Resolution (Saviour #2)(37)
“Hold tight,” I shout to Ava as I turn in the water. She screams “Woohoo Lauren you’re the best” as she squeezes me tight; I never thought it was possible to love a child that wasn’t of your flesh and blood as much as you do your own but in that moment I realise that I do, I love Ava as if she were my own and quite possibly feel even a little more protective of her because she’s a girl and I have never had that dynamic. We stop just as we get back to the boat, Gabe pulls up alongside us, with a boyish grin on his face; I squirm and smile back at him stupidly; he stands and leans forward and gives me a salty kiss.
“Having fun?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Get a room you two” Ava and CJ say in unison and laugh.
Gabe’s eyes are on me, all intense and hooded and I know exactly what’s on his mind. We had been thwarted at our attempts to have a quickie this morning by the amount of people coming in and out of our bedroom and despite last night’s antics, I am so desperately horny for him.
“Let’s head back, it’s getting late” Gabe states.
Mouthing to me “I wanna f*ck you” I start to blush in case Ava has worked out what he just said from over my shoulder. I’m vaguely aware of the sound of an engine…then, nothing, black.
GABRIEL
CHAPTER 12
I jolt awake, taking a few seconds to get my bearings, a few seconds before cold, icy reality sinks in, f*ck off, f*ck off, f*ck off, I don’t want this to be real. The smell and the sounds are the first to invade and shatter my oblivion. Antiseptic, disinfectant, bleach, sickness, death? Whatever the f*ck it is, all hospitals smell of it, public or private, they all have that 'hospital smell'. Then there are the sounds; the quiet hum of conversation, the occasional sound of someone crying, trolleys squeaking, machines bleeping. I'm aware of all of this before my world once again comes crashing down around me. Fuck, no, no, no.... Please, I don't want this to be true, I don’t want any part of this to be true. I kiss her hand as she lies there in the bed, looking tiny, fragile and yet so peaceful. There are tubes in her hand, up her nose and down her throat, machines bleeping at the end of the bed and a blood pressure cuff that tightens around her arm every so often. I don't think I have cried so many tears in my life, I have begged and I have pleaded for divine intervention, I've asked my Mum, who I have always believed is watching over me to help. I've offered myself. Let it be me, please, take me, just let her live, because if she doesn't, I don't think I will be able to go on; but nothing, nothing at all has changed, she still just lays there looking serene and beautiful and totally oblivious to the chaos and heartache that's going on all around her and every now and then that makes me angry, if she just knew, just for a split second, what we are all going through, how much we love her and want her well again, I just know she would wake up; but she doesn't and that makes me angry and helpless, I can't do anything, I can't change anything, I can't make her wake up and I can't make it all go away; and that makes me so f*cking angry.
I've made her hand wet with my tears. I sniff and wipe my face on my T-shirt.
“Baby, please wake up, please, I love you so much, so, so much, please try, for me, please try.”
I stand up and stretch and crack my jaw and knuckles, anything to try and take the edge off this rage I feel: why, why us? In the blink of an eye my world has been changed forever, the three people I love most in the world all affected…and there’s not a thing I can do to change it. My Dad’s dead, my Dad, Charlie Wilde, is dead, gone, I no longer have living parents, both of them now gone, but people lose their parents all the time right? Doesn’t make it any easier when it happens to you though, but we always knew it was something that would happen one day, we all grow up knowing that one day we will lose our parents at some stage, I know that more than most! But not this, not Lauren and definitely not Ava, not my child and the woman I love, the two people I’m supposed to protect and right in front of my eyes, they were almost wiped out, both now lying in separate hospitals, both comatose because of their injuries caused by a Jet Ski accident, right in front of my eyes, if Cooper hadn’t been there, Lauren would probably be dead and I would be trying to live with my decision to jump into the water and save Ava first, right now I owe my brother everything, he didn’t hesitate, as the accident unfolded in front of us, he jumped straight in and pulled Lauren to safety while I dragged Ava onto the boat but it still might not be enough, I still might lose them both and I can’t change it, I can hope and pray and beg but I can’t actually change it and I feel like an absolute failure; I’ve promised Lauren on more than one occasion now, that I would protect her, keep her safe and once again, I’ve failed to keep my promise.
I sit back down on what is quite possibly, the most uncomfortable chair on the f*cking planet and drop my head in my hands and think back to the night that I first set eyes on Lauren; I hadn’t planned on going out that night, Friday the fourteenth of September 2012, the day that changed my life! When I woke up on that Friday morning my weekend was planned, I was picking Ava and Sophie up from Nina’s and they were coming to stay at mine for the weekend but then Ava called to say that Sophie was sick and she didn’t really feel like coming on her own and as school holidays were coming up and she would be staying with me for a week then, she wanted to spend some time with her Mum, Nina, my ex, who was expecting her third baby sometime soon.