Fall Apart

Your life can change in seconds. A few crucial seconds. That’s all it takes for your life to take a turn for the worst. She knew that. Only yesterday, she had been a normal thirty-two year old woman, studying the psychological patterns of criminals and catching the bad guys with her exquisite intelligence. But now, she was a thirty-two year old woman, and a victim of a violent attack, at the hands of one of the men who she had profiled just days ago. Jorja Taylor, best psychologist in the city, never saw this coming. 1

She lay on the hospital bed; her long, ravenous hair fanned out on the while pillows. A ventilation tube snaked from a mask covering her nose and mouth, the machine attached to the other end of it breathing for her. Sticky pads were attached to her chest, monitoring her heartbeat, and a clip on her finger measured oxygen in her blood. The steady, rhythmic hum of the ventilator made the dark room all the gloomier. A machine measuring her heart rate beeped with every beat, and another regulating a drip into her veins beeped as the bag of liquid emptied.2

The constant clad of footsteps echoed in the corridors surrounding the room, but there was still a timid silence reflecting the fact that it was only two in the morning. The incandescent moonlight shone through the large windows, bouncing off the bare black mattresses on the trolleys lined against the opposite wall. Whispered voices called to each other as passing nurses nodded hello and the tired doctors headed like zombies towards a lounge where they could lay their heads for a moment and catch a few minutes’ sleep.3

Dr Calleigh Nixon, quietly walked into the hospital. Her shoes were waterlogged, and she winced slightly as each step she took squelched - hoping that she didn’t disturb anyone. Pushing open a double door, she walked through, along another corridor until she reached the intensive care unit. There, everything was silent: no hustle and bustle to be heard from the ER, no children crying from paediatrics, nothing but silence – pure and simple. She quickly hurried into the locker room, where she could dump her bag, and changed out of her drenched clothes. Ten minutes later, she strode confidently out of the room and onto the main ward - she was ready for yet another long shift. 4

The headline was sprawled on the front page of every newspaper in town - Local Forensic Psychologist, Victim of Brutal Assault. Suspect in Custody. Calleigh glanced briefly at the variations of the story that followed each headline. Her eyes quickly darted to the woman all these stories portrayed. She was still lying motionless. Setting the paper back down on the desk, she walked across the corridor to the room where the Jorja lay. She peered through the gaps in the blinds, which lay open at the window of the side-room. Through the glass, she saw her, her chest rising and falling to the rhythm of the humming of the ventilator pumping air into her lungs and breathing for her. She sighed heavily; she knew there wasn't much of a chance for this woman… this patient. Calleigh could hardly bring herself to call the figure on the bed a woman now, not since she knew the extent of the damage done to her body… Nothing really defined her as a woman now, there wasn't much there even to define her as a person really; though something in her battled on, determined not to be beaten, no matter what. Calleigh stood watching, her eyes stinging as she tried to distance herself and hold back tears, her throat aching as she desperately tried to suppress the sobs. Such a waste - such a young life, doing great things, then bang - she's nothing. She’d seen this too many times to get upset but there was something about this unconscious woman’s battle to survive which just provoked seemingly unprofessional feelings in the young doctor.5


His frail fingers clasped tightly around the newspaper, the edges cutting into his skin. He couldn’t feel it - he felt numb all over. 6

Keanu Taylor, husband to the woman the whole country now knew about, sat anxiously on the plane as it prepared to land. It took so much control for him not to cry out when he read the words Jorja Taylor, Attack and Critical Condition in the same sentence. Nausea coursed through his body every time he looked at the picture of her, but he just couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. 7

He should have been there. 8

He should have stopped it. 9

Hours later, Calleigh walked back into Jorja’s room to check her OB’s. 10

Pulse the same.11

Blood pressure the same.12

Everything the bloody same.13

She wanted her to wake up. They Neural Activity Scans weren’t back, so she held onto the thought that they would be clear, and she would wake up.14

Soon.15

Very soon.16

She reached over, and lightly brushed away the loose strands of hair that had faller over to face. She had seen many battered woman - so why was this one different? Her thoughts were quickly diverted to the man who walked into the room. He was about mid-thirties, with dark brown hair, and equally as dark brown eyes that stood out. He looked frail, and much older than his age. The dark blue circles under his eyes were a sure sign he hadn’t slept for so long, and his blood shot eyes did nothing to mask the obviousness that he had cried all the way.17

He looked beaten.18

Broken.19

“Mr Taylor?” Calleigh whispered, so quietly that she barely heard herself. His eyes were fixated on the woman who laid on the bed next to her. He simply nodded, never taking his eyes off her as he brushed passed her and sat next to his wife, “I’ll leave you to it,” she said, as she briskly walked out of the room to the desk opposite. She just couldn’t stand in that room any longer.20

That room full of sorrow.21

Calleigh leaned on the desk opposite the room, whipping away a few stray tears that had spilled from her eyes. She hated it when patients got to her. Her gaze was fixed on the heartbreaking scene that was playing out in the room opposide. Mr Taylor was sitting along side her on the bed, his hand tightly clasping hers, as he gently talked to her. Pleading for her to wake up.22

She didn’t.23

Deep down, he knew she wouldn’t 24

Keanu Taylor endlessly mumbled words, that you couldn’t string into a sentence, to his battered d unconscious wife. He wasn’t the strong, happy man he used to be. Without Jorja, he was nothing. 25

She was in rock.26

His soul mate.27

His life.28

“Honey, please wake up, please!” He repetitively begged to her. He was holding on to every last thread of hope that still existed within him. But that hope was slowly dying. 29

Almost non existent.30

He screwed up his face and bit his lip, as once again, tears streamed uncontrollably down his face. The realisation that she would properly never wake up was starting to sink in. It tore him apart.31

He pulled her hand to his lips, and dropped a gently kiss onto her delicate skin. 32

“I love you my darling,” he gently murmured, so only she could hear.33

If she could hear.34

In a million years, Keanu Taylor never thought he’d witness that. The sight of his wife of 5 years, battered practically to death. She was a fighter. She never gave up.35

He never thought he’d see her fall apart.36