Just Once More - Chapter Nineteen
I can promise you forever, even if it is for only one day
Emery walked up the stairs towards the second floor of the hospital. She took deep breaths and tried to calm her nerves before going in to see Austin. The door leading to the second floor creaked open as the light flooded the stairwell. There were several nurses in the hallway, but none of them paid her much mind as she walked past on her way to Austin’s room.
The door was shut when Emery finally came to the room that Dr. Holt had told her Austin would be in. She knocked softly, but there was no answer. She slowly opened it up and peeked inside. Austin was lying on the bed with the covers pulled halfway up. There was an IV in his arm, and the TV was turned on low. It seemed whoever had delivered him had already done their thing and had left.
She sat on the chair beside the bed. Her eyes carefully gazed over Austin’s body, looking for any signs of trauma, but he looked like he normally did, only now, he was asleep. She took hold of his hand and lightly intertwined it with her own. “You need to wake up now.”
Austin didn’t move or respond to her request. Emery kept hold of his hand, leaned her head back on the chair, and closed her eyes.
Austin slowly opened his eyes. The smell and scenery of where he was seemed familiar, but he couldn’t quite grasp the place right off the top of his head. He glanced around the room and saw the TV, the IV pole, and Emery napping in the chair by the bed. The realization hit that he was in the hospital, and a flood of memories came back as to why. He could remember the game, the defense coming at him, and the initial impact that must have sent him out. His throbbing headache was also another good indicator that he had been hit in the head.
Austin gently squeezed Emery’s hand to see if she was awake, lightly napping, or fast asleep. Her eyes sprang open within three seconds, and she was staring at him with a look of panic on her face.
“Are you okay? Are you hurting anywhere?” Emery got up from the chair and was going to call for a doctor or nurse, but Austin still had hold of her hand and pulled her back towards him.
“I have a headache, but other than that, I’m okay, I think.” Austin didn’t want her to go just yet. He knew she would be forced out once the doctor came in, and he just wanted to see her right now before it all got busy.
“I should go get the doctor or at least a nurse.” Emery didn’t pull back or try to run away. She kept hold of Austin’s hand and moved closer to the bedside. “Your mom was here with the girls, but your dad couldn’t get out of work.”
Austin nodded. “That’s typical. He usually works the afternoon shift for more money.”
“Your mom said it was okay if I stayed. Your sisters were getting cranky, so I told her that I’d call as soon as you woke up.”
Austin chuckled. “My sisters are always cranky. How long have I been out?” He wasn’t sure of the time. There wasn’t a clock in his line of sight, and he didn’t have his cell phone, so he was clueless. It was dark outside, so he knew it must still be nighttime.
Emery took her phone out of her pocket. “Um, almost an hour and a half.”
“And you stayed that long.” Austin was shocked that she even stayed five minutes. The last he remembered, they had broken up and... well, he hoped that still wasn’t the case.
Emery squeezed his hand. “I'd better get the doctor before we both get into trouble.”
Austin pulled her back one more time. He pulled her closer until she had to bend down.
“Thank you.” He whispered in her ear and lightly kissed her cheek. Emery smiled and then walked out the door. She was searching for someone to tell about Austin finally waking up.
“So, how did it go?” Emery sat back down in the chair at Austin’s bedside once again. She’d been sitting in the waiting room for the past hour while the doctor checked Austin out and made calls to his mom. She’d texted Laney to tell her that he finally woke up and seemed okay.
“I have to spend the night, but they said I should be able to go home in the morning.” Austin had done this drill twice before, but had never been knocked out or had to stay overnight. “First time spending the night in the hospital?”
Emery saw the look of nervousness that all people usually have when they spend their first night in the hospital. Austin nodded once and glanced over towards the window. “It’s okay to want to go home and not be here. I can think of many times that I did the same thing.” She wanted him to know that it was alright to be scared and that she’d been there many times before. Although she didn’t want to talk about her own past experiences concerning hospital stays, Emery knew they’d eventually have to. “Is your mom or dad coming back tonight?”
Austin shook his head. “It will be too late once my dad gets off work. Plus, the doctor said I should be ready by morning, so we all should get a good night’s sleep and be together tomorrow.” He glanced back over at Emery. “How come they’re letting you stay so long?” He knew visiting hours usually ended around nine, and it was way past that time. Also, he knew Emery liked to get to bed early, and this was cutting into her sleep time.
