Wethering the Storm

Chapter NINETEEN

I had the worst dream last night.
Well, I think I did, because I woke up this morning with the worst feeling. Like impending doom. And I haven’t been able to shake it since.
I’m so f*cking ready to wrap this day up and get home to my girl.
I haven’t spoken to Tru since she left for the spa. I didn’t want to disturb her, but normally I speak to her at least once during the day.
I need my Tru fix, what can I say?
I’ll call her now that she should be on her way home to see what she wants for dinner.
While I switch off the amp, I pull my phone from my back pocket and speed-dial her cell.
Voice mail.
Weird. She never turns her phone off.
Maybe she had to at the spa and forgot to turn it back on.
I hear Katy Perry start to sing across the studio. Stuart’s f*cking ringtone. He really is the epitome of gay at times.
I unplug my guitar and put it in its stand.
“Hey, gorgeous…what?…Wait, what!…Oh God, no.”
It’s the “no” that makes me stop and turn to him, because he sounds…well, he sounds exactly like he did when we got the call that Jonny had died.
My head prickles, and my blood starts to run cold.
I feel the air in the room shift instantly. That f*cking crap feeling I’ve had since this morning starts to turn my thoughts to shit.
“When?…Are they?…She’s…oh God, no…no.” Stuart’s voice comes out a whisper. He turns and locks eyes with me.
And I know. I just know.
F*ck, no.
“We’re coming now.” I watch the phone slide from Stuart’s ear in slow motion.
“Stuart, what’s wrong?” Denny comes from around his drum kit.
Stuart casts a glance to Denny, then comes straight back to me.
Stop looking at me.
“That was Josh.” His lip trembles. “He was just about to leave the hospital, when…” His voice breaks, and he clears his throat, then continues. “Three people were brought into the ER. A car accident. It’s Simone, Dave, and…Tru.”
Tru. Car. Accident.
No. God, no.
Denny clasps his hand over his mouth. “Simone, is she…?” Denny sounds afraid.
I’m afraid. Terrified.
I can’t breathe. My heart hurts against my ribs. Hurts real bad.
Tom and Smith have drawn closer to Stuart.
He looks at Denny again. “Josh said Simone is roughed up, but she’ll be okay. Dave too, but…” He brings his eyes back to mine. “Jake…” He steps toward me.
“No.” I step back and bump into the guitar.
I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to know.
I shake my head. I try to move away again, to get away from Stuart, but there’s nowhere left for me to go.
“I’m so sorry.” I watch, numb, as he wipes a tear from his face. “The other car hit the passenger side. Tru took full impact. Josh said she’s in surgery now. We have to get to the hospital.”
I close my eyes.
“The baby?” The words fall from my mouth. I don’t feel like it’s me talking.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. We need to go. Josh is waiting in the ER for us. He’ll take us to them.”
The room is closing in on me. There’s no air.
I feel like I’m underwater.
Drowning. I’m drowning.
I had her this morning, in my arms. I should have kept her there, held her tight, and never let her go.
I can’t lose her. I can’t.
F*ck, this hurts. So much. Too much.
“Jake…,” Stuart says.
I lift my head. “I can’t lose her.” I can’t breathe. I’m gasping for air. “Not her. Anyone but her.”
My eyes meet his.
“I know.” Another tear falls from his eye. He wipes it away.
Tears keep leaving his eyes.
I want to cry. I want to shout. Something. Anything to get this excruciating pain out of my chest. But nothing’s happening.
“Come on, let’s get to the hospital. We’ll know more once we’re there.” Stuart urges me to move, and that’s when my legs give out on me.
He grabs me, wrapping an arm around my back. “I got you,” his voice cracks. “I got you, Jake. It’s gonna be okay. They’ll both be fine.”
Fine. They’ll both be fine.


