The door opened and Wayne’s nurse met Gran’s gaze with a smile. “He’s awake if one of you want to go see him.”
Gran looked at me as if asking if I wanted to be that one person.
“You go,” I told her, then looked back at the nurse. “Can I see Millie?”
She smiled sweetly. “Her nurse will get you in a few minutes when she’s awake.”
Giving her a nod, I gave Gran a quick hug and they hurried her to the back while I paced the floor.
As I walked every square inch of that room, I found myself thinking of the irony of Colin giving me his heart and Millie giving my father her liver. I thought about how quickly my life had changed since the day she walked in—for the better. I’d lost my will to live, then she swept in and breathed life back into me.
And what the fuck was taking so long? My gaze flicked up to the clock to see that thirty minutes had passed since Gran left.
Stupid nurse was probably on her lunch break … meanwhile I was gonna have a heart attack worrying about my girlfriend.
I walked over to the door with the small window and no handles and knocked on it. The reception desk to the right was empty, and I couldn’t see a soul. My heart beat wildly in my chest as a whole manner of scenarios played through my head. Was the nurse on a lunch break or did something go wrong? Did Millie’s stitches open up and she bled out our something crazy?
Stop it. She’s fine, I told myself.
When I saw movement to my right, I sighed in relief when Gran walked down the hall smiling.
Okay. Everything’s okay.
I stepped back so that Gran could exit, but lodged my boot in the door to keep it from closing once she’d walked through. “You see Millie? Is she next to Wayne?”
Gran frowned. “They haven’t taken you back to see her yet? No, hun, I didn’t see her room. Your father’s doing well though—”
“Dr. Brown to ICU recovery, Dr. Brown to ICU recovery,” a slightly panicked female nurse came over the loud speaker. Gran’s gaze snapped to mine.
Dr. Brown was Millie’s doctor.
Fuck this.
Wrenching the door open, I pushed past Gran and headed left to where Millie’s curtained-off space was from pre-op before, but it was empty. Dizziness washed over me as a deep dark hole of panic threatened to swallow me alive. I spun in a circle, finally seeing a male nurse.
“Excuse me I’m looking for my girlfriend? Her name is—”
I heard Dr. Brown shout something two rooms over and bolted that way.
“Sir, you can’t go in there!” the male nurse yelled as I burst into the room.
Millie was still asleep, still breathing, which was good, but the doctor looked nervous. When I broke into the room, he looked up at me. “Get him out,” he said to the male nurse and then went back to Millie.
“Check her blood sugar,” he said as two strong arms wrapped around my chest and hauled me backward. This was one of those moments in the movies where you would fight the guy off, demand to be present at her bedside. But this wasn’t a movie and I had no strength left. In one instant the wind had been sucked from my sails and I collapsed into the dude behind me.
Something was wrong with Millie.
“She’s … what’s…” The shock hit me hard, something was wrong. Millie wasn’t waking up.
The nurse deposited me in a wheelchair and got down at eye level. “The best thing you can do for your girlfriend is to wait outside and let the doctor work. Doctors can’t think straight with family breathing down their necks.”
I swallowed hard, nodding as he pushed me toward the double doors.
Check her blood sugar? Was she diabetic? What the hell was going on? Wayne was fucking fine and Millie wasn’t waking up? What kind of nightmare was this?
When he hit the button for the double doors to open, Gran looked at me in the wheelchair and blanched.
“Ash?”
I realized she probably thought something was wrong with me now, so I popped up out of the chair and walked over to her. “I … I’m fine, but Millie.” My throat pinched shut as I pushed down the urge to fucking lose my shit. “She’s not waking, something’s wrong, Gran.”
“Oh Lord, no.” Gran grabbed the cross on her necklace and closed her eyes. She started to mutter under her breath in prayer while I stood there stupidly with no God and no answers. I didn’t even know how to pray, but the sudden urge to connect with something bigger than me, something that might be able to save Millie, overwhelmed me.
I sank into the nearby chair and bowed my head, on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. I was one scar away from completely falling apart.
God, don’t take her from me. Please, I can’t take another loss. Help me.
A calmness came over my whole body then, relaxing my muscles and causing me to take a shuddering breath. Was it a placebo effect or something supernatural? I didn’t know, but I had a feeling that everything was going to be okay. I’d lost enough in this life, and Millie wouldn’t be taken from me.
The double doors opened then and my eyelids snapped open. It was Dr. Brown.
“Hey, sorry about that.” He held out his hands in apology. “Millie was having trouble clearing the anesthesia. She’s waking now, you can see her in a few minutes.”
“Praise God!” Gran screamed and the doctor gave her a tight smile.
What the hell? I was so confused.
“So she’s not diabetic or bleeding or anything?” I tried to wrap my mind around what happened and what I’d heard.
The doctor looked confused for a second and then shook his head. “No. She just lost sixty percent of the right side
