I Think We Have an Emergency

I think we have an emergency
I think we have an emergency

Flashing lights surround me, making my head spin worse than it already had. Some cry, some scream, and I’m wondering why. I mean, it’s just a bunch of fireworks, right? You should be used to them by now. Then it strikes me that it’s nowhere near the fourth, or New Years. So why are there flashes? Why is my head spinning? All the red and white and blue, like it was the fourth, but why is there black? And are those actual flames? What’s wrong with me? Tim and I were just in the car - where is he? Where’s Tim? My head aches, and all I want is sleep, but I’ve got to find time. I move, my arm screams in pain. Wait, that was me screaming. Why am I hurt? Wait - is that Tim’s car over there, with that eighteen wheeler in the middle of the intersection? Then why am I over here?
The car is totaled. The blue car that I’d helped him fix up, ‘til it shined. Those were good days. Tim and I had been inseparable for two and a half years, so why wasn’t he here now? And who did he let borrow his car? Am I dreaming? I might be, I decide, so I let myself gently back down and close my eyes. The lights flash through my eyelids, then I open them again. If this were a dream, would I still have felt all the pain I felt? I sit up, and my head is racing. Fear strikes my heart, and I think, what if this is all real?
I stagger up, towards the car. A hand tries to grab me, I don’t know whose, but I brush it off and stumble towards Tim’s car. What if this is real? What if Tim is in there? What if he’s awake, what if he’s scared for me? What if he needs me? Tim needs me. I have to get over to his car. People are already gathering around it. I feel like it’s miles away, but I know it’s only about ten feet. I try to say ‘move’ but all that comes out is a croak, and people try to hold me back. After a moment of this, I hauled off and punched someone - no idea who - and they let me through. A stretcher was coming right at me. Was all that red stuff over the guy’s face blood? And matted all up in his straw colored hair? His chest is rising and falling, and I stumble over to him, my eyes glazing over. It’s Tim. It’s my Tim, and now I’m going to stay right with him, whether these paramedic stretcher-people like it or not.

If you thought I’d leave, then you were wrong
‘Cause I won’t stop holding on

I get jostled around, hands claw at the hand I’ve seized Tim’s with, but nothing is going to get me to let go.
“Tim,” I say, hoarsely. My voice surprises me, so I use it again and again. “Tim. Tim. Tim.”
Voices talk to me, voices I don’t care to listen to, or obey. Tim’s fingers are cold, but his chest is still rising and falling, however slowly it may be. They get him to the ambulance, and they try to take him from me.
“No!” I say, “I’m going with him!”
They don’t protest, because they most likely think I could use some attention, too, and they have to practically lift me up into the back. They’ve got Tim up already, and I’m sitting by him, my hand still clutching his, willing his eyes to open, or for him to give me some sign that he’s okay.

So are you listening?
So are you watching me?

If you thought I’d leave, then you were wrong
‘Cause I won’t stop holding on

The hospital: White walls, sickening smells, and more people trying to pry me away. I snarl at them, like some sort of wild beast. I get to follow them, they decide it might be good for me to be there as they try to bring him around. They think that it might help to bring him around - hearing my voice, that is. I wouldn’t have left even if they had tried to force me. I would have screamed and kicked and cried and I don’t know what else. I wouldn’t have left.
“Tim. Wake up,” I whispered in his ear, as they put the IV in and the breathing mask on.

This is an emergency
So are you listening?

I could say it’s not traumatic to have to sit there for a few hours, doctors bustling around your long term boyfriend, and whisper calmly in his ear that it’ll be alright if he would wake up. I could say it didn’t hurt to see the doctors panic two or three times when his pulse slowed. I could tell you that I’m alright, and that even if he doesn’t make it, I’ll be fine. I could tell you that it’s easy to do what I’m doing now. I could tell you that my most likely broken arm didn’t bother me as long as I was near him, that it didn’t scream in pain every time I moved. I could tell you I didn’t hurt anywhere, that a car crash was no big deal. I could tell you that I could get over Tim with a few years’ time. I could tell you that…but I won’t. Because, in the big picture, all of that’s a lie.

And I can’t pretend that I don’t see this

It’s really not your fault
When no one cares to talk about it
To talk about it

And when my mother streams in, hours after Tim’s mother, although I knew Jan would’ve called Mom immediately, as well as the hospital or the police, I ignore her. Jan and Tim Sr., Tim’s dad, stare at her disapprovingly. Just like Mom looked at me, sitting beside Tim and still whispering in his ear. And the cold gaze she sends at me, at this point in time, doesn’t send shivers down my spine like usual. After all, three of the four people who have ever cared about me are in the room, and they don’t include her. Dad is one of them, but I can’t expect him to show up, because he divorced Mom a few years ago. But he’s still the one who cares about me.
It doesn’t hurt me like it used to, this cold look of Mom’s, as she bustles over to me and says, “Nora, come on. You’ve done enough, we need to get you checked up on. Come on, dear.”
She says it as if she cares.
But she doesn’t, not really.
And it doesn’t hurt anymore that my Mom doesn’t care.