I’m in a car. My car, I think. Stuart’s driving.
Car.
Accident.
Tru.
I can’t breathe.
The pain in my chest is unbearable.
I don’t know what to do.
I should be doing something. I’m supposed to protect her, protect them both.
“I wasn’t there. I should have been there,” I choke out. I know it’s me speaking, but it doesn’t sound like my voice.
“It’s gonna be okay, man.” Tom’s hands come over the backseat, pressing down on my shoulders.
I feel like he’s holding me in place. Like he thinks I’m going to lose control any moment now.
I want to lose control. But I can’t seem to get this maddening, sickening feeling out of my chest. It’s trapped in there, burning every part of me.
“Tru’s gonna be fine,” Tom continues. “She’s a fighter. She’ll get through this.”
“And what about the baby…my baby?” I choke on the words.
Tom’s silence weighs heavy.
“They’re gonna be fine, Jake.” He squeezes my shoulder.
There it is again. That word—fine.
But that isn’t what I want to hear. I don’t want to hear any of this. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be hearing fine.
I want to be home with Tru, holding her beautiful body in my arms. I want to feel her skin on mine. Her breath mixing with mine as she kisses me in that gentle way she does.
I want to hear her laugh. I want to see her smile.
I want to feel my baby kick.
I want…them.
I close my eyes again.


I’m in the hospital. I can hear Stuart talking. There are people everywhere.
And white. White walls. White coats.
Where’s Tru?
“Jake…”
I turn. It’s Josh. He looks sorry. Sympathetic.
I don’t want sympathy. I want Tru.
“Jake…,” he repeats. “I’m so very sorry…” I hear the break in his voice.
Stuart puts his hand on Josh’s arm. I see Josh’s eyes go to it.
He looks back at me, and then he sounds very businesslike. Like a doctor delivering bad news. “Tru’s in surgery. All they’re telling me right now is that she suffered a severe head injury as a result of the accident. Dr. Kimble, one of the surgeons, will be out to see you soon. If you’ll follow me this way…”
Severe. Head. Injury.
I’m moving. In an elevator. Upward.
The doors open with a ping. Then it’s like I wake up. I realise where I am. Why I’m here.
Tru. Car. Accident.
F*ck, no.
No. No. No. No. No. No.
No!
I run out of the elevator, sprinting down the hall. I’m not sure where I’m going.
I just need to find her.
Surgery. Josh said surgery.
I can hear voices calling out behind me, but I can’t stop.
Tru.
I need to find her.
Where are you, baby?
I’m stopping. Why am I stopping?
Arms around me, stopping me, holding me.
I don’t want them touching me. I want Tru. I just want Tru.
“Wait, take it easy, Jake. You’re here. We need to go in here.” Stuart, with Tom’s help, steers me through a door into a room.
A white room.
F*cking white everywhere.
Then I’m sitting in a chair.
I don’t want to be sitting.
I stand up.
Everyone stands with me.
Stuart. Tom. Smith. Josh.
“Where’s Denny?” Is that me speaking?
“He’s downstairs in the ER with Simone and Dave,” Stuart answers. “Why don’t you sit down, Jake?”
I shake my head.
I can’t sit while Tru’s…what? While she’s in surgery? While she’s…dying?
Dying.
Is she going to die?
Is my baby dying too?
Am I going to lose them both? Are they both going to die like Jonny did?
Why is this happening?
It hurts. It hurts so f*cking much. I feel like my rib cage is being cracked wide open and my life is being drawn out of me, slowly.
The door opens. A man in a white coat approaches me.
White.
Sympathy.
No.
I don’t want sympathy. I don’t want to be here. I need to get out of here. I need to find Tru.
I just want to touch her. Hold her. Never let her go.
“Mr. Wethers, I’m Dr. Kimble.”
My insides start to shake through to the bone.
“Tru…where is she?”
The doctor puts his hands together in front of him, in an almost prayerlike manner, pointing them in my direction.
I don’t like it. I want to knock his f*cking hands away.
“Trudy is still in surgery.” He sounds like Josh did—businesslike. “She sustained a very severe head injury…”
There are those words again. But he said “very.” Josh never said “very.”
That’s worse. Very is worse.
God, no.
“…excessive bleeding within the skull…pressure on her brain…swelling…baby…delivery…”
Baby.
I meet the doctor’s eyes. “What?” There’s my voice again, but it still doesn’t sound like me.
Dr. Kimble shifts on his feet. “We had to make a decision, Mr. Wethers. There was no time to waste. The baby was in severe distress. Its heart rate was dropping exponentially. We had no other choice but to perform an emergency caesarean section.”
I grip my hand to my chest, digging my fingers into my sternum, trying to relieve the agonising, burning pain inside of me.
“But she was only twenty-nine weeks…” I can’t breathe.
“The baby’s fine.” He nods, slowly. “He’s having a little difficulty breathing on his own because of respiratory distress syndrome, which is very common in premature babies, but we’re helping him with that, and he’s responding well.”
“Him?” A tear rolls down my cheek.
“Yes, you have a son.”
A son.
We have a son, and Tru doesn’t know. She needs to know. I need to see her, to tell her.
“Where is he?”
“They’ll be moving him to the NICU shortly.”
“And Tru…will she…is she…?”
He wraps his arms over his chest. “She’s with some of the best surgeons in the world right now, and they’re doing everything they can for her.”
“Is she”—I take a staggered breath—“Is she going to…make it?”
I see the look in his eyes, the one he thinks he’s hiding, but I see it clearly.
“The doctors are doing everything they can to help her pull through, Mr. Wethers.”
And this is the exact moment that my worst fear is realised.
She might die.
I could lose Tru, with no way back to her.
Lose her. Forever.
Oh God, no.
No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
I press my fist into my forehead. “You don’t think she’s going to make it.”
He shifts again, not meeting my eyes. “It’s too early to make an appropriate diagnosis of—”
“DON’T FOB ME OFF! JUST TELL ME THE F*ckIN’ TRUTH! IS SHE GOING TO DIE?”
“Jake…” Tom’s hand touches my shoulder, but I shrug him off.
My chest is heaving, fear driving everything inside me.
I stare into the doctor’s face, searching.
I have to know. I have to know if I’m going to lose everything. Lose the only person who has ever mattered to me.
And right now, he is the only one who can tell me.
He exhales, his voice softening. “Right now, Trudy’s chances of survival are fifty-fifty at best. When she wakes from the surgery…” He catches himself, and his expression communicates compassion. “If and when she wakes…”
If.
“We have no idea as to the extent of the damage to her brain.”
“No…”
I don’t remember falling. I just know I’m on the floor. Tom’s holding me.
And I’m crying.


