“I love you. Can you hear me? I love you. I LOVE you.”
Jake’s eyes opened.
I saw his soul.
I heard his voice in my head, telling me he loved me.
And then nothing.
I wish I could tell you that Jake woke up. Or that the paramedic saved him. Or that there was a medical miracle in the hospital. Or that he was still in a coma. Or that my heart wasn’t broken. That I wasn’t broken.
But I can’t.
He didn’t.
She didn’t.
There wasn’t.
He isn’t.
It was.
I was.
I can remember the paramedic tearing open Jake’s shirt to put the defibrillator pads on his chest. She told me I couldn’t hold his hand whilst she did it but I couldn’t leave him completely. I lay my hand next to his, so just the tips of our little fingers touched as his body jumped with each attempt to electrify him back to life. An ambulance brought two more paramedics to help. But they still weren’t enough.
I can remember being helped into the back of the ambulance after Jake had been put onto a stretcher. All the time they were trying to make him breathe again. Live again. I held his hand over every bump in the road, every traffic light we rushed through, blue lights glowing eerily through the window. I held my breath every time there was a sound from the monitors they had attached him to. I prayed to God to take me instead of him. To take me as well as him. To take me out of this moment where every cell in my brain was trying to deny what was happening in front of me.
I can remember taking my shoes off so that I could run down the corridor, following the stretcher into Accident and Emergency. I can remember the paramedics and doctors talking as they ran, Jake’s name the only word that made sense to me. Jake. I remember being stopped. Stopped as they took him away from me. Jake! I ran to the door, not yet ready, willing, able, to let him go. I banged on the wood, crying his name. Jake. Jake. Jake.
“You can’t go in there now, Neve,” the paramedic from the ambulance said. How did he know my name? They had asked me some questions in the ambulance. Questions about Jake. Questions about me. Questions which distracted me from trying to help Jake come back to life.
“Why?” Why? Why wasn’t I allowed to be with him, to hold him? “Please! I beg you. I need to be with him.” I gripped his hand, imploring him to let me in. “I won’t get in the way. I love him. Don’t do this. Don’t make him be alone. Not now.” I crumbled to the floor, my hands tearing at my hair in frustration. “Please!” Tears burned my face. Nerves shook my body. “Please,” I whispered.
“It’s the severe trauma unit and no one is allowed in. I can wait with you here until someone comes. Is there anyone I can ring? Family? Friends?” Family? Friends? The only person I wanted was Jake. But that was what he meant: not my friends or family. Jake’s. I tried to focus on what he was asking. For Jake’s sake.
“I don’t know his Mum’s number. And she’s in London anyway. He’s visiting me. I’m the only person he knows here. I’m all he has.” I couldn’t manage talking and crying and breathing at the same time. As I curled further into myself, panicked breathing tightening my chest, he leant down and pulled me up.
“Come on, let’s go down here.” He gently half-walked, half-carried me to a line of chairs in the corridor. “Slow your breathing, Neve. Put your head between your knees,” he said, rubbing my back. “What about you, love? Can I ring someone for you?” The rubbing continued, in a rhythm to breathe along with.
“My mum.”
“Give me your phone and I’ll ring her. Okay?” I handed him my phone and tried to maintain the rhythm of my breathing as he walked down the corridor. I could manage breathing and crying if I focused. In. Out. In. Out.
“She says they will be here in about three hours. She’s going to text you when they’re closer. She asked if I could ring someone called Mickey so you’re not alone. Is that okay with you?” I tried to nod but it made the room shift and swirl. My head filled with images of Jake being treated, tortured by strangers in the room at the end of the corridor. Lights, blood, noises all filled my thoughts, merging into a vision of Hell that Jake couldn’t escape from. And I was letting him face it alone.
I ran back to the door which separated us, thumping numbers into the security panel, desperate to save him. To save me. “Jake! I’m here!”
“Neve, calm down. You can’t do anything here. He’s in the best hands. Let them do their job.” I allowed myself to be shepherded back to the chairs.
“Did you speak to Mickey?”
“He’s going to be here in a few minutes. Now, you said Jake’s mum is in London. What about his dad? We need to get hold of someone from his family.”
“He’s dead.”
“His dad?” At the time, I didn’t think about why he had to check who I meant.
“Yes. When he was a kid. It’s just his mum, and his brother and sister.”
“Are either of them adults?”