Forgiven (32 page)

My eyes felt heavy. Actually, everything felt heavy. I tried to move but felt a shooting pain in my left side and I winced.

“Angie?” someone asked.

I knew the voice but I couldn’t place it. Slowly I forced my eyes to open. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust, but when they did, I saw Caleb sitting at my bedside. Where was I, and what was he doing there?

“Caleb?” I croaked.
What was wrong with my voice?

“Oh, baby, I’m here. I’m so glad you’re awake.” He smiled. He reached over and pushed the call button for the nurse.

The door to the room opened immediately and in walked the nurse. She walked up to my bed, helped me into a sitting position, and started checking all of my vitals. “Angie, my name is Kelsey and I’ll be the nurse taking care of you. Your vitals look good, and I’m just going to get the doctor so he can check on your sutures.”

She left as quickly as she blew in the door. I looked over at Caleb. I was still confused about some things. For one, he’d called me ‘baby’ a few minutes ago.
What was that all about?

“Caleb, what happened? What are you doing here?” I asked.

He leaned his head down on our joined hands and began to cry. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry this is all my fault. Bryan stabbed you when you tried to pull him off of me. He hit your spleen, but they were able to repair it. Please, forgive me,” he sobbed.

When Caleb mentioned being stabbed, everything came rushing back—the fear of seeing him with a knife to his throat, Josh unconscious on the floor, and the moment when I thought that would be the last time I saw him. I felt the tears slowly fall down my cheeks. Caleb looked up at me, brought his hands to my face and used his thumbs to wipe away my tears.

“Oh my god,” I sat up in my bed, wincing from the pain that radiated down my side. “Josh!” I cried.

He wrapped his arm around my back. “Please be careful, sweetheart.” He must have noticed the question in my eyes because he continued. “Josh is fine. He has a concussion, but they’re keeping him overnight for observation,” he tried to reassure me.

I couldn’t get the image out of my head, and my shoulders shook with the force of my sobs. Starting to calm down, I looked up and noticed the bandage covering Caleb’s arm. “Your arm!”

“My arm’s fine, it’s just a scratch. Please don’t cry, everything’s going to be okay.” The tears shimmered in his eyes, running down his face unchecked. “I won’t let anything hurt you again,” he promised.

Watching his beautiful tear-streaked face as he tried to comfort me pushed me over the edge, and I cried even harder. “Caleb, you…you…you hurt me. You promised you…you…you wouldn’t hurt me.” I sobbed.

Before Caleb got a chance to answer, the door flew open and Emily came barreling into the room. “Oh my God, you’re awake! I was so worried about you,” she screeched. I could see her face was all red and puffy from crying.

She came over and pulled me into a hug. “Ouch!” the pain shot up my side again.

“Careful, Emily,” Caleb warned.

A second later the door opened again and Nurse Kelsey stepped into the room followed by a man—who I assumed was my doctor—plus both Caleb’s and Emily’s parents.

Claire and Mrs. Halliday rushed over to the bed.

“Angie, we’re so glad you’re okay,” Claire said taking my hand. Caleb still hadn’t let go of my other one.

“Angie, I’m so happy to see you awake,” Mrs. Halliday said as she squeezed my leg through the blanket.

Eric walked over with the doctor. “Angie, this is your doctor, Dr. Peterson. He’s a friend of mine from med school.”

“Hello Angelina, how do you feel?” Dr. Peterson asked.

I shrugged, besides the fact that Caleb was here taking care of me, fine. “I feel okay, except for my side.”

He nodded. “That’s normal. You’ll be sore for a few days. You had a partially ruptured spleen when you arrived, but luckily we were able to repair the damage. You’ll have to stay with us for the next few days, and then nothing strenuous for the next six to eight weeks. Now let me take a look at those sutures.”

I felt a little embarrassed that this many people were in the room. Dr. Peterson asked everyone to leave the room so that he could examine my sutures. Everyone was okay with it except Caleb. He freaked, and the doctor finally agreed to let him stay if it was okay with me. Once we were alone in the room, he pushed up my gown to look at the sutures in my stomach. Caleb was watching me the whole time, his eyes filled with such sadness. I knew he had something to say, but he didn’t want to say it front of everyone.

