radicalducati 29
29
Alex’s POV
I race to catch her before she hits the ground and lift her up in my arms.
Her watch begins to make a sound and my heart begins to hammer inside my chest as the fear strikes my body.
“Alex, take her to the hospital!” my mom yells in panic.
“She can’t been seen like this, the whole town will know what happened to her. She wouldn’t want that. Mathew, go bring a trusted doctor from the hospital and make sure he brings everything he might need to treat her at home!” I speak frantically as I move inside the house and head for my room, my entire family coming behind me.
I lay her down gently, sit next to her, and grab her wrist to check her watch. I was expecting to see the same number I saw at dawn, but it was much lower. Lower than normal I assume judging by the alarm.
I look at my mom who was sitting on the other side of the bed and tell her tensely “It’s low this time, not hyperglycemia. What should we do?”
“She needs sugar” my mom whispers, apparently still in shock over what was revealed in that front yard.
“She’s not responsive. Should we try to wake her up?“ Lucas asks nervously.
I spare him a glance and to my surprise, his face was filled with worry as he was standing at the foot of the bed staring at Jennifer.
I look at mom for confirmation but she’s focused on her deep collarbone cut. It was the first time she saw it since Jennifer had her back to her the entire time. She didn’t see how gruesome it looked in the front yard.
I snap her out of her daze as I call out “Mom! What should we do?”
Her eyes blink several times and she starts to focus on the situation at hand.
“Where are her medical stuff?” mom asked firmly.
I take her bag from the night stand and hand it to her.
She starts rummaging through it until she finds a tiny long red case. She reads the label carefully, then opens it.
She starts preparing the needle by mixing the liquid that was inside it into the small vial which contained powder. She withdraws the liquid back into the syringe and pushes it a little until some liquid comes out.
“Turn her to her side” she orders firmly.
I turn her body towards my side and hold her position.
My mom injects the needle into her upper arm and pushes the contents all the way in.
She hands Sara the needle and tells her to dispose of it.
She looks at me with a worried face “It should start to go up in a few minutes”
The next few minutes feel like hours as we hold our breaths and wait for her watch to register the change in her levels. I keep my eyes glued to the display of her watch as I monitor it.
We all release a breath once the ringing stops and my heart begins to slow down as I confirm it from the number on her watch.
I show it to my mom and double check “Is this a good number?”
She nods her head in confirmation, looking so relieved.
“Keep her on her side, she might throw up once she regains her consciousness” my mom says softly.
Except she doesn’t wake up, even after ten minutes of her injection.
I look at my mom tensely, but she just shakes her head at me.
After several minutes, Mathew walks inside with a forty year old doctor carrying a medical bag in his hand.
I move from my position to let the doctor examine her.
I inform him of her condition in clipped short words including both her hyperglycemia at dawn and hypoglycemia now. Not getting into the details of how she got those marks and bruises on her body.
He spent a couple of minutes giving her a full thorough exam, he then turned to me and started asking me.
“How old is that wound? And when did that ripped part open?” the doctor asks firmly.
“Two days. It was ripped from the first day probably ten hours after it was stitched” I reply tightly.
My mom shoots me a confused look. Wondering how I knew that, but I avert my gaze and focus on the doctor instead.
“The stitches were done properly but the ripped part is what caused the infection, it should have been sutured again as soon as the stitches were ripped. Why didn’t you stitch it again?”
It takes me a while to find an answer “She didn’t let us know about it till this morning”
“The infection caused her diabetes to fluctuate so rapidly. And the diabetes plus the fact that her wound wasn’t stitched again is what made the infection enter her blood stream so easily. I have to redo the stitches, take a sample to identify the type of bacteria, and then give her antibiotics to fight the infection. You also need to apply a cream on the wound every eight hours and keep it covered with a clean bandage”
“Why isn’t she waking up after her diabetes stabilized?” I asked warily.
“She has a high fever due to the infection, I will have to give her an IV to keep her hydrated and her diabetes in check since she won’t be able to eat anything at least for today, she also needs to be given her required doses of insulin; which I will write down for you to give to her. She might stay asleep until night. Developing both extreme cases of her diabetes in such a short period between them put a tremendous amount of stress on her body. She needs all the rest she can get, so it is better to keep her asleep and avoid any and all sorts of a stressful environment to avoid future complications”
I nod my head saving every single detail into my brain.
He proceeded to give her an IV into her hand, redid her stitches again, applied a thick cream on it, then bandaged it. He drew a sample of blood from her arm and sealed it in a plastic bag to take with him to the lab, then noted down all her required insulin injections and their doses.
