Will You Catch Me If I Fall?

Trace POV

I watched helplessly as they bundled Addison, my Addison onto the stretcher and they quickly manoeuvred her down the stairs and into the ambulance. She moaned faintly, and turned her head as consciousness came back to her and she mumbled my name.

I grabbed her hand, jumping into the ambulance with her as the paramedics began to check her blood pressure and attach all sorts of wires to her thin frame. They looked like thin vicious snakes wrapped around her body in a cruel embrace.
“I’m here Addie, I’m here”, I murmured, smoothing back her hair from her burning forehead and wiping the tears that had fallen from my eyes in fear. She moaned again, this time in pain and her hand tried to clutch her stomach.

One of the paramedics, whose jacket read ‘Linda’, grabbed her hand and applied a cool cloth to her forehead “It’s alright sweetheart, you’re safe now. It won’t hurt anymore, I promise”,

She spoke to the driver to ‘get a move on’ and my heart began to hammer. What was happening? What was wrong with Addison?

I was shaking as I watched Addison begin to doze in and out of reality, muttering incoherent sentences. I sighed, wiping my own forehead and rocked back and forth to shake off the anxiety. Everything would be okay, it had to be okay.

Linda looked at me and smiled gently, kindness flooding her features. She was pretty, middle aged and had a calming influence upon me which I was sure what made her a good paramedic “You her boyfriend or brother Hun?”

“I’m…I’m her boyfriend”, I whispered, “What’s wrong with her?”,

Linda eyes became guarded and I wondered would she tell me the truth or a fabricated lie. I’d watched the medical shows, and I knew sometimes doctors lied to spare the family the truth.

“It’s hard to tell without a doctor’s examination, but I’m guessing it’s her appendix. Or an ectopic pregnancy. She’s sexual active?”,

I blushed and nodded “yeah, but she’s on the pill”, I think. Fuck.

But even the notion of being a father couldn’t drift my mind away from the fact Addison’s life could well be hanging in the balance. I sighed, and ran a hand through my hair, my tattoos a blurring kaleidoscope of a strange fantasy against the black and grey reality of what was happening around me.

I almost yelled with relief as we reached the hospital, and I jumped from the back of the ambulance after they wheeled Addison out. She screamed as the bed jolted slightly and I winced, her pain piercing through me as well. I’d do anything to swap places right now, for me to feel that pain and her not.

I ran behind the bed, and a grey haired man rushed towards us. A stethoscope was draped across his neck and he wore a crisp right cloak. Finally, a doctor and someone who could tell me what the hell was wrong with my girlfriend.

I watched anxiously as he conversed with Linda, and she spoke in a hurried tone as she guided the bed through a large set of double doors, holding the bed straight and tight as not to cause Addison anymore unnecessary pain. She moaned again, turning slightly in the bed as the doctor bent over her, shining a light into her eyes, and running a hand over her forehead again. I admired his skill as the bed was still moving quickly through the corridors. I was all but forgotten.

The doctor ran his hands down Addison’s side, pressing into one particular place that caused her to let out an ear-splitting scream and a drug induced profanity of curses at the man that was helping her. I fought a smile. Even in pain, Addison had spirit.

The doctor stepped away “Book an OR immediately, and prep her for surgery”,

He turned to go but I caught up with him, “Excuse me Sir, can you tell me what’s wrong…please.”, I added hastily. I bounced on the balls of my feet, wanting to run after Addison. She shouldn’t be alone right now.

The man surveyed me with clear grey eyes “You a relative?”,

I shook my head “No Sir, I’m her boyfriend. She was staying at mine when she collapsed.”,

He clicked his tongue “I believe your girlfriend, Addison isn’t it?, is suffering from a burst appendix. It’s easy to fix when it is inflamed but I’m afraid Addison’s may have already burst which could cause disastrous complications in the removal. She’ll go into surgery immediately, it will take an hour,perhaps two. Why don’t you go into the waiting room, and I’ll have a nurse inform you when we’re done”,

He walked away, leaving me standing there, my mouth open. I wasn’t stupid, I knew a burst appendix could sometimes mean fatal results. I began to shake, and at that moment I’ve never been so thankful to hear my mother’s angel voice.

“Trace honey, are you okay? Where did they take our Addison?”,

I started to cry, and felt ashamed for my tears “Momma, she’s hurt real bad. I don’t know what to do”,

My mother’s arm enclosed around me, shushing me as a mother would and rubbing my back comfortingly “It’s alright baby. don’t you worry she’ll be all better soon. Let’s go get a hot drink and go to the waiting room. Now what’s wrong with her?”,

“Her appendix burst”, I muttered, wiping away the shameful tears, and my mother tutted, rubbing my arm.