“I have special privileges here. You know, since volunteering and being a patient here for the past four years, I’ve sort of become an advocate for all the new, younger people who are scared for the first time here.” Emery chuckled when she saw Austin give her a slight glare when she talked about being scared. "Seriously, though, they haven’t asked me to leave yet, so I’m just hanging out.”
So many different thoughts and emotions were going through Austin’s head. He wanted to confront Emery about why she’d kept her secret hidden from him and why she was so concerned with him right now. He knew one of the last thoughts he had before getting hit was of her sitting behind the band and dance team, hoping that she was watching him and knowing that he was thinking of her.
“Emery, why didn’t you tell me?” Austin saw her hesitate before answering and flick her eyes down to the ground like she was hoping an answer would pop up.
Emery was going to make another joke or figure out a way to get out of answering this question, but she knew it eventually had to be answered, so why not right now? At least he had to listen and wasn’t able to get up and walk out. “Because I was afraid of losing you. But I did anyway, so we both have to move on, even if it's just as friends.” She looked everywhere in the room except directly at him. She was afraid to see his expression and waited in silence for the dreaded words.
“If I remember rightly, I could be wrong because of this concussion thing, but it seems you broke up with me at the ice cream shop.” Austin shifted himself on the bed so he was closer to Emery's side. He reached over and took hold of her hand. “Emery, I didn’t want to break up, I wanted to work through this.”
Emery knew she could take the rebuttal route and ask him about the Apryl video and why he'd done that, or she could try to work with him on both of them coming to terms with the things they’d done wrong. Instead of letting this escalate into an ugly mess, Emery opted for the latter of the two options. “It seemed like it would’ve been the best solution for both of us.” Finally, she looked at him. Austin seemed okay with her answer, but it appeared he was thinking of what he wanted to say next.
Austin closed his eyes and thought about everything that had happened, including the fact that Emery was still here. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, then met her stare. “What time is it?”
Emery was thrown off by his question. First, they were talking about their relationship, but now he just wanted to know the time.
Maybe he hit his head harder than he thought.
Emery picked up her cell phone from the stand and looked at the time. “It’s about five after midnight, why?”
“Come here.” Austin pulled her hand until she was up against him and the bed again. “I just wanted to be the first to wish my girlfriend a happy birthday.” He gave her a soft kiss on the lips and waited for her response.
Emery pulled back a little bit. “Girlfriend?” She questioned him with a small smile on her face. “Who said I was taking you back?” Now she tried to be more serious and see what kind of response he would have to offer.
Austin didn’t know whether or not she was kidding around or telling the truth. He had hoped that maybe they could work things out, but maybe she was doing all of this to be nice to his mother. "Um, well, you know…I was thinking we could try to work things out.” He let go of her hands and looked away from her gaze.
“Austin Murray.” Emery took his hand back and used her other hand to move his chin so that they would be looking at each other once again. “That’s it. You give up. Just move along on your way, even though you’ve said you want us to be together.” Emery tilted her head as if she were waiting for some great revelation to come from him.
Austin kept her gaze this time and tried to figure out where she was going with this conversation. “I do want us to be together, but I can’t force you if you don’t want to.” He rubbed his thumb back and forth on her hand. “Emery, can we try to work on everything? Like not keep anything from each other, no more parties, videos, hidden secrets.”
Emery pretended to be contemplating Austin’s proposal. She knew what her answer was going to be, but she just wanted him to sweat it out a little more. “I think.” She bobbled her head back and forth as if she were trying to decide what answer she was going to choose. "I would love to work everything out and maybe have things like they were before.’
Austin felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. If this were any other girl, he would have said, ‘See ya later’. But with her, he just couldn’t let go. Something was pulling him towards her, like he was in love for the first time in his life. “Cool.” He didn’t know what else to say without sounding like a total pushover wuss.
Emery shook her head. “A man of many words.” She lay her head down on his arm so that her forehead was resting against his hand. “Anything you want to know?” She hoped that they could maybe have a detailed conversation tomorrow. It was getting late, and she had taken her nightly meds before she went to the game, so she was getting sleepy.
“Anything else you feel you need to tell me right now?” Austin ran his hand over her hair, then kept it situated on the base of her neck.
