Chapter 2
“I’m going to need to take Ali for her tests.” Dr. Fletcher tells Ashlyn.
Ashlyn tenses at the words not wanting to leave Ali’s side.
“Okay, um, how long do you think it will take?”
“Most likely a little over an hour, depending on what we find.”
Listening to the words ‘depending on what we find’ makes Ashlyn feel another wave of tears come on, but this time she is able to hold them in.
“Why don’t you run home and clean up or grab yourself some food while you wait.” Dr. Fletcher says encouragingly.
“I think I’m good right where I am. I want to be here when she gets back.”
As soon as she says this, Ali starts to be pulled out of the room by Dr. Fletcher and a few nurses.
“Wait.” Ashlyn says quickly. “Can I talk to her for a few minutes before you take her?”
“Sure, take however long you need.”
The nurses and Dr. Fletcher file just outside of the room patiently waiting. Ashlyn leans in and whispers to Ali, grasping her hand tightly.
“Alex, you need to stay with me. You have to be okay. I love you.”
With those last three words, Ali’s grip tightens and her eyes flutter open once again. She attempts to push herself up, but Ashlyn stops her.
“I, I love you too, Ash. Wh… what happened?”
Ashlyn can tell how fatigued and groggy Ali is and stops her from trying to move or talk anymore. The few words that she has said already are enough for Ashlyn. A single tear falls down the side of her face.
“You, uh, you fainted, and you were, um, unconscious for a while. We’re in the hospital right now. The doctors aren’t sure what’s going on yet, but they are going to take you for a few tests. I promise I will be here when you get back. I love you.”
With that, Ashlyn lets the doctors take Ali. Ashlyn watches them take Ali as far as she can see. As soon as Ali is out of her sight, Ashlyn walks over to the chair in the corner of the room and puts her face in her hands.
Ashlyn had never been much of a believer in faith, but in this moment that was all she could depend on to make sure that Ali would be okay.
“Please, God, just make sure that Ali will be okay. Whether something small or big, just help her, help us get through this. I need her to be okay.”
Ashlyn lifted her head from her hands, and prepared herself to call Kyle. That was a conversation she was not looking forward to having.
As she went to pull her phone her of her pocket, she felt the ring. At the touch of it, she took a sharp breath, attempting to hold in the stream of tears trying to force their way out. Ashlyn’s thoughts turned a whole new direction, completely away from her talking to Kyle. Instead all Ashlyn could think was how could a such a great night turn so horrible within a matter of seconds. They were walking down the beach peacefully, hand in hand, and suddenly there were sirens filling the night and Ali was laying on the sand and not waking up. None of it made any sense.
Ashlyn forced those thoughts away and attempted to compose herself for what was next. If there was any hint of sadness of fear in her voice, Kyle would end up as much of a mess as Ashlyn was.
Ashlyn brought out her phone and pulled up Kyle’s number, but she couldn’t bring herself to press the call button. The phone in front of her seemed like it was taunting her. She knew the moment that she heard Kyle’s voice on the phone, it would force her to bring herself into reality. She still couldn’t fathom what was happening.
She pulled the phone up to her ear as soon as she pressed the call button, but almost hung up once she heard the ringing. Kyle was someone who was so important to Ali, and for him to have to hear about anything being wrong with is tough enough, but hearing it over the phone is even harder.
“Hey Ash.” Kyle said happily.
“Uh, hey Kyle.”
Ashlyn knew she had already failed at keeping the fear out of her voice once she had said the first word.
“Ashlyn, is everything okay?”
Shit, Ashlyn told herself. She was not ready to express what happened to anyone, especially not Kyle of all people.
“I’m, um, at the hospital. Ali, she… she fainted and the doctors don’t know what’s wrong yet.”
“What? Is she okay?”
“Yes, she’s okay for now. She didn’t wake up for a while and she is still really fatigued so the doctors are getting a few tests done.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Stay strong Ash. Ali is going to be okay.”
Kyle hung up immediately and was on his way. Ashlyn felt as though a weight was lifted off of her shoulders. She was so glad that she was going to have someone there to support her.
Generally, people think of Ashlyn as the strong one of their relationship, but in this moment Ashlyn had never felt weaker. She had broken down too many times to count in the time since Ali fainted and she didn’t know how long she was going to be able to hold herself together before she broke down again.
///
Ashlyn heard a slight knock on the door and looked up to see Kyle standing in the doorway.
“Oh, Kyle. Thank god you’re here.”
She stood up and rushed towards him. They hugged tightly.
“Okay. Start from the beginning.”
Ashlyn took a deep breath preparing herself to tell Kyle what happened once again.
“We were walking down the beach together when Ali suddenly fainted. I tried to wake her up, but after she didn’t wake up right away I called 911. She woke up a little when we were getting into the ambulance, but she was really groggy. She was out again by the time we got to the hospital. The doctors said it was unusual for someone to be unconscious for that long so they were a little nervous. They wanted to do a few tests to see what was going on, which is where she is now. Right when they were pulling her out of the room, she woke up again, but she was again really groggy and fatigued.”
Ashlyn looked up at Kyle for a response, but he was silent. He was just taking in all of what happened. After a minute or so of silence between the two of them, Kyle took a deep breath.
“Wow. At least she is awake. I guess. This is all somewhat of Deja vu for me. My brain keeps going back to when she broke her leg in college and the blood clots. I don’t really know what to think right now. I wasn’t good at this then and I’m not good at this now.”
Both of them were sitting in silence, waiting for Ali to pull through the door of the room. The more minutes that went by, the more nervous Ashlyn and Kyle became.
