Please Save Me

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"What do you mean?"

A loud voice reached me in my coma-like state. Even though I wasn't fully conscious, everything hurt - my head, my wrists and arms; I felt like I'd been hit by a car.

"Please sir, calm down. As I was telling you before - "

"My sister fucking flat-lined on the way to the hospital, and you’re telling me this NOW?!? What the hell?" Flat-lined? As in died?

"Mr. Scott," said a stern voice. "This is exactly why we didn't tell you. Now please, calm down and watch your language in here!!"

"Can we see her?" asked somebody else. My heart skipped a beat. Rom!

"Not at the moment," continued the first nurse. "She's lost a lot of blood, and we're having trouble finding some suitable for a blood transfusion." She paused. "Perhaps it would be better to wait until your parents - "

"They're dead," Andy broke in with a curt voice. “Please, she’s the only family I have left; let me see her.”

One of the nurses sighed. The stern-sounding one said, “I’m sorry; we told you before – we can’t until we’ve started the blood transfusion - ”

“Take mine.”

“What are you talking about, Will?” asked a voice I remembered from the apartment. The one who called the ambulance, I think. James, I remembered.

“I mean, take some of my blood. We’re the same blood types,” Will answered. I started to drift off again. No! I thought. I’ve got to stay awake.

“Are you sure?” asked the first nurse.

“Positive,” replied Will. “I looked on her information sheet when I took her to the doctor’s one time.”

The incessant beeping noise of my monitors was starting to fade away. No! I struggled to stay awake, fighting a losing battle.

“Very well then. Mr. Lucas, if you’ll just follow me this way…” I sunk into the black void that was unconsciousness.

*

The first thing I was aware of was the hushed voices.

“How much longer do you think she’ll be out?” came from the far left. There was a sigh from my right.

“We don’t know, Will. But she needs rest, so probably not for a while,” Rom answered.

“Oh come on, Rom. Don’t pretend you don’t want her to wake up as much as we do! Look how much it’s cutting you up now! If I didn’t know better, I’d say – ”

“I never said I didn’t want her to wake up! How can you say that?”

“Shut up! Both of you! Arguing about it is not going to make her wakeup any sooner,” came James’ voice.

Cool fingertips brushed my forehead. “Thank you, James Simpson, for those kind words of wisdom,” said Andy sarcastically.

“Hey, go easy on him. He was only trying to help,” a female voice said soothingly. Female? I thought. Oh, that must be Andy’s girlfriend, Sarah. There was silence for a few seconds, then the sounds of a light kiss that they must have shared.

The second sense that came back to me was touch.

The cool, crisp sheets that were covering my body. The warm touch of someone holding my hand. The rough bandages wrapped tightly from my wrists to my elbows.

Someone sighed and shifted in their chair. Behind them, the constant beeping of machines provided a soundtrack for this moment in time.

“I’m hungry,” James said abruptly. I could imagine him uncurling his lanky body from whatever position it was in to start moving towards the door. “Anyone want to join me in the café?”

“I’ll come,” Will agreed. “Do you guys want anything?”

“No, hospital food is shit,” commented Andy.

“Right. We’ll be back in a couple of minutes.” I heard the soft sounds of a door closing, then there was silence.

“You’re oddly quiet, Rom,” Sarah noticed, breaking the silence.

Rom sighed. “I dunno, it’s just… I’ve never seen her this bad before. I just wish she would trust me – trust us – enough to let us in her head, you know? Then we’d be able to help her, like, really help her. I know when she first came to live with us, the doctor said to give it time, all we had to do was wait. But there’s only so much damn waiting you can do…” his voice trailed off as it caught. “It’s just… Like, I know the real Cammie is in there somewhere, we just have to find her. But some days it feels like just when you’ve made some progress, something happens and it’s back to square one again.” Rom exhaled slowly. I had no idea that he felt this strongly. But he had sounded so lost and hopeless just then.

Andy cleared his throat. “The hardest part for me is knowing that she trusts you more than me. I mean, I’m supposed to be her big brother, you know? I’m supposed to be there for her, protecting her, the first one she comes to when something’s wrong. But I’m not. You are. And I guess every time I see you with her doing something that I should be doing, it makes me a little jealous.” A tear fell from my eyelashes I felt it slide slowly down my cheek.

“Like last night for example. I should have been doing what you were doing; trying to calm her down, cleaning her wounds. But I panicked, and came across as angry and pissed. I – ” I waited for him to continue, but I heard the door open and knew why he had fallen silent.

