Where We Found Our Home by Natasha Bishop

 

Lincoln

She can’t die. She can’t die.

I can’t believe I was too late again.

No.

I can’t think like that. She’s going to make it. I won’t accept any other outcome. She has to make it through this. And when she does, I am going to spend the rest of my life making sure she knows how much I treasure her. We wasted so much time fighting our feelings for each other. Our time can’t be up.

When I got to the roof of Sasha’s bakery and saw Ciara fall into Sasha’s arms, my world stopped spinning. When I looked over and saw Eddie lying in a pool of his own blood, the only regret I had was that I wasn’t the one to end him. Death was too kind for him, but I hope he’s burning in hell right now.

I’m pacing back and forth in the waiting room of the hospital, irritated that I can’t be with her. The doctors and nurses will bend the rules for me to go back to an exam room with her when she’s conscious, but giving me her medical information when she’s been shot is a step over the line.

My entire family is in the waiting room with me, anxiously waiting for Ciara’s mom’s arrival so the doctors will tell us something. I left her mom a voicemail letting her know Ciara is in the hospital, but I know she and the girls are on a flight trying to get here. I can’t take anymore waiting. I’m about to come out of my skin.

The police arrive to get Sasha’s statement about the events. She asks them to allow her to give her statement in front of all of us so she won’t have to repeat it again. Our eyes are glued to her while she gives us every painful detail of Eddie’s delusion. How brave Ciara was, distracting Eddie so Sasha could edge closer and closer to safety. How he told Ciara he was going to kill every single member of our family and Ciara’s before finally killing her. How he aimed his gun at Sasha before Ciara jumped in front of the bullet and fought him off. How Ciara fired the shot that killed him.

“When he fired, Ciara lunged in front of me, but she never stopped moving so I didn’t even realize she was hit. I just thought he missed. I wanted to help her, but I knew the chances of me making everything worse with them wrestling over the gun were too high. After it was…after it was over, she…umm…she just wanted to make sure I was okay. She didn’t even realize she’d been shot. I was the first one to notice.” She struggles through her last sentence. I take a break from my pacing to hug her. My dad lays a hand on her shoulder. My mom rubs her back. Reggie grabs her hand. Isaiah reaches across and lays a hand on top of her thigh. I notice his other hand is holding Nina’s, and he’s rubbing circles on her palm. “I know she blamed herself for Nevaeh being grabbed. I didn’t get a chance to tell her I didn’t blame her. I didn’t get to tell her it wasn’t her fault. That I love her like a sister already. But she still protected me. She jumped in front of a bullet for me. I can never repay that. I didn’t…” She chokes out a sob, and I hug her tighter.

“Shh, I know. She knows. She knows you didn’t blame her.” Despite what she said during our fight, I know she knows how much my family loves her. How much I love her. “She did what she did because she loves you too.”

Ms. Angela, Brittany, Simone, and Sarah burst into the waiting room.

“Where is she?! Ciara Jeffries. Where is she?” Ms. Angela runs over to the information desk.

“Ms. Angela.” I run over to join her, and she pulls me into a hug.

“Are you family?” a nurse asks.

“I’m her mother,” she shrieks. The nurse nods and goes to get a doctor. “Lincoln. What happened to my daughter?” Sarah, Simone, and Brittany crowd around me, wondering the same thing. I decide it would be best to tell the story while we’re a distance away from everyone else. I tell them everything Sasha just told us, and they all burst into tears.

“Fuck. I can’t believe this,” says Sarah.

Simone opens her mouth to say something, but a doctor comes out and she closes it again.

“Ms. Jeffries?”

“Yes.” Ms. Angela places one hand in mine and the other in Brittany’s. Simone and Sarah each put a hand on her shoulders.

“Your daughter is going to recover.” We all release a collective breath. “She was shot in the chest. Three inches to the left and we’d be having a different conversation. She did lose a lot of blood. She’s in the ICU, and she hasn’t woken up yet, but she’s stable.”

“Can we see her?”

“She can have two visitors for now. I don’t think she’ll wake up while you’re there, but you can see her.”

I look at the girls and silently plead with them to let me be the one to go with her mom to her room.

“Go. We’ll go fill your family in,” Sarah concedes. I thank them and rush to catch up with Ms. Angela, who is following a nurse to Ciara’s room.

“Fair warning, she’s going to look rough when you go in. She’s hooked up to a lot of machines, and she looks a little weak right now, but she’s tough.” Despite her warning, I’m still not prepared for what I see when we walk in. Ciara looks frail. She looks like she’s barely breathing on her own. My knees almost give out at the sight of her.

Ms. Angela walks over and barely contains her sobs as she lowers herself into the chair by Ciara’s bedside. I’m almost afraid to touch her for fear of disrupting her IV, but the thought of being near her and not touching her is too much. I gently lay my hand across hers.

“I’m so sorry.” It’s all I can manage to say. I am sorry. Sorry I couldn’t prevent this. Sorry I let it get this far. “Ms. Angela…”

She cuts me off. “Lincoln. Do you love my daughter?”

“More than life itself,” I answer with no hesitation.

“Then I think we can drop the Ms., don’t you think?”

I give her a sad smile and nod. “I promised you that I would keep her safe. I promised her I would. I didn’t do that. I’m so sorry.”

“You did. You kept her heart safe. That’s all she needed you to do. It was always meant to go this way. She needed to end this herself, or she’d never be able to move past it. I would prefer she not have ended up in this hospital bed to end it, but she’s beaten death four times now. She’s a fighter. This is not the end to her story. This is not the end of your story together. So what she needs from you now is for you to be positive and continue keeping her heart safe.”

“She is my future.”

Her lips curve up in a grin. “Well then, it’s definitely time we drop the Ms.” She goes back to holding Ciara’s hand, and I release a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding.

I leave Angela in Ciara’s room and allow everyone else to take their turns visiting her. She doesn’t wake up the entire time we’re there, and though the doctor tells us that’s normal, I’m still worried.

Four days go by and she still doesn’t open her eyes. The doctor can’t explain it. I feel helpless, and I’m growing angrier by the second. Angela and I have both been sleeping in the hospital, taking turns to go get food or go shower and change so that Ciara is never alone. She’s shown no sign of waking up.

I pull up a chair to her bedside table and grab her hand, gently rubbing her pulse point. “Angel. I need you to show me those chocolate eyes, okay? I need you to come back to me. We’re just getting started, you have to be here. I love you, Angel. Please.”

She doesn’t stir. The only sound in the room is the machines that tell me she’s still in there somewhere.