“Have you, uh, told your parents yet?” Ashlyn asked Kyle.
“No, I don’t want to worry them yet. But thank you for calling me.”
“Yeah, no problem. I needed someone to be with me for this anyway.”
Kyle leaned over and pulled Ashlyn in close to him. Her head was laying on his shoulder and the tears started to fall.
“Kyle, what time is it?”
“12:45, why?”
At the sound of that, Ashlyn shot up.
“Wait what? The doctors sent her for the test at 11:15. They said it would take around an hour. She should be back by now.”
“I’m sure everything is fine. They’re probably just doing a few more test.”
Ashlyn could sense the shakiness in Kyle’s voice. The words ‘depending on what we find’ started to float through her head once more. Maybe they found something bad, so they are taking longer. That was the only explanation that Ashlyn could think of and she knew there was something really wrong.
Only a minute later though, Ali was brought through the door of the room. She was asleep peacefully on the bed. Ashlyn stood up right away and went to Ali’s side. Kyle was on the other side just as fast. Ashlyn leaned down and kissed Ali on the forehead, while Kyle was caressing her hair. Dr. Fletcher walked in behind Ali and Ashlyn was alert and paying attention to every single word that he was about to say.
“We took some blood and everything was normal with that, we checked her heart and that was fine, but the CT or her head that we took was not.”
Dr. Fletcher switched on the light and put up a picture from the CT. It looked to be a bunch or gray stuff at first, but there was a white circle right in the middle of the circle, or brain. Ashlyn took a sharp intake and she could hear Kyle do the same. She tightened her grip on Ali’s hand preparing herself for what Dr. Fletcher was about to tell them.
“You might want to wake Ali up for this. She is probably going to want to know also.”
After he said that, both Kyle and Ashlyn lightly shook Ali awake. She opened her eyes slowly, but smiled as soon as she saw Ashlyn and Kyle looking down at her.
“You kept your promise.” Ali said with a smile.
Ashlyn couldn’t help but laugh at the brunette’s comment. “Of course I did. I always do.”
“Hey, I’m here too.” Kyle said smiling.
“I can see that.”
Both of them laughed. Ashlyn felt a flood of relief come over her knowing that Ali was able to communicate and was more awake. She definitely hadn’t lost her personality. Whatever was going on in her brain wasn’t affecting that thankfully.
Dr. Fletcher coughed, trying to get our attention back.
“Glad to see you awake again Ali.”
“He’s going to tell us what’s happened with you.” Ashlyn told Ali quietly.
“So as you can see, there is a tumor in Ali’s brain.”
The whole demeanor in the room tensed. The word tumor was almost always not good.
“We don’t know all that much about the tumor at this moment. We want to do a MRI with contrast to get a few more pictures of the tumor. We will have to look at the scans a little more closely. After that we will be able to figure out the best treatment for you. I will set up the MRI for tomorrow morning, to give you three a little time to rest and think things over.”
Dr. Fletcher left the room, and all three of us were silent. None of us really knew what to think. We didn’t know what this meant for our future or really anything. You could practically hear everyone thinking. The first noise to fill the room was sniffling. Ashlyn turned to find Ali crying. Ashlyn leaned down to her and wiped her tears away. Ali scooted over in bed to let Ashlyn snuggle up next to her. The defender put her head on Ashlyn’s shoulder and started whispering something that neither Kyle nor Ashlyn could understand.
“What are you saying Alex?” Ashlyn said quietly.
Ali turned over onto her back, her face wet with tears.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Ashlyn’s heart sunk at those words. She couldn’t bear to hear that Ali thought all of this was her fault.
“What are you sorry for? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I, I have been having headaches since we got back from Rio, but I, um, I didn’t really think anything of it. And tonight, I had a headache the, um, the whole night and I was pretty nauseous too. I’m sorry because I didn’t say anything.”
“Alex, you have no need to be sorry. We’ve all been under a lot of stress. There were a million things that those headaches and nausea could have been coming from.”
“But if I had said something earlier, maybe it wouldn’t have progressed as far. I don’t know.”
A fresh set of tears were falling down Ali’s face. Ashlyn and Kyle could feel them coming on too. Kyle turned to Ali, attempting to be the strong one.
“Alex, you can’t think like that. It’s only been a few weeks and those few weeks wouldn’t have made much of a difference. You didn’t ask for this to happen to you, but now that it has, we are just going to work with what we have. This is going to be hard for all of us, but you are a fighter. We will get through this.”
The feeling in the room shifted a little. Kyle’s little speech had changed Ali’s view at least a little and everyone could tell that Ali wasn’t blaming herself as much anymore.
“It’s been a long night. Why don’t we get some sleep and we can talk more about this in the morning. We can call your parents and anyone else you want here with you too.”
Ali’s eyes widened at the thought of having to tell her parents and their teammates. Her parents had already dealt with so much between Kyle’s sobriety and mental health and Ali’s physical health from injuries and such. She wasn’t looking forward to that conversation and by the look of it neither was Kyle. Telling their teammates would be especially hard because they were their best friends and they had been with them through thick and thin for so many years.
///
The lights were out in the room and you could hear quiet beeps from the monitors that Ali was on as well as faint noises of running feet outside of the room. Ashlyn and Ali were snuggled together in the bed and Kyle was sleeping in a separate room, giving the two of them a little space.
“Good night Alex. I love you.” Ashlyn said kissing Ali on the forehead.
“Good night Ash. I love you too.” Ali responded in a quiet whisper, just barely audible.
Within minutes, both of them were sleeping comfortably together.