to take me out on a proper one."
"Good for you. Have fun!"
Exchanging a few quick texts with Jackson, he let me know that he had already left work for the day and gotten home with Quinn. I offered to pick up some groceries for the store for dinner, well aware that we were just about out of diaper wipes and were likely to need a new container of them before the morning came. It wouldn't take long for me to get what I needed and get home to them. I was eager to curl up on the couch with my baby and my husband. It was the perfect end to a long day.
Getting changed out of my navy scrubs into a pair of jeans and a blouse, I make sure that everything is fine in the emergency room before I head out to the parking lot and get into my car. It smells like baby wipes already, even if we're pretty much out of them.
Traffic is what I expected it would be at the end of the workday, not quite as slow as it might have been if I had gotten off of work on time. Turning on the radio, I flip it away from CNN and onto a country music station. It's a guilty pleasure of mine that I only bother turning on when Jackson wasn't in the car with me, well aware that it was far from his favorite kind of music. He was much more into R&B than I was.
"There's not enough rain in Oklahoma to wash the sins out of that house. There's not enough wind in Oklahoma to…" I sang along with the radio.
Then, everything went back.
A ringing noise filled my ears, far away and too close at the same time. My face hurt and my chest were aching. It smelled like dust. It sounded like there was someone yelling in the distance but I couldn't pin my voice on anything about the voice – what side of my body they were walking on, whether it was a man or woman, a shout or a whisper.
I'm not sure how much time passes before I'm finally able to open my eyes and realize that my entire world was upside down. Things were darker than it should have been, but it wasn't after sunset yet. The top of my head was pressed against the top of my car and my neck was at an angle. The number one thing that you're not supposed to do after a car crash was move, especially not your head or neck. Yet I want to. It's an uncomfortable position to be stuck in. Blinking slowly a few times, I begin to process the details of my surroundings.
There were people talking around me. My car was upside down. Instead of just rubbernecking, some people must have actually gotten out of their car to see if there was anything they could do to help. I could have helped if I wasn't the one stuck in my car.
I can't feel my legs.
"Oh…" I breathed out quietly. Against my better instinct, I give a small adjustment of my body to try and get a look at what was going on. I was still a doctor – maybe there was something I could do to try and help myself before paramedics arrived. But I can't really see my legs. Whatever car had hit me, it had been bigger and stronger than my own vehicle. The material of my car was distorted around me and had my legs completed pinned without hope of me being able to get out on my own. It was going to take firefighters and some kind of heavy duty equipment to get me out of the car.
But then, I realize that not being able to feel my legs is perhaps the least of my problems.
"Oh my god."
It can't be from my car. My car must have hit or gone over something in the process of flipping to be in this upside down position. There's a thick metal rod penetrating right between my left breast, a few inches sticking out. I can't feel the pain that should be there. It's like staring at a body that wasn't even my own, as if I was some random patient coming into the emergency room, tasked with figuring out the best way to keep them alive. That was all I was going to be for some other trauma surgeon.
Breathing is difficult. Undoubtedly, it's in my lung. If it was moved, it would make things worse. Pulling it out would mean a gush of blood inside of me. I would drown, choking on my own blood.
"Ma'am?" A stranger's voice is heard. Moving my eyes toward it, there's a younger male squatted there, dressing in a firefighter's suit. Someone had called 911 for me.
"Hi." I breathed out, unsure what to say.
"Hi. My name's Ryan, I'm here to help. I need you to listen to me very carefully. I need you to keep your head as still as possible. Don't try and look around, don't try to move. Just stay as still as possible. I know it's not easy with gravity working against you, but it's what you need to do." It's weird to hear such obvious information being thrown at me.
"I know." Part of me wanted to laugh, but I'm scared to move my chest like that. "My name is Dr. April Kepner. I'm a trauma surgeon at Seattle Grace Mercy West." I breathed out. "Ironic, isn't it?"
"April, you're going to be just fine." He tried to reassure me.
But the way that he said it, I know he doesn't believe it either.
"I–I need my phone." My fingers itched to reach around and feel for it, to try and find my purse to pull it out. It'd been in the passenger seat next to me. I don't immediately see it in my vision or my peripherals, but it had to be somewhere in the car. "I need to call my husband."
"It's alright," Ryan said and gave me a smile. "We'll call whoever we need to on the way to the hospital. April, was there anyone in the car with you?"
"No, it's just me." I wet my lips, tasting my own blood. "I need to call him now. He's a surgeon too. I… I need to call him now."
Before it was too late.
"Let's focus on getting you out of the car first, okay?" He tried to refocus me, but I can't. I need to call Jackson. I need to hear his voice one more time, hear the sound of my daughter babbling senselessly and laughing. I needed to hear them just one more time. "We're going to have to take apart the car to get you out."
"C–can you see how far the rod goes? Is it through the other side of my seat?" If it was just sticking out of my front, then it would be easier to get me out. But if it was going all the way through, I didn't stand a chance.
"Yeah, it is." He answered.
So this was it.
"I need my phone," I repeated myself. "Please, I need a phone. I need to call my husband before you extract me."
It was hard to tell if it was my begging that convinced him to get a phone for me or if he realized the gravity of the situation. He was too calm to have been new at the job. He must have known that I wasn't going to have very long by the time that they removed me from the car. "Here you go." He murmured as he handed me a phone. I can only move my right arm – I don't know why. It takes me longer than it should have to dial Jackson's phone number.
The line rings and rings. Each one of us got sales calls all the time and he must have thought that it was just another one of those. A few long seconds pass before it finally beeped and went to voicemail.
"H–hi, Jackson, it's me." I paused and sniffled. "Something happened. You're probably about to be getting a lot of calls. I was in a car crash and it doesn't look good." I tried to blink back the tears and failed. "My legs are pinned in the car and there's a, uh… metal rod going through my chest. My left lung. It goes all the way through so it's not looking too good here."
"Hey–" Ryan tried to interject himself. "You're going to be just fine."
"I don't think I'm going to make it." Too much trauma training told me more than the paramedic's blind hope was. "But I want you to know that I love you. I love you so, so much. And I love Quinn. I love you both more than anything in the world and I need you to know that and I need you to hear it just one more time. I don't want to die. I really don't, but… I don't think I'm gonna make it. But I want you to know that I'm gonna try. I'm gonna fight. I'm gonna fight to come back for you and Quinn."
It was getting harder to breathe. I don't know if it was the injuries and more blood getting into my lungs or the impending doom, the tears that were beginning to choke me. I didn't have much longer.
"God, help me." I cried out. "Tell Quinn that I love her. That I loved her more than anything in the world. Please make sure she knows how much I love her. And please know how much I love you. I love you. I love you, I love you."
Then, nothing.