There’s a sharp intake of breath and the slightest shake of his head.
“Stop. We’re not going to say or THINK the word ‘no’ for the next two minutes, okay? Just two minutes. Then you can complain and go back to being a whiny baby all you want. But just give me two minutes. Please. I’ll beg you if I have to.”
His head changes from a shake to a nod.
“Now, squeeze your hand. Like you’ve done a million times before.”
I don’t look down. He lets me hold his gaze, and I can see the effort in his eyes. They almost glaze over with pain.
“N-…”
“Two minutes, Jez,” I remind him, as firmly but kindly as I can.
He holds his breath and I can see his fingers twitch in the corner of my eyes, but I won’t look away.
“Fuck!” he says, and I can see the hope fading in his pupils, the light shrinking into a darkened abyss.
I push the ball away from his hand and it bounces on the floor. I replace it with my hand, sliding my fingers against his palm.
“Squeeze my hand, Jez.”
There’s a flicker of… something. Hope. Because hope remain when all reason is gone. It’s hope in his gaze and I see him steeling himself. In that moment, I know him. Know what motivates him, what moves him. Sometimes, someone needs something other than himself to care about.
I stare deep into his eyes, so he hears every word, feels it. “I’m scared Jez,” I tell him, “I’ve been in this hospital for a really long time. I was injured really badly. And I don’t know if I’ll ever get all of my memory back and I need you to squeeze my hand to help me feel safe. Please.”
His face softens for the first time since he yelled at me, and then his brow furrows, his front teeth digging deep into his bottom lip. And suddenly my fingers feel warm, enveloped, squeezed.
“Tighter,” I whisper, and my fingers are almost crushed in his hand. And then it’s over. Brief, but it happened. His hand drops away from mine and he grimaces for a split second.
But he doesn’t look away.
“Thank you,” I whisper again. Pressing my hand to chest. It’s lifting and falling with deep, deep breath.
“No. Thank you,” he says. He lifts his hand to press against mine, pushing it harder against him, and now I can feel his heartbeat. “Thank you.”
***
I come with him to his PT sessions the next two days. It’s always an hour of intensity, and it’s not always pleasant. I spend half the time trying to distract him from the pain, and cajoling him into trying. There are times I can see he wants me to leave, and times when I’m the only thing pushing him through. But he’s making progress. Slow. Almost unnoticeable. But there’s progress. And it drains us. So much that as we return to our ward, we split, and I go back to my room and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
And then it’s morning. There’s no note waiting for me when I wake up, no flowers, no sign that he’s come to see me.
But I am there, waiting at the elevator when it’s time for his appointment again, like I wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world.
By the third day, he can almost make a fist again. Not for long and not as tight as it should be, but he can hold a pen in his hand, and we celebrate by going down to the front desk and filling out a bunch of silly feedback forms.
“Tell them we want every Friday to be ‘dress up as your favorite Disney villain day’ for the doctors and nurses!” I squeal as Jez slowly traces out the words. I can barely make sense of it when I glance at it, but he seems pretty pleased with it, so I just fold it and slide it into the suggestions box.
“What next?” he asks, his voice calmer, but his eyes giving away his excitement.
“Let’s go look at the newborn babies and mess with the parents. Pretend we think our babies have been switched at birth.”
“You have an irrepressible sense of evil, don’t you?”
“It’s called cabin fever, baby.”
“You’ve got babies on the brain.” He makes the sign of the cross at me. I reach out and touch his fingers and then snap them back, hissing as if he’s burned me. “I knew it. Vampire by night… uke player… also by night. What the hell do you do during the day?”
“Wait for you to feed me, that’s what!”
“Ha, okay, it must be lunch time, let’s see what my friends brought me today. Probably my favorite since they’re still feeling guilty for having that intervention.”
“Intervention? What for?”
“Because I was being a whiny baby.”
“Ah. So, a valid reason for the intervention.”
“Hush, I’ll sic Buffy on you.”
We ride up the elevator and I pull a face at him behind the backs of the other people. He just shakes his head, but his face is grinning the whole time. The doors of the elevator open and there’s suddenly the flash of camera bulbs in our faces.
Three, four, maybe even five or six people swarm into the elevator, crowding around Jez.
“Jez, Jez! How are you? Have you fully recovered? Are you really in here for rehab? When are you guys going back on tour? Do you know if the tickets holders are going to get their money back?”
The questions are constant and I can barely make out the words as I try to push through them, to get to Jez.
“Jez!” I call out to him.
“Stay back! Cover your face!” I can just hear his voice over the shouting.
I try to reach him. “What the hell is going on?”
“Fuck off, guys, get lost!”
There’s the sound of a loud crash as I see a camera go flying over our heads and out of the elevator. A large, muscular giant is pushing through the people in the elevator, and I feel him grab my shoulder.
“Come with me, keep your head down.”
“Jez!” I say, as someone pushes him into me. His face is red with anger, and he doesn’t even look at me.
“Get her to her room, and make sure she’s okay. I mean it,” I hear him say and he runs off into the direction of his room.
I turn back and there are two guys pushing the photographers into the elevator, the door closing behind them.
The big guy leads me into my room and closes the door behind him, with him inside my room.
I should feel afraid of him, but I’m not. “What WAS that? Who are you?”
“I’m Mike. We’ve met.”