“Any changes?” asked James as he shut the door behind him. My nose caught the waft of the smell of food. I hadn’t eaten since God-knows when and I was starving. I groaned and rolled my head. Too fast. My head swam and I flickered my eyelashes, trying to keep myself from blacking out again.

“She’s waking up!” Trust Will to point out the obvious. Immediately, I could feel the tension in the room rise and all eyes turned toward me.

Andy squeezed the hand he was holding. “Cammie?”

I groaned again and slowly opened my eyes, blinking a couple of times to adjust them to the light.

“Hey,” I heard softly. I glanced across and saw Rom sitting on my right in a chair with James leaning over behind me. I gave a tiny smile.

“Hey,” I said back.

Fingers brushed my head again. I slowly shifted my gaze to the left, where Andy was sitting in a chair holding my hand. A pretty girl of medium height with green eyes magnified behind her glasses and brown bangs sat next to him in another chair and Will stood behind them, a bandage wrapped around one of his upper arms.

Andy caught my gaze and held it. “Don’t you ever, fucking dare, do that to me again, you hear me, Cameron Jane? Never again.” There were lines and creases in his face that I knew had been brought on by my ‘episode’ and I suddenly felt bad.

“Okay…” and suddenly I was pulled into a bone breaking hug. I tensed up for a few seconds, then slowly relaxed as I was enveloped in his familiar scent.

“I was so scared,” I heard him whisper into my ear. I squeezed him tight then let him go. As he sat back down, he kissed my forehead as a sign of brotherly affection. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t like people touching you, but…”

“It’s okay,” I told him quietly. I looked up at the other guys. “So, how bad was it? I mean…”

“You’re worst one yet,” James said solemnly. Rom looked down at his hands.

“But you said that about all the others before, it can’t have been…” my voice trailed off as I received five serious stares.

“Cammie, you flat-lined on the way to the hospital, and you lost so much blood. If I hadn’t been around to donate some of mine, you’d be dead by now,” Will told me bluntly, motioning to his bandage.

“This has to stop, Cammie,” Rom told me gently. “I’ve told you before, and so have the guys, but this time we really mean it.” He took my hand, running his thumb along my fingers.

“I, I…I can’t. I’ve tried, but it’s the only way I can bring myself out of the nightmares I’m reliving. I want it to stop; hell do I want it to stop. But it won’t!!! Why won’t it stop? Tell me, why won’t it?? Why can’t they just go and leave me alone…” I broke down and began sobbing. Normally I hate people seeing me cry. Andy looked taken aback; his mouth was hanging open like he wanted to say something but couldn’t think of anything. James and Will didn’t know what to do either – James stared down at the ground and Will shoved his hands in his pockets.

Rom got up from his chair and came and sat next me on my bed. Being careful of my injuries, he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and I leaned into him, still crying. After a few awkward moments, Will and James muttered something about waiting outside. Andy still looked like he wanted to say something; and I knew after overhearing his conversation with Rom that he would be hurting. Sarah grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the room, but not before he gave Rom and I a second glance.

“Shhhhh,” Rom soothed gently. He softly began to sing to me and I could feel myself relaxing despite of my terror; I couldn’t help it, Rom had that effect on me.

“You know I’ll always be here if you wanna talk, or just want some company,” He said when I had stopped crying.

“Rom…” He raised his head at hearing his name. “Rom, I’m so sorry about…. About everything. I just… I’m sorry that you feel frustrated when I won’t open up to you or the guys. But… but thank you.” With this, those eyes, now returned to blue, gave me a strange look.

“What for?” he asked.

“Everything. Being there for me from the start, being patient when I know it’s so hard… I know I’m being selfish, by not telling you and the guys, but I don’t think I could bring myself to tell someone, its just….” I stopped talking and began to shake again. Rom slowly rubbed my back, just light enough so that I wouldn’t feel threatened by his touch.

“Cammie, you don’t have to bear this burden alone. I know you don’t want to tell us, but it will be so much easier for us; we’ll know what’s going on…. And you’ll feel better. You know Andy will always be there for you. So will I. You don’t have to do this by yourself.”

“Yes, I do. You don’t understand, I couldn’t bear the thought of what you would do if you knew…. You’d all look at me in a different light, treat me like glass… I’m not fucking fragile!! I… I know it seems like it now, but trust me, I can do this by myself.” I took a breath. “I don’t need you to help me.”

There they were again. Once again, I made those blue eyes turn grey.

Rom gave me a hurt look, and uncurled his arms from where they were around my body, getting off my bed and lowering himself in his chair. His next words cut me like a knife, cold and abrupt, and I desperately wanted to take back what I’d said before.

“Well, I’m sorry I wasted my time for nothing.”