The Story of Us (24 page)

“This is going to be a great three
weeks, here with you,” he whispers just before kissing below my
ear.

And it is.

Two and a half weeks fly by so fast, I
feel like we’ve just unpacked and now it’s almost time to start
packing our things back up. Playing house here was the best time
I’ve had out of any summer so far. Every day we’d go down to the
lake behind the house to bask in the sun and play in the water.
Every night, we’d take turns cooking dinner for one another. We’d
have some drinks, watch some movies. Or we’d go out – to the
arcade, to the traveling carnival they set up for eight days, to
the mall, to the little touristy shops on the streets. None of us
seemed to care what we did, as long as we did it together. And the
nights were even better. Every night Craig would put his arms
around me in bed and hold on so tightly, as if he couldn’t get
close enough, as if he thought I’d disappear at any second. I got
so used to hearing his heart beat under my ear at night that it
became my lullaby, luring me to sleep. It was perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

Four days before our scheduled flight
back home, I hear Craig’s phone ringing in the middle of the night.
He doesn’t wake up, despite my pushing against him with the little
energy I have in a half-sleep state. So I reach over him and grab
his phone myself. I read ‘Lex’ on the screen, and even though it’s
not my phone to answer, I instinctively answer it
anyway.

“Lexie?” I ask, still
half-asleep.

“No. Valerie? It’s Kathy. Honey, can
you wake Craig up?”

Instantly, I know something is wrong.
It’s the middle of the night. Craig’s mom is calling from Lexie’s
phone. Everything about this screams unusual.

I look over at Craig and realize I
don’t have to wake him up, he’s woken up on his own when he heard
me talking. “It’s your mom,” I tell him.

He sits up and takes the phone from
me. “Ma, what’s wrong?” he asks in a scratchy, concerned, voice. He
knows something’s wrong too. That’s the thing about three A.M.
phone calls – you feel the unease in your chest before you ever
even pick up the phone.

“Why?” Pause. “How did that happen?”
Pause. “Is she okay?” Pause.

With every pause my heart beats faster
and faster. I want to scream ‘tell me what’s going on!’ but I wait
patiently instead.

“How do they not know that?” Pause.
“I’m coming.” Pause. “I don’t care. I’m on my way.”

And just like that, the conversation
is over. He tosses his phone, jumps out of bed and starts rummaging
through drawers for his clothes.

“What happened?” I ask him, but I get
no answer in response. “Craig, talk to me. What happened?” I ask
again, getting out of bed myself.

“Lexie’s in the hospital,” he answers
blankly.

“Why? What happened?”

“She had a seizure.”

A seizure. I process what that means.
I’ve heard of people having seizures before. They’ve been okay.
Nothing necessarily life-threatening. Although, it’s usually a sign
of something else, something that stems deeper. “Has she ever had a
seizure before?”

“What?” he asks, as if he forgot I was
even in the room talking to him. “No. No, she’s never had a seizure
before.”

“What did your mom say? Is she going
to be okay?”

“They don’t know.”

They don’t know?! How can
they not know?
Suddenly, I realize I’m
asking the same questions he had just asked his mom on the phone
moments ago.

“I’m coming with you,” I tell him. I
jump on the phone and start talking to the airline about switching
our flight. I explain that it’s a family emergency and we need to
leave now, but it does no good. “There’s no flights scheduled out
until seven,” I tell him after hanging up the phone.

“Four hours away,” he mumbles. “I need
to be there with her.”

“I know. But it’ll take us longer to
drive. We have to wait and catch the flight.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have come here,”
he says through gritted teeth, which hits me like a knife in my
chest. “You talked me into coming and I knew I should have been
home with Lexie. I was gone for months at school. I was supposed to
spend the summer with her. I should be there with her.”

“I didn’t talk you into coming,” I
manage to say through the pain in my chest.

“Whatever. You don’t need to come.
Stay here with Drew and Hailey. I’m going to the airport to
wait.”

“Craig…” I trail off. He doesn’t
answer me. I take a deep breath and try again. “Don’t do this.
Don’t shut me out. I’m coming with you.” I scurry around trying to
pack up clothes as fast as I can, but I see Craig walk out of the
bedroom, so I drop everything and just run after him. Hailey can
bring my stuff back with her when she comes home.

“I said you don’t need to come,
Valerie. Coming here was so important to you, you should just
stay.”

I can feel my heart breaking as tears
run down my face. “I know you’re scared, but don’t be an ass. Just
let me come with you,” I plead.

Although his eyes are hardened and his
stare is as cold as ice, he has a moment where he looks torn.
“Fine. Do what you want.”

So I jump into the car with him,
despite the fact that I’m still in my pajamas.

He doesn’t say a word to me the whole
time he drives to the airport in Hailey’s car. He doesn’t talk to
me at all the whole time we wait at the airport.

Once we’re seated in the plane and it
elevates its nose upward, I look over at him and he looks away.
This, out of everything, sets me over the edge. Maybe it’s because
I know he can’t walk away, confined here on the airplane, or maybe
it’s simply because I’ve had enough, but I finally let him have it.
“I love her too. I love Lexie too and I’m scared too,” I drill into
him as I start to cry. He pretends not to listen, but I continue
anyway. “We’re supposed to be able to lean on each other at times
like this. How strong can our relationship be if you simply shut me
out when you’re scared? Let me help you. Please?”

Without turning his head to look at
me, he finds my hand with his and grabs on, squeezing it once and
then resting it in mine. And that’s enough for me. That’s all the
comfort I need right now. That one gesture is enough to tell me
that we’ll be okay.

