His Deepest Secret

"Anderson?"

There was no response except for the endless sound of rain.

"Anderson?!" Mrs. Wailey yelled out the front door once again. Her husband gently nudged her and handed her an umbrella. They walked out the front door and down the sidewalk to the driveway to see if their son's vehicle was still there. It was.

"Where is he then? I don't even see Char-"

Anderson's father stopped mid-sentence, seeing him two seconds after his wife did.

"Oh my god!" she yelled, running over to where he was laying with her husband right on her tail. "Oh my god!" she repeated. She dropped to her knees and tried gently slapping her son's face. She started crying hysterically as she saw her son's pale body shivering.

"Honey, calm down! Go get your phone and the emergency bag while I load him in the car," Mr. Wailey commanded. He gently picked up his son without waiting for a reply from his wife. She took off at a full sprint towards the house. His hands shook as he carried his unconscious son to the car.

Within a minute, Mrs. Wailey had grabbed the bag with things needed in case of an emergency dealing with Anderson's health and her phone and was locking up the house. Mr. Wailey had laid Anderson down in the backseat of his Yukon and was just starting the car when she opened the door to the backseat and climbed in.

"You packed scissors in here right?" she asked.

"Yes. Call the emergency room as soon as you can," he replied.

As Mr. Wailey backed out and began driving, Mrs. Wailey quickly found the scissors and began cutting off Anderson's drenched clothing. After stripping him down and trying her best not to move him one bit, Mrs. Wailey then found blankets and layered them over her son who was still physically shaking.

Anderson's lips were blue; his breathing was slow and shallow.

As she was calling the emergency room to make sure they would be prepared to receive Anderson when they got there, Anderson began quietly slurring and mumbling. This prompted his worried father to drive a little faster.

Within ten minutes, they reached the entrance of the emergency room, where a doctor and multiple nurses were waiting to receive Anderson. Anderson's parents hopped out as soon as they stopped the car, and the nurses and doctors immediately began gently taking Anderson out of the backseat and onto a hospital bed on wheels.

"Can we have one of you park your car in the parking lot, and one of you come with us?" a nurse asked.

Mr. Wailey agreed to go park the car as Mrs. Wailey followed the nurses and the doctor. Anderson was pushed through multiple doors before finally stopping inside of a room.

"What happened to your son?" the doctor asked, getting straight down to business.

"I found him outside, unconscious, laying on the soaking wet grass," she replied.

"Do you know how long he was laying there for?"

"No, I don't. I just came outside looking for him, and he must have fainted. It's raining and is super cold outside, and he did not have any warm clothing on. Not to mention, he was soaking wet."

"Alright, check his pulse," he said to one of the nurses. She confirmed it was very weak within a minute. "It seems like a severe case of hypothermia. Get the humidified oxygen and put a mask on him. Ma'am, we need you to go to the front desk and fill out all of the paperwork while we help your son. We'll let you know of everything that is going on."

She looked at her son with great hesitation, but knew she had to follow what the doctor ordered and left the room.

The nurse put the humidified oxygen onto Anderson's face and looked at the doctor. "I think this young man will need more than just this. We need to rewarm his blood."

"Yes, you're right. We'll need to use the hemodialysis machine. . ."

- - -

"What did they say they were doing again?"

"Rewarming his blood through some type of machine," Anderson's mother replied.

"Right. . ."

"Honey?"

"Hmm?"

"Charlotte was with him. . ."

Anderson's father looked at his wife with a curious look on his face. "What are you getting at?"

"She left our son there on the ground," she whispered.

"Left him on the ground?"

"They both left the house, remember? She was with him last. . ."

Anger had sunken into his wife's body, causing her leg to shake vigorously as she sat beside him.

"That girl left my son on the cold ground! What the hell was she thinking?"

"Honey, we don't know what happened for sure. We won't until we talk to Anderson."

Swallowing her anger for the time being, she nodded. "Yeah, you're right," she whispered.

- - -

Sobs shook her small figure as she laid in her bed. Her eyes were red, swollen, and full of tears that would not stop falling down her face as she kept rethinking about the decision she had made. She wanted to get up, run to Anderson, hold him tightly, and take back every single word she had said. Her heart felt heavy with all of the regrets it was carrying right now.

- - -

Bright white lights. Blurriness. Noises.

"Charlotte?" Anderson croaked out. His mind was full of confusion. He did not know where he was, what these lights were from, and what those sounds were. Everything was indistinguishable to him.

"No, honey. It's Mom."

Slowly, Anderson's sight cleared up, allowing him to realize his mom was sitting right by him in the hospital bed that he was lying in.

"Dad?" Anderson asked.

"Right here son," he replied as he walked over to his son.

"How do you feel?" his mom asked.

"Uh. . . " Anderson did not know how to respond. Why was he here in this hospital? "Funny," he answered quietly. As he woke up, his mind had also started clearing up. "Why am I in here?"

"You got hypothermia," she replied.

"How?" Anderson shook his head, not understanding what was going on.

"We found you outside. . . you were lying unconscious, on the ground, soaking wet," his father answered.

"Wha-"

Suddenly, he remembered. Charlotte had ended their relationship and left. He fought the urge to cry and looked up at the ceiling to hide the look on his face.

"Did she leave you there?" his mom whispered after a minute of silence.

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "I remember her getting in her car, and then I didn't feel good and fell. . ." He couldn't prevent the tears from falling this time, but he was quick to wipe them away. "Mom, when do we go home?" he asked, his voice breaking as he spoke.

"Soon, baby. Soon."