There are more people here. More white. More talking. Then they’re gone.
Silence. Crippling silence.
I’m still on the floor, but I’m now leant up against the wall. Tom and Stuart are beside me.
I hear the door open again. I lift my gritty eyes, and I see Josh slip out into the hall to talk to a woman in a white coat.
More f*cking white.
I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the wall.
“Jake…” Stuart’s voice forces my eyes open. I stare blankly at him. “We need to call Tru’s mom and dad. They need to know what’s happened. The press will get wind of Tru’s accident soon, if not already, and they can’t find out from the press.”
My heart stops.
Billy and Eva.
I can’t.
I shake my head. “I don’t think I can…”
“I’ll call them. I’ll get them on the first flight out here.” He touches my arm briefly, then stands. “Do you want me to call your mom too?”
My mom? Do I want her here?
I nod, once.
“I’m gonna get a drink.” Smith stands. “Jake, do you want me to get you anything?”
Tru.
I shake my head.
“Tom?”
“A black coffee.”
The door bangs shut as Stuart and Smith leave.
Then it’s just me and Tom.
And silence. More crippling f*cking silence.
“What if she dies?”
Tom turns his head and looks me in the eye. “Tru’s a fighter, Jake. She kicks my ass daily. She’s going nowhere.”
“But what if…”
“Don’t ‘what if.’ Don’t do that to yourself.”
My eyes blur. “I don’t know what to do. What to think. What to say.” I bury my face in my hands, taking a staggered breath.
A tear runs through my fingers and drips to the floor.
I hear Tom take a shallow breath. “Don’t think of the bad, Jake. Think of the good. Think of the moment you get to hold your boy in your arms. Think of the moment you get to put that ring on Tru’s finger when she finally sees stupid and marries your sorry ass. Think of all the amazing f*ckin’ things the three of you are going to do together. And while you’re thinking of all that great stuff, I’ll pray to the big man upstairs. I’ll promise to make some serious lifestyle changes in exchange for you to have all that, to have what you were always meant to have.”
I feel Tom’s hand on my shoulder. He squeezes it.
I start to cry harder.


