His Saving Grace

Chapter Twenty Three

The sounds of video games woke me up. I could hear the boys screaming and grunting and cussing as they played World of Warcraft, the sofa bouncing a little. My eyelids fluttered open though I immediately shut them when the bright light of the fluorescent lamp above me burned my eyes. 

"Garrett," I mumbled, trying to sit up. I felt John's strong arms around me as he helped me up, positioning me beside him. He quirked his head to the side.

"You okay?" John asked, helping me wrap the comforter around me. I nodded. Pat and Kennedy were still playing, Jared was on the phone, and John was beside me, but Garrett was nowhere in sight.

"Garrett's resting," John said before I could speak, positioning the game controller on one knee. "You should talk to the doctor. He's been up there, checking on Garrett every now and then. We were lucky that they allowed Gare to stay here instead of bringing him to the hospital." I nodded once more. I knew--we all knew--how Garrett hated hospitals and the stench of metal and antibiotics. 

John accompanied me upstairs and left when the doctor had emerged from Garrett's room. He faced me, flipping through his clipboard, adjusting his glasses. I shifted nervously from one foot to the other, dreading what he was going to say.

"How is he?" I finally said. My throat felt dry and itchy, and there was some sort of bitter taste at the back of my mouth as if I had just vomited.

"So far he's doing fine," the doctor said. "He's lost ten percent of his body fluid, though, but luckily the paramedics came just in time to save him. The walls of his stomach are looking very bad. He hasn't eaten anything and we're still checking if he could be a candidate for ulcer. But he'll recover soon," he said. I nodded, trying to jam the information into my mind. 

He eyed me for a second. "You're Katie?"

I nodded again.

"Are you his girlfriend?"

I shook my head in surprise. "No."

"Oh," the doctor said, flipping back the pages of his clipboard and fastening the ball pen into the pocket of his coat. "Well, I'll be going. Mr. Nickelsen will be fine in a few days or so."

"Thank you," I said as he walked off. As soon as he was out of sight, I dashed into Garrett's bedroom, my heart racing.

Garrett was wearing a new set of clothes and it looked like they had washed him with the way his hair looked neat and blew softly in the breeze that was entering the room. A white blanket was pulled up to over his stomach, and tubes of different sizes and colors snaked around his arms. Faint beeping noises came from the small machines beside him and various medicine bottles sat neatly on his bedside table.

I approached his still figure, trying to keep my footsteps as soft as possible. I knelt down beside the bed. Garrett's face was peaceful, and a faint smile was etched across his lips. Strands of hair covered his eyes and I gently brushed them away, missing the feel of his skin. For minutes I just knelt there, staring at Garrett's face, watching his chest rise and fall as he breathed, the way his eyes rolled side to side under his eyelids, and the way his lips parted and closed every now and then. I had never seen Garrett sleep before, and somehow it was fascinating to be the spectator this time.

It was getting dark out and I knew I should have been getting home, but I couldn't bring myself to leave him just yet. Three weeks was nothing compared to three years, but it had felt like eternity since I last saw Garrett.

My stomach tightened. I hadn't been eating for the past few days myself, and suddenly eating probably upset my stomach. But it wasn't just that. Something clicked in my brain. Three weeks. It was exactly three weeks ago when the anniversary program ended. Bianca had said they'd found Garrett in the podium by himself, and after that Jared said he hadn't been eating for the past few weeks.