I floored the gas. The tires screeched.
By the time we reached the hospital Matt had stopped seizing. I didn't know which was worse—the spasms or this death-like stillness.
Another seizure shook him as I hurtled out of the SUV. I sprinted past the ambulance bay. Eerie white light lit everything. Oh god, thank god, thank god for this place. I realized I was praying as I ran. God, don't take him! God, please, he's mine!
I burst into the ER.
I must have said the right words, explained things right. All I could hear was my fear grinding and screaming. My heart was in the car with Matt.
I led the paramedics outside and watched as they dragged him onto a stretcher. His beautiful body was lifeless. Then he started to seize.
Strangers surrounded the stretcher. I tried to get to Matt. They ran the stretcher into the hospital and I rushed after them. I collided with a nurse.
"My boyfriend!" I shrieked, reaching after him. My boyfriend?
"Hun, listen to me." The nurse held my shoulders. No way could I get past this lady; she was solid and Germanic. "We need you here right now. What's your name?"
"Hannah. Hannah Catalano."
I glanced around for the first time. An old man and a younger couple sat in the lobby. All three pairs of eyes were on me.
"Okay hun, what's your boyfriend's name? Did he bring ID?" The nurse led me behind the front desk. Right, this was the desk clerk. I'd just seen her, and I nearly climbed over her desk screaming about Matt.
I dropped into a bony aluminum chair and hugged myself. Matt, oh god, Matt.
For the next fifteen minutes, I fielded questions and filled out paperwork, half of which I couldn't complete. Every other question was a reminder of how little I knew about Matt.
At least I wasn't bawling. Fear and hollow dread held back my tears.
"What are they doing? Can they stop the seizures? Is—"
The nurse rebuffed my questions with more of her own.
"He's very dehydrated. Do you know how long he's been drinking? How many times has he detoxed in the past?"
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know!
Detoxed in the past...
I remembered the way Matt's hand shook when I made him pour out his last bottle. I wanted to scream. He knew this would happen, didn't he? He'd been down this road before, probably more than once.
Around six, the nurse released me.
"I'll call you in as soon as he's stable," she promised.
I shambled into the lobby.
People came and went. The fluorescent lights hummed steadily.
I Googled alcohol withdrawal on my phone and skimmed the results.
Life-threatening condition.
Drinking heavily for weeks.
Agitation, seizure, delirium tremens... can be fatal.
When I held Matt last night and he came into my hand—was it the last time? And if I lost him now, how was I supposed to live?
I scrolled through my contacts.
Mom, dad, Chrissy, Jay, Pam, Nate.
I should call Nate. Where was he anyway? Maybe he spent the night in Geneva, though I doubted it. He probably drove home and passed out.
"Hannah?"
The desk clerk smiled down at me.
"You can go see him now. Down the hall, he's in the first bed on the left."
My terror burbled back up.
"Thanks," I said. I grabbed my things and jogged down the hall to the ICU. I blinked rapidly against the sanitized whiteness of the hospital. Everywhere I looked I saw monitors and beds and curtains. I heard low voices and a periodic groan. Doctors and nurses moved to and fro purposefully, ignoring me.
First bed on the left.
No one stopped me as I slipped into the curtained-off space.
Matt lay on a hospital bed, the head inclined. Velcro straps tethered his wrists and ankles to the rails. He had an IV in one arm, a catheter in the other. His drip bag was half empty. He was asleep, or maybe unconscious. A monitor blipped his stats.