“Just a second.” Hayley kept her eyes glued to the computer monitor in front of her, hoping that Paige would go away. She’d done her level best to avoid anyone from the emergency department for the last ten days, except for that day when she’d volunteered to help them out during the house fire disaster. Next to Deb, Paige was the last person she wanted to see. As one of Deb’s closest friends, she might be carrying an unwelcome message.
On the other hand, this was a hospital. The emergency department and the ICU did of course often share patients. Maybe Paige was here about a patient, in which case it was immature and professionally irresponsible for Hayley to ignore her. With a sigh, Hayley closed out the file she was working on and focused on Paige, surreptitiously crossing her fingers under her desk. “Sorry, Doctor Bellows. Can I help you?”
“It’s Deb.” Paige was biting her lip. “I’m sorry, Hayley. It’s pretty clear something’s not right with you two, and normally I would stay out of it…”
“But…?” Hayley asked, uncrossing her fingers and clenching her fist.
“Something’s happened. Please come with me.”
Hayley froze. “What happened? Surely nothing could be bad enough to need me.”
“Please,” Paige said, knotting her fingers together until they were white-knuckled from the tension. “If it helps, she absolutely did not ask me to come here and get you. I think she’d kill me if she knew I did.”
“Then what is it? What’s going on?” Concern and frustration warred within her. She just wanted this—whatever it was—behind her. Maybe even to pretend that one night had never happened. “If something’s up with Deb, it’s not my fault.”
But Paige just stood there, biting her lip and twisting her fingers. “Is there anyone who can take over the desk for you?”
She was clearly not going to go anywhere unless Hayley was going with her. Shaking her head, Hayley picked up the desk phone and paged Mirenda. “Yeah. Fine. Give me a minute.”
Mirenda strolled in a moment later. “What’s up, Boss Lady?”
“I’m needed in the ER. Can you man the desk?” Hayley got to her feet.
Curiosity filled Mirenda’s eyes as she rounded the desk and took Hayley’s seat. “Yeah, no problem. Everything okay?” She directed the question to Paige.
“Yeah, I just need to borrow Nurse Milton here. I’ll try to return her soon as possible.” Paige wrapped her fingers around Hayley’s upper arm, as if she were making sure Hayley would come with her. Briskly, she began to… well, there was no way Hayley could put it other than saying Paige was hauling ass to the emergency department, and she was all but dragging Hayley with her.
“Hey!” she protested, wondering what would happen if she tried to dig her sneakered heels in. Fearing the answer would bethat Paige would yank her arm out of the socket, she didn’t even bother. “What the hell is happening, Paige?”
“Deb’s sick. She passed out. Hasn’t been taking care of herself at all. And I know it’s got something to do with you and the way you’re not talking to her.” Paige marched onward, her jaw set and her long ponytail bouncing with each irritated step. “I’m going to need the two of you to be adults and resolve this, pronto.”
“This is none of your business,” Hayley sputtered, struggling to keep up. Her arm was starting to throb where Paige was clutching it. There would be bruises. “Can you let go? I’m not going to run away!”
“Not a chance I feel like taking.” Badging into the ER, she tugged Hayley after her towards one of the private rooms, one with a door and blinds rather than an open trauma bay with no curtains. One of the ER nurses was in there situating a bag of fluids over the patient in the bed, hanging it up and pressing buttons on the infusion pump.
Deb was in the bed, her face pale and her eyes closed. There were alarmingly dark circles under her eyes and there was a pallor to her skin Hayley usually only saw on her own patients. She gasped. “Oh, what the hell, Paige?”
Paige gestured for the nurse to leave the room, and she made sure to close the door after her. She closed the window blinds, too, so nobody in the ER could peek in. “I told you; she hasn’t been taking care of herself.” She double-checked the infusion pump, tugged a blanket up over Deb. “I know she’s been drinking way too much—I’ve never seen her go through so many banana bags. I don’t think she’s eating. She keeps telling me she is, but she’s a shitty, shitty liar.” Her face was grim. “I don’t need to know what happened between the two of you, but I do need you to fix it, Hayley.”
“I don’t know how…” God, she felt like a horrible person. But she hadn’t wanted to invite trouble! She’d just been trying to avoid it. Cutting things off with Deb had been meant to avoid making a mess.
And yet, this was as big as mess as she thought she’d ever seen.
“Fix it,” Paige said again, narrowing her eyes in a glare. Then she opened the door of the room and eased out, closing it behind her with a soft click.
Deb didn’t so much as blink, her eyelashes didn’t flutter at all. She just lay still and quiet, too quiet, in the hospital bed. Hayley swallowed hard and balled her hands into fists, her short nails biting into her palms. The monitors beeped softly. Hayley could see there was a steady heartbeat and oxygen rate. That was good.
Next to Deb’s bed, there was a chair. Hayley pulled it a bit closer and sat down. Tugging her phone out of her scrubs pocket, she sent Mirenda a text.In the ER. Deb isn’t well. Will keep you posted.Without waiting for a response, she put her phone back in her pocket and leaned forward, crossing her arms on the bed and resting her head on them. “Come on, Deb,” she whispered. She knew this was not serious, that it was something that could be remedied with rest and nutrition and just basic human self-care.
It was still distressing to see Deb ill and exhausted and pale in a hospital bed, soundly asleep and receiving nutrition and hydration through an IV. And she didn’t love feeling like it was, at least partly, a little bit her fault. She really hadn’t handled this well at all.
Then, Hayley laughed softly. That there was anything to handle was hilarious. Just a few weeks ago she’d wanted to throttle Deb for almost running her down in a hospital corridor. Even just the other night they’d had a sparky little exchangeright before they hit the dance floor and before they… Hayley blushed.
This is truly the strangest situation I’ve ever been in.Her head ached when she tried to make sense of it. But at the same time, her heart fluttered if she thought of kissing Deb. And then she was angry because Deb had been doing such a terrible job taking care of herself. It was enough to make her head spin.
“When you wake up, I am going to kill you myself,” she whispered with a shake of her head.
“Like to… see… you try…” came the answering croak, and Deb’s eyes blinked open. “Ugh, my head.”
