Cowboy Casanova

Chapter 43

TIM POV: Faith gets home and collapses on the bed upstairs. 

"That was amazing." I finally get to tell her. She laughs and gives me a thumbs up. 

"I know right." She says, sounding like she's still winded. She turns towards me and writes on my hand with her finger. "I love you." She says. 

"I love you too." I reply. She smiles. I can hear one of the girls crying from our room. I stand up and walk over towards the door. I realize it's more than one of the girls. "It sounds like they're  crying" I say. Faith scrunches her eyes brows and gets up to check on them. I stay behind her, ready for whatever's ahead. She opens Gracie's door to see her and Audrey crying. I look around to find Maggie, also crying behind the door. 

"What's wrong girls?" Faith asks, completely freaked out. 

"We miss Dad." Maggie cries. 

"Audrey was asking what he looked like, so we pretty much began this whole conversation about him." Gracie explains, while wiping away her tears. 

"Aw, it's okay honey." Faith says, kneeling down beside them. 

"Why'd he have to go?" Audrey asks. Faith takes a deep breath and looks at me for help. I can't do anything beside shrug. 

"I don't know baby." Faith says. Tears are falling from my eyes as I hear the girls whimper about me. 

"I'm right here baby...." I say quietly. Faith looks at me with sad eyes. I hate this. 

I run out of the room, to Faith's surprise. I race through the master and into the bathroom. I close and lock the door before Faith can come in. 

"Tim!" I hear her say quietly against the door. I sit down against the wall and shut my eyes. 

Why didn't I stay? Why couldn't I just have manned up and realized what really matters? 

I shut my eyes and clench my fists tightly. I want to go back... I want to be with the girls again... I say to myself. My body begins to feel a sensation I haven't felt in a long time... 

I feel pain...

My ears ring as I feel as if I've been punched in the head. My lungs burn as I gasp for air. Everything goes black.

Suddenly, Faith's yelling ceases as the sound of a heart monitor replaces it. I open my eyes to be blinded by fluorescent lights. My mother is beside me. I can tell by the sound of her humming. I look to my other side to see Faith biting her nails and tapping the arm of her chair nervously. She has a new dark mark on her arm. She's looks at me for a moment, and does a double take when she sees that my eyes are open. 

"Betty!" She yells. Mom looks down at me and gasps. 

"Oh my gosh..." Mom says. I try to speak, but I choke on a breathing tube. Faith looks far younger than I remembered. Her hair is still long and curly with warm brown color. Did I come back? Is that why Mom can see me? My mind begins to race.

Betty runs out to get a doctor while Faith begins to cry. I gently grasp her hand and try to smile with the breathing tube in my mouth. She smiles back at me and starts to wipe her tears with her forearm as the doctors begin to pile in. 

They remove my breathing tube, then proceed to ask me questions and check my reflexes. 

"Do you know who she is?" Kendricks says, pointing to my mother. I nod. "Who is she?" He says, laying down cards for me to pick from. I tap the mother card twice. I hear her let out a sigh of relief. "Okay, do you know who she is?" Kendricks tests, now pointing to Faith. I tap the sister card twice, just to see what I could get from her. She looks alarmed for a moment. 

"I know who she is." I speak up. Faith smiles at me. "What year is it? This place looks like shit." I say, looking at the walls which were freshly painted when Faith was admitted for the car wreck I caused. 

"2006. You've been in a coma for nearly a year." Kendricks says. My chest feels tight as I sit in a moment of disbelief. I look at Faith and notice how much lighter her eyes are. She face is less weathered, and her smile is just as bright as when I met her. How could this be? How could I be 8 years behind where I just was? It felt so real...

"What?" I say. "But... I was..." I begin to think of what previously happened. I was in a coma the entire time? This feels like time travel. 

"Did you have a dream while you were out?" Kendricks ask. To be honest, this is the only part that feels like a dream. My head throbs as I try to wrap my mind around it.

"Maybe... It just seemed real..." I explain, trying to think of a reasonable explanation as to why I lived through 8 years of time in a coma that only lasted a year.

"They'll seem real Tim. It was your body deciding whether or not it could handle staying alive or not. Was is something based on death?" He asks. I nod hesitantly. "Don't worry about it. It's normal." He says. 

"What happened to me?" I ask. I can hear my words begin to jumble. My muscles feel stiff as I try to look down at my body, checking for scars.

"You took a bullet to the head. Luckily it mostly hit your skull, so you aren't too affected mentally. Speech and short term memory might need a bit of adjusting, but that's about it." He says. "You are one lucky man." I begin to think about the differences between here and the vision in the coma. "Had it been a centimeter to the side, you would've died instantly."

"I thought I was shot twice?" I ask. 

"Faith took the second bullet for you. I mean, you were shot in the stomach, but it was a minor wound. No surgery was needed." He says, pointing to her arm. "She threw herself on top of you after she heard the first shot. She'll never admit having saved your life." He adds. She smiles quietly to herself. I feel blessed and confused all at once.

"Are you okay?" I ask her. She nods. 

"Yeah." She smiles through a few tears. 

"I'm home..." I say quietly. 

"You're home..." She answers. I smile, as the pain begins to hit me. I look under my hospital gown to see the bullet I took in the stomach. It looks disgusting, and hurts like a bitch.

"Now Tim, we had to remove part of your skull, since the fragments were going to pierce your brain if we left them in there. So be gentle with yourself, okay? If you hit your head with any amount of force, you are to see me, or another neurologist immediately. Understand?" He says. I nod. "Okay, well we will run some tests and see where you stand. We will try to get you home as soon as we can." He says. I start to wonder why he is in a rush to get me home when I remember about the cancer. 

"Faith," I say. 

"What?" She answers. 

"What about my cancer? How bad is it now?" I ask. She answers me with a smile. 

"Kendricks was able to remove the tumor while removing the section of your skull. Then we used a trial drug to help cure whatever was left, and it worked. It was actually pretty remarkable." She says quietly. 

I sit back and stare at the ceiling. 2006? I went eight years ahead of today... in a dream? Everything felt so real... There's no way I could be fine. I was shot in the head... I died. There's no way this is possible... My doubt fills my mind as I hear Faith wake up beside me. She looks at me with a smile. 

"Hey baby, why aren't you sleeping?" She asks quietly, making sure not to wake up Mom. 

"I'm thinking." I say. She nods and holds onto my hand.

"You know you can talk to me about whatever is on your mind, right?" She says, showing me that she is here for me. I begin to feel guilt.

 What about Carrie.....