Thanks for all your encouraging reviews and to r4ven3 and NatesDate for being my betas for this chapter. As always, reviews are very much appreciated. Cheers, S.C.
[6 May 2010]
She's pulled through. Ruth is going to be okay. If I tell myself that often enough perhaps, in the end, it will come true. I was at the hospital first thing this morning after getting barely an hour's sleep last night. The surgeon told me that the operation had taken over five hours because Ruth had suffered from a severe internal haemorrhage and a collapsed left lung as well as some broken bones, and it had taken them a long time to stop the bleeding.
They let me see her briefly. She looked so small and fragile, lying in bed with a tube down her throat and an IV in her arm, machines all around her monitoring her vitals, her blue, intelligent eyes closed, her constantly moving hands still, the only sign of life being her chest rising and falling gently with every breath. She has some bruising on the left side of her face and a nasty scrape across her forehead and all I wanted to do is take her in my arms, cradle her against my chest and never let her go. It's all I've ever wanted to do. Perhaps I should have done that, perhaps I should have been bold and forward, perhaps I should have seduced her like I have so many others, perhaps it was a mistake to give her the space and time I thought she needed. But she was always different and special, and I'd hoped that by holding back, we could have built something that would last. And in a way, I was right; it's lasted years.
Both the radius and the ulna in her left arm are fractured as is her right femur where the car hit her. The doctors are keeping her in a medically induced coma to give her body a chance to heal, and they made it very clear that she's not out of danger yet. Even if physically she makes a full recovery, an event, they tell me, that is looking more promising with each hour that passes, it's still possible that her brain suffered some damage from the head injury or the fact that her heart stopped twice on the operating table. So we must wait until she wakes up to know the full impact of the accident.
I don't know what to think or feel right now. I cannot feel relief and I cannot feel love, not without equal measures of heartbreak and fear. All that is left then is anger, anger towards the imbecile who did this, anger towards the job that demands so much of us and had Ruth going home late in the first place, anger towards myself for not protecting her, anger towards Ruth for not letting me and for always pushing me away, anger towards fate for never giving us a chance, and anger towards the world and everyone in it for demanding so much and giving so little. So I concentrate on the only thing I can do that will make a difference. I will find the bastard who did this if it's the last thing I do.