Resolution (Saviour #2)(50)
Gabe catches me under my arms and pulls me to him on the chair, I don’t feel faint, I just can’t get my legs to hold me up and I can feel him shake as he cries into my neck and all I can say is, “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, I should have been here, I wanted to be here. I wanted to come today and be here for you and be brave and tell you it’s all going to be okay and I am so f*cking useless.”
“Shhhh, shhhh, shhhh.” He repeats over and over as he strokes my hair.
I wrap my arms around his neck and look up at him, his eyes are still on his daughter, I kiss his face, his eyes, his tears and it calms me, calms me enough to be able to stand, I go over to Ava and give her a kiss on her forehead and hold her hand and stroke her hair.
“Belated happy birthday darling, I’m so sorry I missed it; did Daddy give you your present? I hope you liked it, sorry we lied, we just wanted it to be a surprise, I bet you knew we were lying really didn’t you? Your Dad would have done anything to get you those tickets, anything.”
I swallow back a sob, “You are going to have the best night, we will stay in the city and you and your mates can have a room to yourselves and have room service and order what you like, anything, just get better for us Ava, please just get better.”
I can’t talk anymore without crying, so I shut up and look back to Gabe, he’s looking at me, “Are you okay? Shouldn’t you be at home resting?”
I walk back around the bed to where he’s sitting in the chair looking up at me; I brush the hair back off his face, “I don’t want to go home, I don’t want to sit in an empty house and not know what’s going on, I want to be here with you and Ava, I’ve hated being in that hospital on my own, I just wanted to be here, with my family.”
He looks at me blankly, I’m not sure he’s listened to or taken in anything I have just said, “You need to eat and you need to sleep, then you need to shower and change your clothes, Sam will take you to the hotel and I will stay with Ava, or if you want, Sam will stay with Ava and I will come back to the hotel with you.”
He’s shaking his head before I have even finished speaking, “I’m not leaving her.”
“Gabe, please, you are going to make yourself sick, and then who will look after Ava once she’s awake?”
He shakes his head the whole time I’m talking…
“I will look after her when she wakes up, me, because she’s my daughter, I’m her Dad, it’s my job to look after her”
“Okay, well just go and have a shower and change your clothes, you’ll be back within the hour, I will call you if there’s any change, or what if.”
“Why are you even here?”
“What?”
“Why are you even here? She’s my daughter Lauren, not yours, mine, we don’t need you so just f*ck off back to your ex, the one you like to kiss, f*ck off and leave us alone.”
I’m stunned into silence; I don’t have any idea what to say to that. I can only put his words down to shock, grief and a lack of sleep. There are a million and one different things I think I should say but I am standing at the bedside of a very sick little girl, his little girl, not mine and I really don’t want to cause a scene. My heart hurts, I love him so much and just want to be there for him and he’s just rejected me, excluded me, like Ava means nothing, is nothing to me and it hurts, it f*cking hurts. I swallow back my tears and keep my eyes closed for a few seconds while I try to regain my composure.
“I suppose I deserve that, the comment about Jay I mean, but don’t, do not ever question my feelings for your daughter, I love her like she’s my own and you f*cking know that.”
He totally ignores me and just looks at Ava and goes back to holding her hand. I kiss both of them and say, “I will go and get you some clothes and toiletries, I’m sure there’s somewhere here for parents to take a shower, I will bring you something back to eat as well, I won’t be long.”
Once again he blanks me and I fight back the tears. All the way to the hotel and back I tell myself that he’s not himself, he doesn’t mean what he’s saying, this isn’t about me, I need to stop with the pity party and just be there for him, I need to step up, take the shit that he is going to throw at me and be the person he deserves, he’s just lost his Dad, he thought he was going to lose me and his daughter is in a fight for her life right now.
“Lauren?”
“Sorry, what?”
“I won’t come back up, I have to get the kids from school, Stella will be there later, go to the pizza shop around the corner, he likes the Spicy Mexicana from there and just take what he says with a pinch of salt, he loves you, that’s why he’s lashing out at you.”
I smile and nod and grab the holdall with Gabe’s clean clothes in and go and buy him a pizza before making my way back to the hospital. My heart quite literally stops when I walk onto the ward and it’s not Ava in the bed next to the nurses’ station, luckily one of the nurses sees my face and tells me she has been moved into a side room. I don’t think I can take much more, my heart, my head, I just can’t take any more. She shows me to the room and it’s much better than being out on the ward. Gabe is as he was and still holding Ava’s hand, I watch from the doorway for a few seconds and then breeze in, my fake smile plastered to my face.