The EMT examined the bottle and held it out to Sam. “This is heart medication. You have a diagnosed heart condition?”
“Angina. It’s been giving me a little trouble lately, and I was supposed to get a different prescription filled today but never made it.”
Zach’s whole world collapsed around him at those words. How could Sam be sick and he not know? And what’s worse, why didn’t Sam tell him?
Frowning deeper, the medic unwrapped the blood pressure cuff. “Your pressure’s a little high. When we get to the hospital, make sure you tell them everything you told me right now.”
“I have a bottle of nitro pills in my night-table drawer, but I’ve never used them.”
The EMT stood and approached Zach. “So I guess you weren’t aware of this?”
Blinking back tears of fear, frustration, and humiliation, Zach could only shake his head.
“Could you do me a favor and go get that bottle he says is in his night-table drawer?”
Unable to speak, Zach raced to the bedroom, went to Sam’s side of the bed, and opened the drawer of the little table. There, exactly as he stated, was a pill bottle with Sam’s name on it. Zach snatched it up and returned to the living room. He didn’t look at the bottle. If he stopped to think, he might break apart.
“Here.” Zach handed the pills over to the EMT whose last name he could now see was Noble. “This is what I found.”
Giving it a cursory glance, Noble stuck it in a plastic zip bag, along with the other bottle. “I’ll make sure the doctor gets this at the hospital. Let’s go, Tony.”
With surprising care and efficiency they lifted Sam and placed him on a gurney, then carried him out of the apartment to the street and the waiting ambulance.
“You can come with us and ride in the back.” Noble slid Sam’s bed into the truck, and the wheels collapsed under themselves with an awful clanking noise. Noble started Sam on oxygen, and Zach had never felt so scared and lost in his life, seeing Sam lying there with a mask on his face.
“Let me get my stuff.” Zach sped back into the house to grab keys, wallet, and phone, then after locking the door, raced back outside and climbed into the back of the ambulance.
They sped off, sirens blaring, and Zach couldn’t help but wonder if he’d be coming back home alone.
*
It seemed likedays that he’d been sitting in the waiting room; Zach managed to find out from one of the nurses that Sam had been whisked up to cardiology for a battery of tests. He’d texted his mother, Julian, and Marcus with the information and spoken to Sam’s mother, Barbara. He assured her that if she needed to come up, he’d put her on a plane immediately.
“Zach.” His mother rushed into the waiting room with Matt at her heels. “We were in the city and got held up by traffic. How is he?”
“I don’t know,” said Zach, his voice barely raised above a whisper. “He’s having tests.”
“What happened? Here, by the way. We got you a coffee. Figured you could use the jolt.”
Grateful for Matt’s consideration, Zach smiled his thanks. “We had an argument, and he got a pain in his chest.” The warmth of the cup seeped into his hands, banishing a bit of the cold but not the numbness inside. “It’s all my fault, Mom. He found out I bought the beach house, and he got so mad at me. But I didn’t know he was taking medication. Why would he keep that from me?” The coffee tasted bitter to him, and he set it down. Besides, his hands shook too much as fear continued to eat at his insides.
“It sounds like you were both keeping secrets from each other. That’s no way to start out a life together.” The gentleness of her voice couldn’t hide the underlying condemnation. “Why would you buy that house without telling Sam first? I don’t understand.”
Unable to face her scrutiny, Zach buried his head in his hands. Now he questioned everything he and Sam had together. What he thought would be a wonderful surprise was turning out to be his worst nightmare. And to discover Sam had a heart condition, was on medication, and didn’t tell him both angered and saddened him. What happened to them? Everything had been perfect until the lies between them came to light.
“I thought it would be romantic to surprise Sam with it. From the first, it’s been a dream we shared. Was it so wrong? All I wanted was to do something special for him.” He rubbed his eyes. “And now he’s sick, and he didn’t think he could tell me. Why? I thought he loved me.”
“He does, Zach. It only took a moment for me to see how much he cares for you. And maybe that’s why he didn’t tell you.”
That didn’t make any sense. “I don’t get it.”
Matt hunkered down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Sometimes we want to protect the people we love the most from things we believe might hurt them, even if it’s not the case. We set about with the best intentions but don’t realize how it looks to them; like we don’t trust them or love them enough. That’s not the case though, right?”
Their eyes held, and Matt raised a brow. In a flash of understanding between the two of them, it became apparent that Matt knew all about the monitoring watch Zach had set up when his mother initially started dating Matt.
“How…”
“I’m a city official. If someone checks on me, it gets flagged, and I get notified.”