‘Cause I’ve seen love die
Way too many times
When it deserved to be alive

And I look at Mom with blank eyes and say, “Call Dad.”
She looks baffled, and I know she knows exactly what I said, and she knows I know, but she asks anyway, “Paul? I thought you said you’d never call him Dad - “
“Call my real father,” I said, dangerously close to leaving Tim’s side to slap her. “Call my real parent.”
And this time, I know it strikes her, because I’ve never used that tone. But her eyes are cold, and if slightly hurt, I don’t feel guilty. “He left us, Nora.”
“He’s my Dad,” I said, “And I want him to know.”
And then all my attention goes back to Tim, not even paying attention to my mother talking to me, or Jan and Tim Sr. talking to her. Just my Tim.

I’ve seen you cry
Way too many times
When you deserved to be alive, alive

Tim’s mother is the one crying. I haven’t cried yet. I haven’t had a cause to. He’s okay, they say he should recover, and I let myself hope he does with all my heart. He’s my Tim, he can’t leave me now. Tim’s father Tim is holding up pretty good, and we all stay. They even let us stay throughout the night, after visiting hours.

So you give up every chance you get
Just to feel new again

I don’t leave to shower, or to get checked up on for at least the first twenty-four hours, and I’m positive it was longer. I stayed by his side, and once or twice, I felt that he had squeezed my fingers back, no matter how gently, in his sleep. I don’t want to leave him, and I don’t. Tim is all I’ve got, Tim and his family and my father, who is God knows where right now. Maybe on his way, if I hit a stroke of luck. Then the doctors rush in again as something goes off, and Tim’s parents rush back into the room, since they’d went for a breath of fresh air in the hall. And I feel my heart leap - is something wrong?

I think we have an emergency
I think we have an emergency

I sit there, and finally my vision fades, and I feel myself slide from my chair in a dead faint. I hadn’t realized I was so exhausted. The last thing I feel is my injured arm crunching underneath me again as I hit the floor and a soft cry from Jan. Then I know nothing more, for the time being.
I wake up to my mother’s voice, a voice that I want to rip out of her mouth and never hear again.
“She’s my daughter, and if she’s not going to make it I don’t want her to suffer,” she said, tearfully.
“She’s going to be fine, Mrs. Paulson,” a doctor said calmly, “she’ll be awake any time now.”
“Get her out,” I hear myself say groggily. Way to announce my presence, I know. I didn’t even want her to know I was awake. I didn’t want her there.
“Nora! You’re okay! I was so worried! Do you need anything? Do you want anything?”

And you do your best to show me love,
But you don’t know what love is.

So are you listening?
So are you watching me?

“Get out,” I say, groggily but firmly. “Get out. I want Dad.”
“Glad to hear that,” says a voice from the doorway, and a tall, broad-shouldered person strides in, straight past my mother, who’s cursing him and who is being pulled out by a few doctors, and right over to me. I’m watching my Mom be pulled out, and I know she’s going to hate me for this, and I know she’s going to try to make sure that no one else ever learns of it, but I know for sure that when Tim is out of the hospital, and I’m out of the hospital, that I’ll tell him.

Well I can’t pretend that I don’t see this

“I wish I’d been here sooner,” Dad tells me, “and I would’ve, if your mother had called when you first told her to. I got a call from the Welk’s.” Jan and Tim Sr. I loved them like my second set of parents.
“Yeah. They’re great…” I said softly, thinking of Tim. Of course.
We sat in semi-comfortable silence, or as close to it as we could get in a hospital with me worried about my boyfriend.

But it’s really not your fault
When no one cares to talk about it
To talk about it

Mom tried to visit again the next day, tried to be nice. She tried to show me that she ‘cared’ that she was my mother and loved me. But, just like the last time, I told her straight out that I knew she didn’t care, that she never had, and that she could just give up.
She left in tears again, but it didn’t hurt.
It left a hole in my heart, but it didn’t hurt.

‘Cause I’ve seen love die
Way too many times
When it deserved to be alive
I’ve seen you cry
Way too many times
When you deserved to be alive, alive

Tim was held longer than I was, but he survived. Tim was let out a month after the accident, and we went together to see the results. To see what had become of the car we’d spent so long working on. He circled it a few times, on his crutches, and sighed.
“Nothing a few thousand and some time couldn’t fix,” he said, “But I don’t think I could drive her again. Not if I’d almost killed you with her.” he directed this at me, but I shook my head.
“It’s not your fault, Timmy,” I used the name I used to call him when we were younger. “We can get a different fixer-upper. We can fix it up, paint it a nice shade of red, or even just silver.”
“Yeah,” Tim grinned, and came to me on his crutches to give me a sort of awkward, yet lovable one-armed hug. “That sounds nice.”

Scars, they will not fade away
No one cares to talk about it, to talk about it

Mom was at our wedding a few years later, no matter how reluctantly and disapproving she was. But, after all that Tim and I had gone through together, and the occasional therapy and check-ups that he still had to go to, I didn’t give a damn about what Mom thought. Dad was there, Dad and Jan and Tim Sr. and my new little sister Laurie, so I was fine. And I was marrying Tim, the love of my life, and I would be happy.
So it didn’t hurt that Mom disapproved.

‘Cause I’ve seen love die
Way too many times
When it deserved to be alive
I’ve seen you cry
Way too many times
When you deserved to be alive, alive

It was all right, and it would be alright. We’d had an emergency, we’d had our emergencies, but we’d be okay. We’d be together, and that was the only thing we’d need, Tim and I.
I think we have an emergency - that’s now code for ‘I need you’.