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AJ (VII)


AJ’s heart felt like it was racing a million miles a minute as he slowed the truck to a stop on the side of the road, threw it into park, and jumped out. He hoped he would look back and see Jori struggling to her feet, shaken, but not seriously hurt. But when he looked, all he saw was her unmoving shape still lying in the middle of the street.

He ran as fast as he could through the rain and dropped to his knees at her side, ignoring the cold moisture that seeped through the knees of his pajama bottoms. “Jori?” He reached out a trembling hand and touched her shoulder. She was only wearing a t-shirt and a thin pair of pajama pants, and his first, absurd thought was that she looked so cold, lying in a puddle of water on the pavement.

He slid his hand under the back of her head, intending to lift her off the ground and warm her in his arms, and that was when he felt something warm and wet flowing over his fingers. He looked down, and in the eerie red glow of his taillights, he could see the dark liquid swirling in the rainwater.

“Oh God, Jori, I’m so sorry,” he choked out as he started to sob, the air hitching in and out of his lungs in short, gasping breaths. Without a further thought, he scooped Jori into his arms and stood, swaying with the effort of hoisting her up. With her head lolled back and her limbs hanging limply, she was like dead weight in his arms. He staggered toward her truck, struggling under the strain of holding her. He managed to pry the passenger side door open and slide her into the seat. Under the interior light, he could see fresh blood flowing from a wound in her head as she slumped forward against the dash.

He closed the door and darted around to the driver’s side, jumped back in, and shifted into gear. “Stay with me, Jori,” he begged as he sped off down the street, wondering if she would even survive the drive into Cincinnati… if she wasn’t already dead.

Without taking his eyes off the road, he reached over and felt around until he found her neck. He traced her jawline with his fingers and pressed down. When he felt the faint pulse fluttering beneath his fingertips, he heaved a huge sigh. The sense of relief that radiated through him was more welcome than the warmth blasting from the truck’s heater. “Thatta girl,” he said, patting the side of her face. “Hang on, Jor. Just hang on.”

***

In the emergency room of Cincinnati’s Bethesda North Hospital, heads turned, once again, as a man, dressed in a bloody wifebeater and wet pajamas bottoms, barreled through the doors, carrying the limp body of a woman who was soaked with blood and rain.

For AJ, the déjà vu was devastating. As Jori was whisked away on a gurney, he remembered a similar scene: her hand being torn out of his grip as the medical experts descended upon her, after he’d rushed her to the same hospital, in labor, on what would become Lucy’s birthday. He remembered his panic over the blood in the birthing pool and his fear that he might lose both his girlfriend and their unborn baby. He tried to remember the relief he’d felt later, upon learning that the doctors had saved Jori’s life and delivered his daughter safely into the world, but it was difficult, for the world had turned upside down since that day. Lucy was dead, smothered by her own mother. Jori was close to death again, struck down by her own fiancée. In just nine months, AJ’s whole family had fallen apart.

He had tried to hold himself together, for Jori’s sake, but at that point, there was nothing left to keep him from falling apart, too. In the waiting room, he broke down, sobbing unabashedly into his blood-stained hands, as the events of the last hour replayed in his head like a bad movie on an infinite loop. He heard Jori confessing to killing Lucy… saw her running ahead of him through the rain-streaked windshield of the truck… felt the impact as her body bounced off the front fender. He could smell her blood on his hands, metallic and bitter. It was enough to turn his stomach. As bile slid up his throat, he lifted his head long enough to look around for a trashcan, fearing he was about to be sick.

That was when he saw the cop.

The police officer stood in the doorway of the waiting room, watching him. “Mr. McLean?” he asked, once he had AJ’s attention.

AJ swallowed hard, leaving the taste of vomit on the back of his tongue. “Yeah, that’s me,” he said.

“I’m Officer Pepper, with the Cincinnati Police Department. Can I ask you a few questions about what happened tonight?”

AJ raked a hand through his thinning hair, stalling for a few seconds. “Yeah, okay,” he agreed, trying to sound as casual as he could. The whole time, his mind was racing, frantically trying to work out what he would say in response to the officer’s questions. Should he tell the truth, or should he try to cover it up?

“You told the triage nurse your girlfriend was hit by a car. You transported her here yourself, is that right?” AJ nodded. “Did you or anyone else call 911 before leaving the scene of the accident?”

Hit-and-run. Like a flashbulb, the phrase popped into AJ’s head. He saw his way out and took it. “I didn’t actually see it happen,” he said. “By the time I got there, the car was gone.”

The officer’s eyes narrowed as he looked at AJ, his pencil poised over his pad of paper. Then he bent his head and started jotting notes. “So you didn’t witness the accident. Who did?”

AJ shook his head slowly. “No one. I mean, besides Jori and whoever hit her.”

“Where and approximately when did this happen?”

“On the street outside our apartment.” AJ gave the officer his address. “It happened… I dunno, about an hour ago, at this point.”

The officer looked at the clock. “So… around two a.m., you’d say?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“And how did you know Jori had been hit?”

AJ told a story that started with the truth: he’d awoken suddenly and realized that Jori wasn’t in bed. The rest he made up as it came to him: he heard the sound of screeching tires and looked out the window just in time to see taillights taking off down the street, leaving a body behind. He’d run downstairs and gone outside to find that it was Jori who had been hit. What she’d been doing outside at that hour, he didn’t know – Jori had struggled with insomnia ever since the death of their infant daughter six months earlier.

When AJ mentioned Lucy, Officer Pepper paused to look up at him, then made another note on his pad. He asked a series of questions that made AJ suspect he was wondering if Jori had stepped into the street on purpose. AJ let him wonder. But at the same time, he wondered himself what Jori would have to say when she regained consciousness. If she regained consciousness. Would she remember what had happened and tell the cops who really hit her? If she did, AJ was in a world in trouble.

The doctor who came to speak with him next wasn’t optimistic. “Mr. McLean? I’m Dr. Edison,” the resident introduced himself, shaking AJ’s hand. “Jori’s been stabilized and sent off for some tests – X-rays and a CT scan. She has broken bones that will likely need surgery, but what I’m most concerned about is the trauma to her head. She’s showing signs of a severe traumatic brain injury. The scans will reveal more than I can tell you now, but I want to prepare you for the worst.”

And so, AJ was left in a state of limbo, waiting to see whether or not Jori would even wake up.

***