“God, life is so damn short. Clearly,” I say, pointing down at myself. “I don’t want the in-between shit. I want to be with you. I want to live with you, start a life with you, and…I don’t know, we’ll do the rest of it right, but in the meantime can we at least play house until then?”
“You guys are gross,” Ever says, giving us both a snide look.
“Shush over there,” I tell her. “No one asked you, grumpy.”
“You want to play house?” Cammy repeats.
“Yeah, I’ll be the dad, you be the mom, and the rest will just fall into place.”
“I think I like this idea,” she whispers.
“Mr. Cole, we need to take you back for one more test, immediately. I’m sorry, but your family is going to have to wait for you back in the waiting room again,” a nurse says with eagerness.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Cammy stands up, lifting Gavin, placing him on her hip, and Ever joins the two of them, placing her arm around Cammy’s back. “What’s happening?” Cammy presses.
“We may have spotted another area that is still bleeding in your brain. We need to have a closer look and—I’ll let a doctor explain the rest.”
I feel like the wind has been knocked out of my lungs. I guess I was lucky enough to sleep through all of this shit in the first place, but it looks like I’m not going to be so lucky this time around.
I’m rushed back into the same testing area I was in earlier. They use a different machine this time, and there are more doctors circulating around the monitors in the adjacent room. I feel like a lab rat.
“Hey,” I shout. “Can someone please tell me what’s going on? I’m kind of freaking out over here.”
A doctor makes his way over and removes the nearby machines. “AJ, there’s another small blood leak that went unnoticed the other day during your original procedure. It may be because it’s on a different side of your brain than what we were working on, or it may have started bleeding after the fact. I’m uncomfortable leaving it the way it is, even though it only shows a small amount of blood. In any case, it’s not an ideal situation to put you back under anesthesia right now so soon after being comatose. We can risk it, or there is another alternative.”
“What’s the alternative?” I ask, scared to hear the answer.
“There are some patients, mostly those with brain tumors, who cannot be put under anesthesia for the risk of complications. While the possible complications are the same in your situation, I would feel more comfortable sedating you and performing the surgery while you are mostly conscious.”
“I’d have to be awake for brain surgery?” I clarify. Because, shit, I’m not sure I’m mentally capable of going through that.
“We will sedate you, but I need to know if you think you have the tolerance to remain calm?”
“How am I supposed to know something like that?”
“You know yourself better than I, son, and I want to give you the option because the alternative is more dangerous, in my professional opinion.”
“When will we have to do this?”
“Right away. Bleeding in the brain can cause many issues we don’t want to encounter.”
I nod my head, answering without answering. He’s giving me a choice; yet, I don’t feel like I have much of a choice. “Can I talk to my family first?”
“Of course,” he says.
I’m brought back to my room temporarily and everyone else is brought in at once, most likely to save time. They’re treating me like I’m minutes away from just dropping dead. The thought scares the shit out of me.
Every one of them is staring at me with a sickening look of fear in their eyes. “They gotta go back in. There’s still some bleeding I guess.”
“They’re putting you under?” Hunter snaps first. “No way.”
I swallow hard, trying to put the words together that I’m still trying to form in my head. “I’m going to be awake the whole time, actually.”
“What?” Cammy asks, her voice hitching in her throat.
“It’s too dangerous to put me under, but it’s too dangerous not to take care of this right now. So, it is what it is.”
“I want to talk to the doctor first,” Dad says.
“Yes, I do too,” Mom agrees.
“Guys, the doctor made it pretty clear that there isn’t a lot of time right now, and I’m going to trust this guy. He seems like he knows what he’s talking about, okay?”
Dad drops down in the chair, looking like the blood has been stolen from his face. He rests his head in his hand and breathes in and out slowly, but heavily at the same time.
Cammy has her hand locked over her mouth, and Ever is looking at me as if I were a ghost. She shouldn’t be in here. She’s been through too much already. Gavin doesn’t understand any of this, but she does.
“Are there any complications involved?” Cammy asks.
“He didn’t say, but without having much of a choice here, I think I’d rather go into this unaware of possible complications, especially since I have to be awake.”