Rose’s head snapped up to me, her lips parting. “Jack, you don’t have to do that.”
I ignored her. “Is it safe?” I asked the technician, trying my best not to growl at her. I didn’t think I was that successful because her eyes grew large and she nervously reached up to push her glasses up her nose.
“Erm, yes. It’s safe, but you’ll need to take off your—”
“Got it.” I turned away and walked out of the room to take care of everything. Less than a minute later, I was back.
Rose was still standing on her two feet and not on the table.
“Okay?” I asked when I was standing too close yet not close enough.
She took a deep breath, let it all out, and nodded. I offered her my hand and waited as she ran her palms up and down her leggings and then slowly grasped mine. It was cold. I helped her up, and right when she was about to lie down on her back, the technician stopped her.
“Oh, I’m gonna need you to lie on your stomach.”
Rose straightened up to a sitting position immediately, one of her hands still in mine, her grip as tight as possible. “What?” she sputtered.
“The scan your doctor wants is taken facedown.”
“But my nose—it’s—and…” Her eyes came to me as her face started crumpling, her breathing too fast. “Jack, I won’t be able to breathe, not facedown. I can’t—”
I gave Rose’s hand a squeeze and she stopped talking. Without shifting my eyes from hers, I addressed the technician. “Could you give us a moment, please?”
Rose’s gaze followed the technician as she stepped out of the room and closed the door. She was on the verge of hyperventilating, and the scan hadn’t even started.
“You’re going to be late to the coffee shop, and on top of that you’re making me late, too. We have to do this, right? You heard the doctor.”
She swallowed, her throat moving.
I caught her chin between my fingers and forced her gaze to meet mine. Arching an eyebrow, I asked again, “We have to do this. I need you to be okay, so we can’t avoid it.”
Licking her lips, she nodded. “I won’t be able to see anything. The room is closing in on me even right now.”
Her chest was starting to rise and fall faster; she was seconds away from a panic attack, so I leaned down until we were eye level. “You can do this, Rose. You will do this, and then we’ll get out of here. It’ll only take fifteen minutes—surely you can hang on that long. I’ll be here the entire time, and once it’s done, we won’t look back.”
She closed the distance between us and rested her forehead against mine. “I know I’m being stupid. I’m sorry. I’m scared, that’s all. I—” She took another deep breath and closed her eyes. “I’m gonna have surgery, for crying out loud—if I freak out with this, I won’t make—”
My left hand, the one that wasn’t in Rose’s death grip, clenched. “Let’s worry about this hurdle, and then we’ll start freaking out about the surgery. Take the time to think about your coffee shop. Make plans.”
Pulling back from me, she sniffled and nodded, her eyes suspiciously wet.
“You ready now?” I asked.
“You’ll really stay here?”
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
The edges of her lips moved up. “Yes, you did.” Another deep breath out. “If I didn’t worry about what you’d think of me, I’d try my best to run away from this right now.”
I gave her a long look. “I can run faster than you. I’m calling the technician back in and we’ll get this done.”
Another stiff nod and she pulled her hand back to rest it on her thigh.
I called the technician back in and she moved to Rose’s left side. “All set?”
When Rose didn’t answer, I gave the girl a curt nod.
“Since you were worried about the leaking, we’ll put this paper down under your nose so hopefully it won’t distract you too much. Also, it’s going to be loud in there, so here are your ear plugs. The sounds are completely normal, so don’t let them panic you.”
The technician offered another pair to me as Rose took them without a word and placed them in her ears.
“Ready?” the girl asked, her gaze moving between mine and Rose’s.
Rose cleared her throat. “Yes.”
She secured her head in the contraption, and I helped her lie down on her stomach. Her eyes were already tightly closed.
Before the technician could disappear behind the door, I got her attention.
“Can I touch her?”
“Yes, but try not to move her.”
The door closed, and Rose and I were alone—if you didn’t count everyone else on the other side of the glass, that is.
A few seconds later, the technician’s voice filled the room as she spoke into a mic from the other side. “Okay, we’re about to start, Rose. I’ll be talking and letting you know how many minutes are left. Here we go.”
Just as the machine started up, I put my hand on the only part of her body I could reach without pushing my arm into the tunnel: her ankle. I forced myself to relax so my grip wouldn’t be painful, but I wasn’t sure how successful I was with that. At first I could hear her erratic breathing as she tried to inhale and exhale in an effort to calm herself down, but when the noises started getting louder and louder, I couldn’t hear anything.
As minutes passed and I started to get more anxious by the second, all I could do was gently run my thumb up and down under the edge of her legging. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the way my heart was hammering in my chest. I wasn’t supposed to feel this way. It was just a simple, painless MRI scan, but her panic had affected me as well, and I had trouble just standing still when all I wanted to do was pull her out so she wouldn’t hurt and I wouldn’t see that scared and worried look in her eyes again.
As the machine’s jackhammering sounds picked up and all the banging and thumping and beeping started to get to me, I just circled my fingers around her ice-cold ankle and held on, hoping she was doing okay in there and hoping that I was waiting for her.
“We have just a few minutes left. You’re doing great.”
“It’s almost over, Rose,” I said in a normal voice. I didn’t think she could hear me over the maddening sounds or through her ear plugs, but just in case she could, I kept talking to her, saying the same thing again and again. “It’s almost over. I’m right here. You’re almost done. I’m right here with you.”
“And it’s done,” the girl said cheerfully through the speakers. “I’ll be right in to get you out.”
The loud beating in my skull stopped and I realized the machine had as well. The technician opened the door and walked in. I let go of Rose’s ankle and clenched my hand a few times as I stepped back to let the technician do her job and get Rose out of there so I could get to her.
The moment the table started to slide out of the machine, Rose started moving. Just as her head cleared the opening and I saw her profile, my heart sank. She looked worse than I’d expected, and I’d expected it to be quite bad already. I took a step forward then stopped, clenching my fists at my sides. The second she could, she got up to her hands and knees, her eyes wide open, tears rapidly coursing down her cheeks in rivulets. Her entire body was shaking, her breathing frantic, as if she couldn’t quite remember how to breathe. Other than the shallow and harsh breathing, she wasn’t making a single sound. Sitting back on her heels, she started to push back the contraption on her head until the technician helped her and released her from it.