“You assume right.”
“I’m going to make sure that no other visitors are allowed in,” Dr. Fitzgerald said. “If she could get twelve hours of sleep – I’m not joking, she needs a big block of sleep – I think it would make a world of difference. She’s exhausted. And, even though she won’t admit it, putting on a brave face for her friends tired her out.”
James felt like beating Ally from afar he was so frustrated. “I get it.”
“When you get her home, she needs to rest. She’s brave, I get that. I don’t think the … effervescent … Ally means to do her any harm. The best thing you can do for her right now is to make sure she gets more sleep than is necessary – and absolutely no stress.”
No stress? Crap. James had no idea how he was going to deliver on that promise. “I got it.”
“I believe you,” Dr. Fitzgerald said. “Feed her. Watch some television with her. Then sleep. I think both of you need it.”
AFTER about ten minutes of cajoling, and another ten minutes of outright begging, James managed to convince Mandy to lower the blanket and enjoy a pouty dinner. Her appetite wasn’t big, but once she’d managed to down about a third of her meal James let it go. Her stomach was unsettled, but it was her heart that was laden with tumult.
Once he cleared away the containers, James took possession of the remote control and focused on the television. “What do you want to watch?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you going to pout?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay,” James said, refusing to rise to her obvious bait. “I get to pick.”
He flipped through the limited channels the hospital offered, sighing when he saw Martin Brody investigating a beach crime scene on AMC. “Oh, good, Jaws 2.”
Mandy perked up, warming James’ heart without even realizing it. “It’s almost the beginning of the movie.”
“It is.”
“We didn’t miss the sailboat extravaganza.”
“We didn’t.”
Mandy shifted in the bed, patting the open space next to her. “Come up here.”
James didn’t argue, knowing the endeavor was fruitless. She hadn’t asked about his afternoon excursion, and it wasn’t lying if he didn’t volunteer information. For now, he was content watching the movie and letting her mind and body rest.
Mandy managed stay awake until the initial sailboat attack, sleep ultimately winning its relentless assault. James nodded at a nurse when she poked her head in the door and mimed shutting the lights off. Once it was dark, James turned the sound down but let the movie play. There was something comforting about watching a movie he’d seen twenty times – each one with the blonde slumbering beside him – as she cuddled into his side.
He pressed his lips against her forehead, feeling its warmth as her head lolled to a resting position on his shoulder. He wanted to pull her on top of him, to find solace in her very being. He knew he couldn’t. Her body couldn’t take the stress. Instead, he focused on the movie. Somehow, before his favorite part – when the shark took out the helicopter – he joined her in quiet slumber.
THE DREAM was wretched. Mandy’s walk to her car – and then away from it – was on a ceaseless loop in his head.
He heard her tease him about the bra, and then turn away from him a hundred times. He saw her turn back, his mind busy with finding out the truth of the bra before he got her into his Explorer, a hundred times. He saw the explosion a hundred times. He relived finding her on the ground a hundred times.
Not once in the loop did she survive.
Instead, James suffered through a myriad of different endings – each worse than the previous one.
In one, when he finally got to her side on the ground, she was already dead.
In another, the paramedics arrived and worked on her before declaring her dead.
In another, Sophie told him she had died in the ambulance.
In another, he got to the hospital and the nurses told him she had died during transport.
In yet another, Dr. Fitzgerald told him she had died on the gurney while they tried to save her.
Each outcome gutted James.
Finally, in one more iteration, Dr. Fitzgerald took him to the room they were currently sleeping in so James could gaze on her dead body.
“You killed her,” he said. “It’s all your fault.”
James jerked awake, his breath coming out in ragged gasps as he tried to control the beating of his heart. He was panicked, a dream world melding with reality. When he found Mandy still sleeping beside him, he let out a shaky sigh and settled his head back on the pillow next to hers.
He pressed his lips against her forehead again to test her temperature, relief washing over him when he realized it had dropped to a more normal level.