There were two bright lights that came into my view first. Both were completely haloed and foggy. One was shining down on me from above what I quickly realized was a hospital bed, and the other was coming from the window to my left. My head was screaming with excruciating pain. I saw a figure sitting in a chair a few feet away. He was hunched over, resting his head on the foot of my bed. I thought it was Jamie. I sensed that it was him, but I didn’t know for sure. I blinked several times, trying to refocus my eyes, but my vision was still so muddled, and the light was increasing the intense throbbing in my brain.
I closed my eyes and drifted off again. The next time I stirred, I kept my eyes closed but heard voices.
“She’s my fiancée. Please, you have to tell me something.”
“We cannot release information to anyone other than family.”
“She doesn’t have any family. I’m it. Please.” The tone of his voice was so pleading that it made my heart ache.
“Okay,” the woman answered. “I can get in a lot of trouble for this.”
“I promise, I won’t say a word. I just need to know. Is she gonna be okay?”
I tried to speak but couldn’t form the words. I felt paralyzed by the pain.
“She was beaten severely with the base of a pistol. The trauma to her head has caused critical swelling and leaking of spinal fluid into her brain. She has what’s called posttraumatic hydrocephalus.” He gasped and made a guttural sound. I opened my eyes for just a second to see Jamie leaning against the wall across from me. His arms were crossed and his head was down. He looked broken. “Her prognosis depends completely on her own body. We’ll be monitoring her very closely and doing scans every day. If the swelling doesn’t start to go down with medication, then the doctors will have to perform brain surgery. They’ll drill a hole and put shunts in to drain the fluid and alleviate the pressure.” I couldn’t tell for sure, but it sounded like he was crying very quietly. The tone in the nurse’s voice changed. It became soothing. “Stay positive. Keep talking to her. The best-case scenario is that she could make a full recovery and be home in a week.”
I made one heartbreaking attempt to open my eyes and speak, but I was crushed again. The pain was just too much. The pounding in my head became so loud it was deafening. I couldn’t hear or feel anything else. Jamie’s voice, the light and the feeling of the hospital sheets on my skin, were all gone. I went to the void, where everything was black and warm and painless.
I wasn’t sure how many days, months, or years had gone by before I was able to sense my surroundings again, but when I did I could hear Dylan, Ashley, Jerry, and Beth talking to one another. They were talking about me as if I weren’t there—nothing bad, just a general conversation about my apartment and things that needed to be taken care of. On my health insurance form I had named Jerry as my next of kin and said he was a relative.
“Did you see that? She moved her hand,” Dylan said excitedly. “Kate, can you hear me?” I squeezed his hand and tried to open my eyes. The pain was searing. I blinked several times before finally focusing. Dylan was holding my hand in both of his, and Jerry was leaning over me with eyes as big as sand dollars. “Hey, kid.”
I swallowed and tried to clear my throat. “Hurts,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like my own. It was raspy and strained.
“Get the nurse!” Beth shouted to Ashley, who turned immediately and went running out the door.
“Just close your eyes and rest and get better. Jamie will be back in a few minutes.” Dylan smiled warmly at me. He looked relieved. And then I faded away again. I don’t know for how long, but when I came to, Jamie was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room. Susan was also there, sitting in a chair opposite him. Everyone else was gone. He was leaning over and his elbows were propped on his knees. He was wearing a T-shirt and flannel shirt with dark jeans and tennis shoes, the way I had remembered him so well from the winery. It was just Jamie, not R.J.—just my sweet Jamie. The scruff on his face was at least five days old, and his hair was slicked back from his face. His head was down, braced by his two hands. He was looking at the floor but talking to Susan.
Two instant but conflicting feelings washed over me as I absorbed Jamie sitting in my hospital room. One was that our souls were connected so deeply that I could sense his presence before I knew for sure that he was there. Merely being in the same room with him made me feel more complete. One brief glimpse of him was enough to warm my blood and increase my heart rate. The other feeling was that we barely knew each other. The concept of “us” was so new. I still had that tingling feeling of excitement, like I hadn’t yet explored all of him. My head throbbed with the beat of twenty thousand drums, but somehow Jamie’s presence alone dulled the roar and made getting better my number one goal.
I watched for a few seconds in sympathy. He was shattered. It was hard to hear every word of their conversation, but I picked up enough.
“I’m cursed,” he said softly. “And I’ve cursed everyone who loves me.”
“That’s not true,” Susan said.
“I’ve done this to her.” He looked up and ran his hand through his hair. “She wouldn’t let go of the necklace I gave her. Did you know that? I’m telling you, it’s because of me that she’s lying there, broken.”