How long has it been? Hours…days…minutes.
My eyes are sore. My head hurts.
I hear the door go again. It’s Josh.
He comes and sits by me.
“I was just talking to Dr. Fuller. She’s the neonatologist caring for your son. She said he’s doing good, Jake, real good. You can go up and see him when you’re ready.”
I turn and look at him blankly.
Go and see him. Without Tru.
But…
I shouldn’t see him without Tru.
And I can’t leave here. I need to know what’s happening with Tru.
I can’t. I just…can’t.
“I’ll take you up to see him, and I’ll wait outside. The instant I get any news about Tru, I’ll come in and get you, I promise,” Josh says as if reading my mind.
“I…” I shake my head. “I don’t think I can.”
Josh draws his knees up and rests his arms on them, linking his hands together. There’s a long pause before he speaks again. But when he does, I hear the intention clear in his voice. “I know you feel like leaving this room is like leaving Tru, but there’s nothing you can do for her right now, Jake, no matter where you are. But your son…he needs you. He needs one of his parents.”
One of his parents.
I close my eyes.
He’s alone up there. He must be so confused and scared. He needs me.
“Okay…,” I agree, opening my eyes. “Okay.”


“Your son is right in there.” Josh points to the closed door across from us. “There’s a nurse with him, and I’ll be waiting right out here for you.” He indicates a row of three plastic chairs.
Turning to the door, I stare at it for a long moment.
I take a deep breath as I push my hand through my hair, then I walk toward the door.
My body is trembling, and the closer I get, the harder I start to shake.
He’s in there. Right behind that door.
I reach for the handle. Curling my fingers around the metal, I push down and slowly open the door.
The room is low-lit. There’s no sound except for the beeping of a machine.
The nurse has her back to me, but she turns and smiles at my arrival.
“Mr. Wethers?”
“Yes.” My voice is hoarse.
“He’s right over there. He’s been waiting for you.” She smiles warmly.
Turning to my right, I see an incubator. Inside the incubator is my son.
My son.
I can’t see him clearly through all the tubes surrounding him, but he looks small. So very small. Fragile. Breakable.
My heart starts to beat hard in my chest.
I want to go to him, but I find myself taking a step back.
I don’t think I can help him. I shouldn’t be here. Coming up here was a mistake.
I’m just about to turn and leave when the nurse comes up beside me. “Don’t let all the tubes scare you, honey. They’re just there to help him breathe until he’s strong enough to do it himself. Why don’t you go say hello?” she urges gently.
I stare blankly down at her.
My mouth is dry. My pulse is thumping so hard that blood is roaring in my ears.
Tru should be here. She should be seeing him with me. It shouldn’t be this way.
This is wrong.
I swallow back the tears burning my throat.
Somehow I manage a step forward. Then another. Until I reach the incubator.
I stare down at him through the clear unit.
He looks just like Tru. Exactly like her. Perfect in every way possible.
And it hurts in every way imaginable.
He’s even smaller close up. There’s a tube taped to his little nose and a little white knitted hat on his head.
“How much does he weigh?” I ask.
“Two pounds, seven ounces.”
My heart sinks. Two pounds, seven ounces. Jesus, he weighs about the same as a bag of sugar.
My hand reaches out to him before I even realise I’m doing it. I stop myself, clenching my hand into a fist.
“You can touch him,” the nurse says. “Just clean your hands with this first.”
Coming over, she squeezes some sanitizer into my hand. I rub the cold gel over my hands until it’s gone.
“I’ll give you a moment alone.”
“Is he going to be okay?” My words come out ragged.
“You’ve got a fighter there, honey. He’s gonna be just fine.” She touches my arm briefly, and then she’s gone. And I’m left alone with him.
My son.
I get down to my knees, putting me at face level with him. His little face is turned toward me.
He’s got Tru’s full lips.
I reach my trembling hand through the porthole, and resting my palm flat on the mattress, I reach my little finger out to his tiny hand, and I touch him.
In this moment, I’ve never felt anything like it.
Love.
It’s different from the love I feel for Tru. But equally as strong. It’s an all-consuming need to protect him forever. To keep him safe from any pain. Like the pain I’m feeling right now.
It chokes me to tears.
I stroke my finger gently along his hand, and as I do, his fingers curl around it, holding on to me.
He needs me.
Salty tears trickle down my cheeks and into my mouth.
Pressing my lips together, I rest my forehead against the incubator.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there…” I whisper. “So very sorry.”