When we land, Craig finds us a taxi to
take us to the hospital while I call his mom. They were able to get
in to see her, but she was sleeping. The taxi ride, like every
trying thing we’ve done from the moment we got the call up until
this point, is eerily quiet. I know Craig is lost in his own
thoughts. I don’t know if those thoughts are eating him alive or if
he’s just taking time to sort them out. But either way, I don’t
dare break him from it. I know that he needs his space right
now.

When we get there, I ask the first
doctor I find how Lexie Morgan is doing. Surprisingly, he
recognizes the name.

“Autistic sixteen year old, suffered a
seizure in the middle of the night?” he asks. I nod my head for him
to go on. “They’re still doing tests but she’s stable.”

He redirects us to Craig’s parents
sitting in the waiting room. When we approach them, Kathy stands
up, rushes over, and hugs me desperately. I see Rick get up and
stand beside her, so I reach out for his hand and he squeezes mine
in return. Craig walks away from all of us. I see him reach the end
of the hall and punch the vending machine so hard, I’m sure he
broke the glass case. I move to go after him, but Kathy stops
me.

“Just give him a few minutes. Trust
me,” she says.

So I do.

Kathy, Rick, and I take a seat in the
waiting area. I ask them a million questions and then feel bad for
asking them so much. If they’re annoyed, they don’t show it
though.

Basically, from the information I’ve
gathered, Lexie called out to her mom in the middle of the night.
By the time Kathy ran in, Lexie had started seizing. Kathy called
for Rick to call 9-1-1 and then she just tried to comfort Lexie
through the seizure. When the ambulance came, Lexie’s seizure was
over but she still wasn’t okay. She wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t move.
They rushed her to the hospital and started doing tests
immediately. They know that Lexie is stable, but they’re still
trying to get more answers as to why this happened so they can
prevent it from happening again.

Craig makes his way back over to us,
but instead of sitting down, he takes my hand, motioning for me to
stand up and follow him. I do.

He leads me down a hallway, turns a
corner, and leads me down another one. This section of the hospital
is emptier. My heart is racing. Is he going to ask me to leave? Is
he still upset with me? Is he going to blame me again for him not
being there?

He grabs me and pulls me close to him.
It takes me by surprise but I don’t question it. I embrace him
easily, all of his coldness from earlier forgotten.

“It’s going to be okay,” I whisper to
him.

He doesn’t have to say it because I’ve
already forgiven him and I think he knows it, but he says the words
anyway. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know. It’s alright,” I assure
him.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he says in
a cracking voice, holding me tighter.

Hours later, we’re sitting with his
parents, none of us talking much, when a doctor comes over. We all
stand immediately.

“Mr. and Mrs. Morgan?” he
asks.

“Yes, how is she? Do they know more of
what’s going on yet?” Rick asks.

He nods his head yes. And with that,
he has our full attention.

“I’m Dr. Gillderhughe, the
neurologist working on Lexie’s case. Lexie had a
Tonic-clonic
seizure
.
In short, some of the brain abnormalities that are associated
with Autism may contribute to seizures. These abnormalities can
cause changes in brain activity by disrupting neurons in the brain.
We hooked Lexie up to an electroencephalogram, which is a
noninvasive process that involves placing electrodes on her head in
order to monitor activity in her brain. As many as one-third of
individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder also have Epilepsy. And,
ultimately, it is our conclusion that Lexie is one of those
individuals. The good news, however, is that Epilepsy, like Autism,
exists on a spectrum – that is, the severity varies widely among
those affected. Lexie is very low on the spectrum. I’m going to
prescribe an antiepileptic drug…”

“Can we see her?” Craig asks,
interrupting him.

“Well, yes, but I still need to go
over some stuff with your parents.”

“It’s okay,” Kathy says. “Go ahead
Craig. She’d want to see you.”

Craig grabs my hand and leads me along
with him while his parents continue to talk to the doctor. When we
get to Lexie’s hospital room, I stop.

“You go,” I tell him.

“She’ll want to see you too,” he
states with a soft smile.

God it’s good to see him
smile.

We walk into the room and Lexie’s face
brightens instantly. She doesn’t even seem sick, just tired really.
She’s still the same old Lexie.

“I don’t like the cords,” she says,
talking about the IV, “But they have My Little Pony on the TV and I
like that.”

“Lex, you gave us such a scare,” Craig
tells her, fighting back tears of relief at the sight of
her.

“Sorry.”

He laughs, “It’s okay.”

She talks to us for a
while before Kathy and Rick come in. Then it’s all of us, just
hanging out like nothing’s happened. I hear my phone and when I
take it out to look at it, I realize I have quite a few texts from
Hailey.
Shit.
She
doesn’t even know we’re no longer in Michigan. She probably just
thinks we took her car for a joyride. I excuse myself out of the
room to call her back and explain everything, making sure to
apologize for her car being at the Michigan airport. She completely
understands because she’s Hailey and she’s the best.

Craig steps out of the room just as
I’m hanging up with her.

“My parents are going to spend the
night here with Lexie,” he tells me. “My mom drove in the ambulance
here, but dad drove the car, so we can drive it back home. I’m
gonna go walk down to the garage and get it. Meet me outside in,
say, ten minutes? I’ve already said goodbye to
everyone.”

“Okay, yeah, let me say goodbye too
and then I’ll be right down.” I go to turn and walk back into
Lexie’s room, but Craig stops me.

“Thank you, princess. I’m sorry I was
such an ass. I’ve never been that scared in my life. But you’re
right. I should have leaned on you. Instead, I pushed you away. It
wasn’t your fault I was in Michigan. I was just mad at myself and
taking it out on you. I can’t apologize enough.” He holds my chin
in his hand, gently stroking it with his thumb. “I hope you know
how bad I feel. I’m a dick. I’m a dick and you deserve
better.”

“I already told you it’s okay. I
understand. I’m just glad you came around and let me come with
you.”