Shape of You (+18)

Chapter Thirty-Two

▬▬▬▬ Marley's POV ▬▬▬▬

I'd been here for hours, but it didn't feel like it. Time stopped the second I got that terrifying call in the bar bathroom. After that, all sense of my surroundings faded away and I was stuck with one deafening detail left ringing in my mind relentlessly.

Grams had a heart attack.

It felt like my world collapsed and my bones turned to jelly as I fell to my knees in that stall, not caring that there was a public toilet right next to me, or that the floor was probably filthy. The only thing that mattered was that Grams, the woman who held me up and was my everything, needed me and I wasn't there.

How I got up and out of that bathroom was lost to me. All I really remembered, from the time I got the news to the present, three hours later, was that Joel, thankfully, talked me out of driving while under the influence and brought me here. The last time I saw him, he was walking a few paces behind me toward Grams' hospital room, and once I got there, that was it.

After that, she was the only person that existed to me.

A nurse checked in on her once, but I hardly noticed when my eyes were closed and all I could do to keep from falling completely apart was hold Grams' hand, proving she was still with me. No amount of beers could numb me from all the emotions I felt churning, unstable and fragile within me.

Alcohol didn't stand a chance against the sobering truth that my grandmother wasn't okay...and that, apparently, for the last month, she hadn't been.

When I'd just finished settling into Gram's room, a doctor ushered me into the hall where he could catch me up on what had happened. That conversation was the toughest pill I had to swallow, and even now, I found it easier to just pretend it never happened.

"I'm sorry, what?" I questioned, tense, needing the doctor to explain himself. "What do you mean she hadn't fully recovered from the first heart attack when this one hit?! This is her first one!"

It had to be.

"Miss Jones, the pre-existing scar tissue on her heart is indicative of a heart attack prior to the one she suffered from tonight--"

"What? No. No, no. She couldn't, I mean, how could she have had a heart attack and I not know? She would have told me," I stammered, trying to make sense of things.

She would have told me.

"It's possible she didn't know. It's not uncommon. Many people have minor ones and don't even realize it. They may assume it's indigestion, muscle pain—"

"But, that doesn't matter, does it? She'll be up and on the go again, eventually. She just needs to rest. Right?"

With a sad, somber expression, Dr. Carrel shook his head, and I felt the tears the second they fell from my eyes. "She's stable now, but...her heart. The first attack weakened it, but she was strong enough to recover. This one, though..."

She's not strong enough to survive it.

"How much time does she have?" I breathed out, my voice shaky and unsteady. Breaking.

"There's no definite answer I can give you--"

"But, in your professional opinion," I cut in, needing some sort of idea as to what to expect, so I could try and prepare myself for what was coming. "What would you say?