“Maybe a two or three?” I answer.
The nurse’s brow furrows like she doesn’t believe me. She presses a button on the machine and again the blood pressure cuff on my arm tightens.
The pressure releases, and the machine next to me beeps wildly. “Mmhmm. Let’s forget the scale question for now.” She smiles, noting my blood pressure. “Usually, we can’t let you go until you’re under a five, but you’re obviously a tough cookie considering how much disease they found, so we’ll use your blood pressure number as a marker instead. We want to get it under 140 before we release you.”
Tough cookie? Has anyone ever called me that? And disease? What is she talking about?
My head swirls, and the wall that I swear was plain and white morphs into a dancing print. I need to close my eyes again.
“How long was I in surgery for?” I ask, letting the darkness shroud my vision.
“Six hours. Do you want me to get your fiancé? He’s been anxious to see you.”
“It’s been super cute,” Vi says. “He kept double-checking with the nurses the stuff he was buying for you and pacing around the room. Your brother even had to put a hand on his knee at some point. We were all talking about how cute they were together.”
Fiancé? Okay, so I’m not with it. I probably misheard her saying I had a disease, too, because a doctor would have invariably caught that over the years, right?
How common is temporary amnesia after surgery? I feel like I would have remembered agreeing to marry someone…and yet I’m drawing a blank.
“I’m anxious to see him, too.”
“I’ll go get him.”
Both nurses leave the curtained room. What do I remember? I remember skating with Jack. I remember the pain getting worse. I remember them saying something about my ovary and putting something in an IV that made the world good. I remember being wheeled into a room and then nothing.
“Here she is.” Vi’s cheery voice washes over me, and I open my eyes again. The room still spins around me, but the nausea has calmed slightly. “She’s doing pretty good. She said her pain is fine, but her blood pressure suggests otherwise.”
A derisive snort comes from the other side of the curtain. “Of course, she said that.” The voice is deep and grumpy, and my heart flips knowing exactly who it belongs to.
Jack.
“We’re going to work on getting that number down, and then all she has to do is use the bathroom before we discharge her.”
“And we’re comfortable discharging her today?” he asks. “It sounds like they did a lot. I mean, I stayed a few nights just for a knee surgery.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not my call. The surgery they did is technically outpatient. I have opinions on the matter, but I cannot go against hospital orders. I’ll send you home with phone numbers to call if something goes wrong, but this is the standard procedure.”
“It wouldn’t matter if I was willing to pay?”
Oh, Jack Parker, don’t you freaking dare.
“Don’t even think about it. I’m fine,” I holler.
The curtain shoots open, and a worn-out man I love desperately sighs. A frown tugs at the corners of his mouth, and his eyebrows knit together in a scowl. “You’re not allowed to use that phrase ever again. I’m banning it from your fucking vocabulary.”
Vi bites her lip. The corner of her mouth twitches like she’s trying not to laugh.
“I feel better than I did before surgery, honest.” I cower, slightly, at the stern gaze I’m on the receiving end of.
No wonder the man is a force on the ice.
“Which only points to how fucked up you were before,” he grumbles.
“Was I really fucked up?” I ask, my gaze waffling between Jack and Vi. Because I still don’t understand what they did in that surgery or why it took six hours.
Vi flashes a sympathetic smile. “Where you’re still waking up, it’s not the best time to talk about everything, but yes, honey. You had quite a bit going on, and maybe your honey can explain it more to you tomorrow when you’re more with it, okay? And you be patient with your love,” she says, turning to Jack. “It’s very common for people with her disease to carry medical trauma. Because we can only diagnose it through surgery, most people we deal with who have it as aggressively as she has warp themselves mentally to cope and function continuously. It’ll take time for that to shake out of her.”
I try my best to listen and process the nurse’s words. There it is again, that word,disease.