“Emery isn’t my real name.” She glanced up and saw a look of dismay scrawled across his face. “I mean.” Emery tried to correct the situation before it got out of control. “It is part of my name, but it’s my middle name.”
“Then what is your first name?” Austin was picturing something from the past, like Gertrude, Bertha, or Esmeralda.
Emery let out a sigh. “No one else knows, and you can’t call me by that name at all.” She waited until he nodded his head in agreement. “Alexia.” She waited for the teasing.
Austin was surprised by her answer, which was quite different from what he expected. “I like it.” Emery shot him a dirty look. Austin held up his hand in surrender. “Why don’t you like it?”
“It was okay up until middle school, then I noticed three other girls in my class had the same name or one similar.” Emery hoped that the explanation would suffice.
“It’s popular, but I still don’t get why you want to be called by your middle name. I mean, I like it. Well, I like both of them, but I'm just looking for a reason.” Austin knew there had to be more to the story.
“Well.” Emery knew she sounded like she was whining, but she didn’t want to go through the whole explanation. “Those girls became known as sexy Lexi and stuff like that. Every time someone would say my name, all the boys who called the other girls those good names would laugh and say, Sexy Lexi…NOT.”
Emery knew she was acting juvenile about why she didn’t like her first name, but dammit, that was shit that bothered her back then. “So, I decided I didn’t want to be called by my first name. I would fill in my middle name for the ‘wanted to be called’ section of our school forms, and eventually everyone started calling me that, including my parents.” She thought back to all those girls who had the same name as her. “You know, most of them that were called that don’t have the best of reputations right now.”
Austin nodded he knew who she meant. There was one girl on the cheerleading squad named Alexa and she could put a porn film star to shame. “Well, you are definitely not a sexy Lexi.” Austin patted Emery’s hand. He looked at her, and she looked shocked by his response. “No…no…no.” Austin shook his head. “I didn’t mean it like that. You are incredibly sexy, but not in the way that they are. They are sexy when someone’s drunk, not sexy all the time like I think of you.” He hoped that made sense, and by the look on Emery’s face, it seemed she understood what he meant.
“Okay, my turn for truth.” Emery had only one question for him tonight. “Why did you go to the party and get so drunk?”
Austin figured she wanted to know about that night. Even though he couldn’t remember much of what happened at the party, he did remember everything that led up to wanting to get drunk. “To forget about you, to forget about feeling hurt, to try and forget myself.” Austin shrugged. He didn’t know what else to say.
“I’m assuming you don’t remember about Apryl, well, except for the video.” Emery hoped that he wouldn’t go to the party in search of his ex-girlfriend.
Austin shook his head. “I remember Laney bitching at me as soon as I woke up since I passed out from drinking too much. But other than that, I only remember before the party and when I finally sobered up a little after my nap.”
“I can understand wanting to forget about my little issue that I have going on, believe me, I’ve tried that every day since I found out.”
“Emery, I’m sorry. I know I overreacted and I should've…" Austin was cut short from talking by Emery’s hand covering his mouth.
“I was going to say.” Emery removed her hand from his mouth. “But I can’t change who I am or what I have. We can be together and accept what could possibly happen someday, or I can wait until one of your parents gets here, then leave, and you’ll never have to see me again.”
“Done?” Austin waited for confirmation so that he wouldn’t interrupt her again. Once Emery confirmed she was finished speaking, Austin continued with what he wanted to say. “I was going to say, I should’ve listened to your reasoning as to why you didn’t tell me. I shouldn’t have just walked out and left you alone. I know the way I went about trying to forget was wrong, but it was the only way that I knew how to forget about the pain I was feeling at that time.” Austin hated expressing how he felt, especially with girls. It was something he’d never done, but then again, he’d never felt this way about anyone else.
“Let’s move on past this and promise to talk before walking out again…both of us, okay?” Emery lay her head down on the side of the bed. She was getting sleepier by the minute.
“Why don’t you spend the night here?” Austin rolled over a bit and patted the side of the bed he had left open.
“Just let me lie my head here for about ten minutes, then I’ll get going home.” Emery knew she needed just a short nap to get enough energy to drive home. The last thing she remembered before dozing off was Austin gently running his hand over her hair and telling her thank you once again for staying.