“Keep applying a cool washcloth on her forehead to keep her fever under 38.5. I will come back to inject her IV with the antibiotic she needs once I get the lab results of her blood draw. Call me if something happens, I will be on call tonight”
“Thank you doctor, for everything” I say firmly.
Mathew takes the doctor out of the room as I sit back at the edge of the bed next to a slightly shivering Jennifer who was now lying on her back.
Everyone was still inside our room, deep worry and sadness etched into their expressions.
“Alex?“ my mom; who was still sitting on Jennifer’s other side, said in a cold hard tone I only heard from her when she was extremely angry; which rarely happened.
I closed my eyes and heaved a deep sigh.
I knew exactly what was going on through her mind, I also knew I had it coming.
I turned to her and waited for the unavoidable question.
“Did you rip her stitches?” she asked fiercely, anticipating my answer already.
“Unintentionally” I admitted stiffly.
She shook her head as disappointment shone very clear in her eyes.
“How did that happen exactly?”
“Mom… it just happened ok? No need to…”
“No need! No need to what? be mad? Disappointed? Because I am… both of those things and much more. I was expecting Lucas to do something like that, to be blinded by his hatred enough to harm her ‘unintentionally’, but you? I thought she would be safe with you. I kept convincing myself that you would never actually physically hurt her, I knew the son I raised after all, didn’t I? that the fear I saw in her eyes whenever she looked at you was an overreaction. But it wasn’t. You did hurt her, from the first moment she sat foot into this house…What else did you do to her?” she got up and looked at me with such intensity, it felt as if she just slapped me with it, with her question, her implied accusation.
“I would never do something like that” I said darkly as I got up from the bed and faced her rigidly.
I continue with remorse coloring my voice “I swear to you on my life, I didn’t mean to cause this, I didn’t know she was already hurt before she got here. I barely touched her just as a warning to know her rightful place here. That’s everything. She shouldn’t have kept quiet all this time. She…”
“Why do you think she did that Alex? I know you know the answer to that too. Because you and your brother did nothing but torment her since she got here. She never felt safe to confide in anyone, not even me. All thanks to you two. But enough is enough. She is my responsibility now and mine alone. As soon as she is better, she is taking the guest room upstairs and staying the hell away from you Alex. Get out, all of you, I’m going to stay with her"
“No” I find myself speaking strictly without thinking.
She looked at me fiercely, but I don’t let her say anything as I speak in a determined and final tone “She is not going anywhere. This is her room. I know I messed up mom. I’m admitting that, what I did was wrong and I will make sure she knows it when she wakes up. Give me a chance to make it up to her please. I will not let anything else happen to her because of me”
“Or because of me” Lucas adds seriously.
We all turn to him, but his eyes never leave Jennifer.
His tone turns soft as he continues “I was hard on her too without stopping for a second to consider what it might do to her. It was wrong of me and I will make sure she knows that from me as well”
And with that, he leaves the room with his head hanging low in shame.
He had us all speechless.
We never expected that side of him that he rarely shows, to come out directed towards Jennifer.
It showed how much the truth about what happened to her hit him hard. Especially after the knife incident in the kitchen that only the three of us know about. If mom heard about it, she would definitely flip out and kick him out of the house for what he had done.
My mom looks at me and says gently “This is your last chance Alex. I hope you stick to your word and convince her that she is safe with us. Help her deal with her mother’s absence and make her feel at home. Make her feel that she is a part of our family. I still can’t believe everything she’s been through because of us. No wonder she was a mess since yesterday. She had to send her own mother away so no one can force her into anything again. And that bastard was going to make her marry him! Totally heartbreaking. I can’t begin to imagine what she was going through for the past three days”
She begins to sob and Sara had to help her as she held her hand tightly, and they both went out of the room, followed by April and David.
Her last sentence sends a wave of pain to pass through me.
I’ve seen glimpses of her agony in these two days, and I said it wasn’t my problem and looked the other way.
I lay on my side of the bed, facing her, gazing at her, and going through every single conversation we had together in my mind.
I couldn’t help but end up admiring the heck out of this girl. Her strength, stubbornness, sarcasm, honesty, loyalty, even her bitterness and challenging attitude was sweet to me.
I read her all wrong from the beginning. I thought she was a nightmare from hell, but she turned out to be an angel sent from heaven.
A fiery blazing angel in red who hates my guts.
She is going to make me work so fucking hard to earn her forgiveness.
And I found myself not troubled by that challenge at all. On the contrary, I was looking forward to it.