Dr. Montgomery rolled his shoulders back once again, breaking out of the all-consuming bubble he’d trapped us in. “All right. I’ll let him know. Though, I suggest you visit him after his mother. Getting between her and her baby can be... quite troublesome at times.”
And just like that, the world returned to normal.
“Uh... okay.”
He gave me one last look before dropping his arms and pivoting to head back for the double doors. “Once they leave, come to room 207.”
He wasted not a single second longer before pushing the doors back and disappearing on the other side of them.
Involuntarily, my body sagged into my chair once more, completely wiped out from whatever the fuckthatwas.
Jesus, that man was intimidating.
How the hell did Marlow make friends with the strangest and most unlikely people?
Around two a.m.Marlow’s family finally filtered out from the ER, looking as exhausted as I felt. I watched them drag their feet through the waiting room, the taller of the two men with his arm around Marlow’s mother while she rested her head on his shoulder.
It felt wrong to go in after them, even if I’d been adamant about storming down there only an hour ago.
Was it more appropriate to let Marlow get some much-needed rest after his family visiting?
Or actually follow through with what I’d told his doctor I wanted?
I had a feeling that no matter what I chose, I’d probably end up being in the wrong somehow. And if that was the case, I might as well follow what my heart wanted.
Getting up from my chair, I nodded to the nurses behind the desk before slowly pushing through the doors heading down to the ER. The noise of a bustling hospital greeted me almost immediately, causing more tension to stiffen my body.
As I made my way down the short hallway, it opened up into a large wing with medical staff coming and going from beds lined up against the walls and facing outward. Patients were either lying down on them or sitting up, all with varying stages of trauma or sickness being tended to.
There weren’t any room numbers I could see listed on the wall over the backs of the beds. On the left side of the wing, I spotted another nurses station and headed for it.
“I’m looking for room 207.”
The nurse’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “Name?”
“Uh, Marlow... Knight?”
She typed more, her head shaking. “Honey, he’s up in the recovery wing. Not down here. You need to go to the elevators and go to floor two. He’s in one of the private rooms up there.”
I held back a sigh.
Why did I have a feeling his doctor did that shit on purpose?
Clearly, I wasn’t out of the woods yet of whatever kind of hazing he was still interested in inflicting on me. “Thank you.”
Pushing away from the desk, I found the elevator and took it to the second floor, thankfully, much quieter than the one below it. I felt the tension ease out of me with each step down the hall, a plaque on the wall pointing to which side I’d find Marlow’s room on.
Laughter trickled into the hallway when I approached it, familiar and warm. His door was already open, the curtain above him pulled back while he relaxed into his bed. Machines were hooked up to him on either side, their silent graphs pulsing with his vitals that looked strong and relatively healthy.
Marlow’s right leg was wrapped in thick ace bandages up to his hip, a splint underneath it to keep it in place for the time being. He had his opposite side’s arm in a sling, also wrapped up in ace bandages. His gown was parted at his chest, only loosely tied at his hip that made it drape dangerously low. More bandages covered him there as well but weren’t as intense looking as his leg and arm.
On the right side of his bed, reclining in one of the visitor chairs, was Dr. Montgomery. “Oh, look. He actually did show up.”
Marlow’s neck snapped as he turned his head toward the door, his eyes going wide.
Without a word, he lifted his good hand toward me, making a grabbing motion with it.
It was hard to push away from the doorway, my guilt fighting to strangle me with every step I took into the room of the man I allowed to get hurt under my watch. I wasn’t interested in hearing whatever excuse or explanation anyone was willing to give me to diminish this horrific feeling inside of me.