Dr. Peterson probed the area around my wound for a few seconds, before stepping back. “Everything looks exactly as it should. I’m going to have Kelsey bring you another round of pain medication. If you need anything else, let us know.”

He turned to leave, but stopped to give Eric a handshake first. Eric clapped his other hand on his shoulder. “Thank you for everything, Jack.”

We sat an in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, and I could feel myself growing more tired by the second.

I looked around, it was dark outside the windows. “What time is it?”

Mr. Halliday checked his watch. “A little after one in the morning.”

No wonder I was exhausted. I was still trying to figure out what Caleb was doing there. He watched me for a moment, and must have seen something on my face, because the next thing I knew he was trying to get everyone’s attention.

Caleb cleared his throat. “Would everyone mind giving me a few minutes alone with Angie?”

“Sure,” most of them said in unison.

Emily grabbed my hand. “I don’t know what I would do without you. Whatever you need I’m here,” she said before kissing my cheek and leaving the room.

Eric touched his hand to Caleb’s shoulder, and Caleb turned and nodded his head in thanks.

“Caleb,” I said cautiously.

“Angie, please just listen for a moment.” He carefully pulled me into a hug and kissed the top of my head. “I know I hurt you, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on your face that night.” He pulled back to look me in the eye. His eyes looked haunted like he was reliving the memories from Sunday. “I know I was wrong, but I was so scared. I never wanted you to get hurt.” He paused to take a breath. “If I could have taken both our pain, I would’ve. I didn’t think I deserved you.” He said, looking ashamed.

“Will you tell me why you did it?’ I asked, but I couldn’t hold back my yawn. I was so tired, but I wanted to know why. Why did he leave me? Why was he here now?

He tucked a piece of hair behind my ears, “I will, but right now you’re exhausted and you need to sleep. When you wake up, I’ll tell you everything.”

The nurse came back in with a needle that she injected into the IV.

“I don’t want to go to sleep.” I whispered.

The nurse misunderstood why. “Don’t worry this will take away the pain so you can sleep comfortably.” She patted me on the arm and left the room.

Caleb looked at me with concern in his eyes, “Why not sweetheart, are you in pain?” I shook my head. “Your body needs to recover,” he said lightly stroking my face.

The tears started to sting my eyes. “I’m afraid if I close my eyes, when I wake up you’ll be gone again.”

He grabbed my hand and squeezed. “I promise there is not a thing in this world that could keep me from you. Now, please lay down and rest, for me?”

I brushed the tears off my face and nodded. I let Caleb help me lie down and before long I fell asleep.

When I woke again, the sun was streaming in through the window next to my bed. I felt a little groggy from the pain meds, but my side didn’t hurt nearly as much as yesterday. I tried to sit up, but something was lying on my right arm. I turned my head and saw Caleb asleep, his head resting on me.
He stayed!
I really wasn’t sure what to expect when I woke—part of me had wondered if he would run again once he realized I was going to be okay.

I carefully moved my arm from under Caleb’s head and lifted myself into a sitting position. I could feel my nerves fluttering around like butterflies in my stomach, I wanted to know what Caleb was hiding, but I was also scared to death of what it could be. Lost in my thoughts I almost didn’t notice the nurse come in. It was a different nurse than last night.

“Good Morning Angie,” she whispered as she took in Caleb’s sleeping form. “My name’s Jessica. How are you feeling this morning?”

“Better than yesterday, but still a little groggy.”

“The last of the stronger pain meds from your IV should be almost out of your system. Right now I want to get you up and moving around,” she continued to whisper.

I pointed at Caleb. “How long has he been here?”

She smiled. “He hasn’t left your room since you came in from surgery.”

I was shocked. “He stayed all night?”

“When we tried to send him home earlier, he threw a fit. Dr. Peterson made arrangements for him to stay, even though visiting hours were over.”

I couldn’t help the smile that formed on my lips. That was the Caleb I had fallen in love with—the one that would stay with me. I was still afraid of getting hurt, but I loved him too much to push him away.

