Never Let Go
Chapter 13- How Do I?
How do I,/Get through the night without you?/If I had to live without you,/What kind of life would that be?/Oh, I/I need you in my arms, need you to hold,/You're my world, my heart, my soul,/If you ever leave,/baby you would take away everything good in my life,
~*Amanda's Point Of View*~
It had been an hour since they took Ashley away. I still wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. I had stopped sobbing awhile ago but I still had the occasional tear slip from my eyes.
"Jake?" I asked, barely above a whisper.
"Yeah?"
"Will you call Stephanie? I want her to come down here.
"Sure, but you'll have to get up." Instead of complying I turned so that I was facing Erik.
"Erik?" I asked in the same manner that I had asked Jacob.
"Yeah?"
"Will you call Stephanie for me? I want her to come down here."
"Sure." Erik got up from his chair and went over to the nurse's station to call Stephanie.
"He said that we were forever."
"What?"
"Ashley. When we were little he told me that we would be forever, he meant as friends, but still. He said that we would be forever and that we would die together. He had this whole thing planned out in his little six-year-old head. We were going to die together in our sleep. He would be holding me and we would just drift away to heaven where we would live happily ever after together. He said that we were both going to die when we were very, very old and that we would die together so that we wouldn't have to live even one second without eachother. As I got older I realized more and more that the possibility of that happening was slim to none, but I never expected that I would lose him when we were both still so young."
"You haven't lost him yet."
"I know, but I can feel him slipping away. It's so scary Jacob. I don't want to lose him. I can't lose him. I need him to live. He's everything in this world to me. He's all that I need to survive. Nothing else matters without him. I want to marry him and have lots of kids with him and die with him. I want us to just slip away to heaven while we sleep. I don't want him to go before I do. I know that that probably sounds selfish but I want to keep him here with me. I'm not ready to let him leave."
"That doesn't sound selfish Manda. I'd be the exact same way if it were Janie in there right now."
"How are you guys?"
"Good. She's not quite ready to get married and honestly I don't think it's the best time for us to, but we're back together and we're doing good."
"That's good. I'm happy for you guys."
"Stephanie is on her way." Erik said as he sat back down. I nodded and smiled my thanks.
"Do you think that he's going to make it?"
"I hope so Amanda. I really hope so."
"Me too. We used to play doctor when we were little. It was one of our favorite games. He was usually the doctor and I was the nurse. We would diagnose my dolls with horrible diseases and then cure them. We got married once too. When we were about seven. Our moms thought that it would be so cute to dress us up and pretend that we were married. Of course my older cousin Marie had a lot to do with it, but it was still our moms that suggested it in the first place. They always told Ash and me that one-day we were going to realize that we were in love and we were going to get married. I never believed my mom and then one-day in about the middle of seventh grade I just knew; it was like bam. Hit me right upside the head when I was least suspecting it."
"You never told me any of this before."
"I don't normally talk about it. I have a scrapbook and mostly I keep the memories to myself. I don't know, they always just seemed more special that way. Like it was a secret that only Ash and I shared and in some ways it was."
"Hey Manda. How are you holding up?" Stephanie asked as she sat down next to Jake on the couch.
"Nervous, anxious, sad, expectant. You pick. I'm feeling so many different things right now. I just; I don't know what to do. I can't lose him. I need him. I love him so much." I said as I began to cry again. Jacob rubbed my back comfortingly and let me sob into his shirt.
I calmed down again a few minutes later.
" I really wish the doctor would let us know something, good or bad. Not knowing is just torture."
"I know. He's been in there for almost two hours now. You'd expect someone to tell us something." I nodded my head against Jake's chest and we fell silent.
I took this time to see how the other guys were doing.
Trevor was crying. Dan looked anxious, nervous and on the verge of tears. Erik looked like he had aged ten years tonight. I looked up at Jacob. He had a faraway look in his eyes, but they didn't look particularly sad. Jake was never one to get teary eyed and emotional until there was a reason to. I looked over at Stephanie and saw that she had a pained, concerned look in teary eyes.
Two hours later, four hours after they had taken Ashley away, Dr. McLainly, Ashley's surgeon, came out from behind the ER doors.
"Are you all here for Ashley Angel?" He asked with an emotion that I couldn't quite decipher. His eyes were also unreadable.
"Yes." Jacob spoke for all of us.
"We did surgery on Ashley. We did our best..." I tuned out there and broke down into tears I didn't want to hear anymore. I couldn't believe that they had lost my best friend.
From the corner of my teary eyes I saw the doctor leave. At that point I completely broke down into sobs. Jacob hugged me tightly and attempted to calm me down but I wouldn't have any of it. I didn't want to calm down.
I pushed myself out of his arms and ran.
~*Jacob's Point Of View*~
"shit." I silently cursed under my breath.
"Shouldn't someone go after her?" Erik asked.
"Give her about ten minutes and if she doesn't come back then I'll go look for her. Erik nodded.
Fifteen minutes later she still hadn't come back so I decided to go look for her.
I walked all over the floor that we were on. I looked all over the floor below us. I had been looking for thirty minutes at this point. I was just about to go back and admit defeat when I walked past the chapel.
I decided that she might be in there so I opened the doors and walked in.
I saw her kneeling in the front. It looked like she was praying, although a minute later I was corrected when I heard a sob come from her. I walked closer, but not enough to let her know that I was there.
"Why did you take him away from me? Why did you take him and leave me? You were supposed to take us at the same time so that we wouldn't ever have to live even a second without eachother. I don’t know how to live without him and I don't ever want to learn. Why did you take him away from me? Why?" She asked before completely breaking down.
Deciding that it would be ok, I went up and wrapped my arms around her, she turned into my hug and sobbed into my chest.
I waited until she had calmed down some before I spoke.
"God didn't take Ashley away from you." I started.
"Yes he did, he took him and left me."
"It wasn't Ash's time. God didn't take him."
"But the doctor said-"
"No, he didn't. He said that they tried their best but he slipped into a coma."
"He's not dead?"
"Nope, he's still alive, just not currently conscious."
"Why was he coughing up blood."
"When they took the tube out of his throat it cut some of his throat, he also somehow managed to swallow a tiny shard of glass, which also cut his throat. He swallowed a small amount of blood and that's what he was coughing up. The took him into surgery to make sure that his lings were completely drained of his blood and that's when he slipped into a coma."
"So he's gonna be ok?"
"They think so, but they aren't sure. I mean, he's in a coma, he could wake up in an hour, a week, a month, a year, or he could never wake up. At this point we just don't know."