“No need to get so upset. It’s a nifty operation, she’ll be right as rain soon enough you’ll see, now where’s that waiting room?”,

I knew my mother was overdoing the cheerful attitude but her presence still made me less worried. She made me feel like everything would be alright. My dad arrived after a moment, finding us in an aqua blue waiting room, complete with a coffee machine and TV. The television was on and the low drone of human voices filled the otherwise silent room. I stared at the pictures on the wall of sea creatures and dolphins, that seemed a whole other world away from this building filled with the sea, dead and dying.

My dad clapped me on my knee, before sitting beside me, his sturdy weight causing the couch to bend inwards and me to shift my position on the structure. He picked up a magazine and began to read, as if this was an everyday occurrence and we were not in a waiting room, sitting still whilst someone cut open my girlfriend.

I shivered at the thought and rubbed my eyes. I was exhausted, I don’t think I’d be sleeping very long until I was jolted awake by Addison’s screaming. It seemed like days ago since I was kissing Addison’s neck, tickling her on my bed, breathing in her scent that smelled like all the best things in the room put together.

My eyes began to droop, and with the comforting weight of my mom rubbing my arm in soothing circles, the soft breathing of my dad and the low sounds of the television, I fell asleep.

~

“Trace, Trace hunny wake up”,

“Mmm,”, I mumbled into my shoulder which my head was resting on and then slowly opened my eyes. I blinked at the unfamiliar surroundings and then everything flooded back to me, Addison collapsing, rushing to hospital, Addison in surgery…

I shot straight up, looking around anxiously “What is it? Is she okay? Where is she?”,

My mom smiled and calmed me down, “Relax Trace, she’s fine. The doctor came in, the surgery went well and she’s in room 1320. She’s still asleep but we can go in to her, I brought some stuff from home for her as well, for when she wakes up, here.

My mom passed me Addison’s oversized handbag (I’ll never understand why it needs to be that big. She may as well carry around a suitcase), and a separate bag of clothes and girly necessities. I more or less ran to Addison’s room and was told off by several nurses and an old man in a wheelchair I almost ran over. When I got there she was still sleeping, and had an assortment of wires and tubes sticking from everywhere. Her make up was cleared from her face and she looked so pale. Her whole body seemed tiny as it was wrapped with the IV tubes,the wires monitoring her heartbeat and the heavy hospital blanket that was tucked around her. A lump rose into my throat as I realised how helpless she looked, so small and frail. But I’d look after her, I’d always look after her.

The doctor was there, checking her machines and her temperature. He straightened as he saw me standing in the doorway “Ah, Mr. Cyrus. As you can see your Addison is doing quite well. She’ll have to stay here for a week or two, and she’ll be very sore to move but I can successfully say her appendix will give her no more trouble”, he laughed at his own joke “Now, you can make sure she’s gets proper bed rest when she’s home and make sure she’s eats a bit more than usual as she’s a little bit too thin for her height, she’ll come round in the next fifteen minutes I presume so I’ll leave you alone with her.”

He clasped me on the arm on the way out and I muttered a thank you, too preoccupied with getting to Addison. I knew my parents would probably head home to see how Miley was doing and Noah who would be arriving from her friends house this morning. We were alone again, how we liked it. I could spend the rest of my life just with Addison, and be happy.

As the doctor predicted, Addison started to wake up in the time he said. Her fingers twitched in my hold and I looked to her face, smoothing back her red hair and whispering to her that I was here. Her eyes fluttered and she murmured something, and then started to speak more clearly,
“Trace?..Trace!”, she began to panic but I rested my head beside hers on the space of pillow

“I’m here Addie, it’s okay. Sleep, I’m here.”

She smiled at me, a smile that broke my heart. It was so trusting, and she seemed so young in that moment. Life had drawn her a foul pair of cards in her short life, all she had been through was not something a nineteen year old should know.

A thought struck me that I should ring her parents, they were mostly likely wondering why they hadn’t heard from her in the last few days and they should know there youngest daughter had been ill, especially with what happened with Stephanie.

I dug through Addison’s handbag, feeling guilty but I finally uncovered her phone and flipped it open. I scrolled through her contacts finding no home number and I frowned. Wouldn’t her parents have called her once since the weeks she’d been away?

I looked at her, she was still sleeping, a small smile on her face as her hand gently clutched mine and I pressed into her recent calls, still nothing. All her calls were from either me, Simara or Frank-E. It was the same with her texts as I quickly scrolled through them.

I returned her phone to her bag as anger began to filter into my system. I frowned, it was no wonder Addison was still so broken over her sister’s death when her parents seemed to have forgotten her, or were ignoring her existence. It was as if she had died to them at the same time Stephanie did, or that they had died with Stephanie. Whatever it was, her parents were leaving their youngest daughter, and now the only daughter they had left completely alone in a cruel world that could take everything from you.

I looked at Addison, pale and child-like in the bed and I pressed a kiss to her forehead, smoothing my thumb over her hand linked with mine. She was no longer alone, she had me, and I was going no-where.