“Do you think you can swing your legs towards me? That way I can help you stand up, and we can try and take a few steps.”

I nodded and started to move my legs carefully so as not to wake up Caleb. It didn’t work. I wasn’t very graceful as I tried to favor my left side when I moved, and the minute my body started to turn away from him, his head popped right up.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.

He stood up to stop me and realized the nurse was there. She laughed. “You can relax, I just need to get Angie up to walk around a bit.”

“I was trying to get up without waking you. Not as easy as I thought it would be,” I said sheepishly.

He looked frustrated. “Angie, stop worrying about me. If we need to get you up and moving that’s what we’ll do.”

He came around to the left side of the bed and I tried to get my feet over the side of the bed again. I winced when I moved too fast.

“Fuck this,” Caleb said and faster than lightning he had his arms under me, lifting me off the bed. I gasped. His eyes never left mine as he slowly set me on my feet.

My nurse just laughed. “Well that’s one way to get her up.”

He kissed me on the forehead. “Let’s take that walk.”

Luckily, Caleb still had an arm around me because my legs felt like jelly. I was a little wobbly at first, but my legs felt more normal with each step. Caleb made sure to stay by my side the whole time. We managed to walk out of my room and down the hall a bit before I started to get tired.

“I think that’s far enough for today,” Jessica said. “Let’s get you back to your room so the doctor can check up on you.”

I nodded. Once we got back into my room, Caleb gently scooped me up again and lay me down on the bed. I smiled at him. “Thank you.”

Before Jessica left she reminded me, “If you need anything, just hit the button.”

“Thank you, Jessica.”

I saw Caleb out of the corner of my eye—he looked nervous as hell. He knew what he was promising last night, and at this point I
needed
answers. I gave him a few minutes before turning and asking the question I knew he had been dreading since he woke up.

“Caleb—” I started to ask, but then I realized that he was already talking.

“…two years ago, during my senior year of high school, I was dating a girl named Lily. She was one of the most beautiful girls I’d ever seen.”

I knew I needed to hear this, but that didn’t make it any easier to listen to him talk about an ex-girlfriend. Caleb slowly sunk down into the chair next to my bed before continuing.

“I noticed her the beginning of junior year, but it took me forever to get up the courage to ask her out. Everyone kept trying to convince me that there was no way she would say no.” He shrugged his shoulders, but his eyes were staring off into the distance. “How could she? No girl would give up the chance to date one of the football stars.”

He reached over and grasped my hand. “I never saw myself the way everyone else did. I played football because I loved the game. I was good at it, but I never did it to be popular. I finally got up the courage to ask her out, just hoping she was different. I wanted her to date me for me, not because I was some sports star.” He smiled slightly at the memory. “I was happy when she said yes, but I was thrilled when I found out she only cared about me, and not what I did on the field.”

He still wasn’t looking at me and the thought of him loving someone else had me slowly dying inside.

“Lily and I became almost inseparable as the year went on. Whether it was attending my games, her soccer games, or just studying…we were together. The summer before senior year was one of the best summers of my life. Not only did I have Lily to spend the whole summer with, I also had football scholarship offers from some of the best Division I schools in the country.” He still hadn’t moved, almost like the memories held him immobile. “I could choose anywhere, and the only thing I was waiting for was to see where Lily got accepted. I wanted to go to school with her. The team was doing well that season, life couldn’t have been any better.” He stopped to take a deep breath.

Division I schools? So why was he at Ithaca? I squeezed his hand, trying to give him the courage to continue, but everything he said was tearing me up inside.

“Every year after the homecoming game we had a huge bonfire at the school. Everyone had gone home to change, but Lily didn’t really want to go. It had rained that day, and it was foggy and cold. But it was our last bonfire, and after a lot of convincing, she agreed to go.”

I watched his eyes well up with tears
. Oh shit this was going to be bad
.

“Some of our friends were following us, when a red car sped through an intersection without stopping.” The tears started to run down his face. “I tried to stop, but the roads were still wet and I lost control of the car. We spun out and the passenger side slammed into a telephone pole.” He paused trying to get control of his emotions. “Lily wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and was thrown from the car.”