“Thank you.” I looked over at him, suddenly feeling more tired than I had in years. “Did that really just happen?”
“Yeah. Yeah, buddy, it did.”
A tone sounded from the radios we wore, and then a call came through. Animal bite on the other side of town, not serious.
“Gotta go,” Mike said, and I nodded absently as I continued staring at the door Reid had disappeared behind.
I’ll be back,I thought, swallowing hard as I let Mike lead me out of the emergency entrance.You better still be here and awake next time I see you.
three
IT HAD BEEN seventy-two hours.
Seventy-two hours since I’d left Reid in the hospital, where he now lay on the fourth floor in a medically induced coma to heal the swelling in his brain. And this was in addition to the broken ribs, punctured lung, sprained wrist and ankle, and the many cuts and bruises all over his body.
But it could’ve been worse. So much worse.
The day of Reid’s accident, I’d come back up to the hospital after my shift, hoping to glean some information about how he was doing, and learned he was in ICU, so ICU was where I went.
I’d gotten off the elevator just in time to see a doctor pulling aside a family that could only have been Reid’s, judging by the empty waiting room and the way they all shared his features, and I wasn’t ashamed to listen in. Had heard the doctor giving updates about Reid’s condition and what had happened, had seen his mom softly crying into her husband’s shirt. I wanted to go over to them, offer some words of comfort, but who was I? No one but a stranger, and I didn’t want to interfere in their suffering in any way, so I’d waited. Waited and watched, same as I did now, an hour after my shift had ended.
I looked down the row of chairs to where Reid’s parents were talking with the doctor who’d just come out to brief them. I’d suspected when I first saw him that the man currently standing a few feet away was Reid’s father. He had the same espresso-colored eyes, the same tall build and strong shoulders. The woman wrapped tightly in one of his arms was where Reid’s ivory skin tone had come from. I’d passed his mother once, and she’d offered up the same polite smile Reid had given me all those mornings at Joe’s. And next to her, sitting cross-legged in one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs and clutching a worn paperback, though her attention was focused on what the doctor was saying, sat a younger female, maybe in her mid- to late teens.
Without coming off like a creeper, I listened in as much as I could to what the doctor was telling them regarding Reid’s progress.
Prognosis good…healing…breathing on his own…already started the process of bringing him out of the coma…
It was amazing how fast the heaviness that’d sat on my shoulders the past three days lifted with those words, and I dropped my head in my hands. It was senseless to blame myself in any way for his condition, I knew that, but I’d be hard-pressed to find any of my coworkers who wouldn’t have thought the same thing in my position. Self-blame was just something that came with the job. You always wondered what you could’ve done differently, what would’ve changed the outcome if only you’d done x, y, and z instead.
But to hear Reid was going to pull through this? That was the best news I’d heard, maybe ever.
His mother hugged the doctor, and as she pulled away and went back into her husband’s embrace, she wiped at her eyes.
“He’s gonna make it,” she said, her voice cracking. “Our baby’s gonna be okay.”
Averting my eyes to give them their private moment, I told myself that this was enough. Reid would come through this, and I could and should move on, whether I wanted to or not.
Well, at least that was what I told myself until Reid’s father spoke up.
“Why don’t we all go grab some dinner in the cafeteria?” he said to his wife, and before she could protest, he held up his hand. “You haven’t eaten much of anything in days.”
“But—” she started, but her husband shook his head.
“No buts. You can go back in there with him after you take a break.” He lifted her chin. “Can’t have anything happening to you.”
Conflict warred on her elegant face, but she finally nodded. “Fine, but let’s make it quick. I want to be there when he wakes up.”
“Deal,” he said, and kissed her nose.
Along with their daughter, they walked down to the bank of elevators, and my heart started to beat at a rapid pace at the thought forming. Reid had had at least one member of his family in his room the whole time he’d been in ICU, but now they’d all be downstairs for at least a good half hour…
I glanced down the hall to see them step onto the elevator, and as the doors slid shut behind them, I debated for all of a minute before jumping up out of my chair.
I had to see him. Just to see for myself that what the doctor had said was true, and then I’d leave him be and let him heal in peace.
Lucky for me, it just so happened to be shift change at the nurses’ station, and they were all too busy checking in with each other to notice it wasn’t an immediate family member of Reid’s slipping down the hall to see him…
Room four-twenty-four was dark and quiet as I entered soundlessly, the lights dimmed and the sun having long set. AsI rounded the corner and Reid came into view, I could almost imagine he was merely sleeping peacefully. His hair had been shaved off to stitch the wound on his head, and he still wore the battle scars from the accident, but in my eyes, he’d never looked more beautiful.