“I’ll be in the car!” I hollered out and headed to my car.
Ten minutes later, Dawn joined me then we headed for the hospital.
“Did they say what happened?”
“No, all the nurse said was that he was in an accident while at work. He didn’t want to give me any more information over the phone.”
“Oh, this sounds bad.”
“I swear you always think so negatively,” I said.
“I do not! I’m just being realistic!” Dawn said.
We rode the rest of the way in silence as it only took me ten minutes to get to the hospital. I valet parked because I didn’t feel like walking the long distance from the parking lot to the entrance. Making it inside, we stopped at the front desk that was in the lobby and asked for Justin’s room number. The lady behind the desk told us which elevator to take and we went in tow to find out what was going on with Justin.
“Hello, my name is Ava Miller. I got a call from a nurse about Justin Miller.”
“Oh yes, hello, Mrs. Miller?—”
“You can call me Ava,” I interrupted.
“Nice to meet you, Ava. Thanks for coming.”
“No problem. This is my sister, Dawn. What’s going on with Justin?”
“Let’s go to a room so that I can explain, but first I need you to sign these HIPPA forms.”
After signing the forms, Dawn and I followed the nurse to an empty patient room.
“Mr. Miller was at the scene of a fire and had a pretty bad fall this morning. He broke his hip and suffered smoke inhalation pretty badly. He is scheduled for surgery today. We are just waiting for the on-call surgeon to get here.”
“Ha, that’s all. I thought his ass—” Dawn started but I stopped her.
“Not now, Dawn!”
The nurse looked from me to her then led us to Justin’s room.
“He is in quite a bit of pain, overall. But he is alert and anxiously waiting to be taken in for surgery.”
When I walked into Justin’s room, his eyes lit up, and it looked like he was going to cry. Tate was in the room with him, and when he saw Dawn, it looked like he’d seen a ghost. I’m guessing he felt a little uncomfortable being in her presence after things didn’t work out between them.
“Ava, baby, you came! I didn’t think you would come.”
“I only came because it sounded a lot more serious over the phone. I didn’t think I had a choice to come or not. Hello, Tate,” I said, turning my attention to his friend.
“Hey, Ava,” Tate responded, giving me a hug, “Hello, Dawn, nice to see you.”
“Hey, Tate,” Dawn responded, then rolled her eyes at Justin.
Neither Justin nor Dawn spoke to each other and I was cool with that.
“Thanks for coming. They sayin’ that I have to have hip surgery. My recovery is going to be hell. I’m so happy you’re here with me.”
“I only came because I thought it was more serious.” I wasn’t standing here trying to fake anything for his ass. Hip surgery! They didn’t even need to call me at all.
“What do you mean more serious? A broken hip isn’t serious to you?”
“Not exactly. It wasn’t serious enough for me to come down here! Once the surgery is over, in time you’ll recover,” I responded. “Seeing as how this isn’t anything major, I’m gonna go ahead and leave.”
