Her lips quirk, but she doesn’t deny it. “If you could at least get her to agree to non-addictive pain management, I think she’d be much more comfortable. Outside of offering our professional opinions, we can’tmakeher accept the medicine, so our hands are tied.”
This fucking hospital seems endless and I know it’s not this big. It’s like the nurse is taking me on a wild goose chase to get to my girl, but I’m so greedy for information after three hours in the dark, I can’t even be angry about it.
“Is she awake?” I ask, and then immediately feel stupid. Of course she is. Austin had to give consent for Megan to come get me, like she said earlier.
“She was,” she says anyway, badging through yet another door and nodding at someone at a desk we pass. “But by the time we arrive, she may have already fallen back asleep. She’s still going in and out, like I said, and she’s… exhausted.”
I blow out a breath. Fuck,I’mexhausted and I didn’t fight formy life tonight. I can’t imagine what she’s feeling and it makes me sick to try.
The nurse slows, knocking on the door and then pushing it open without waiting for an answer. The room is dim, the curtain around the bed drawn.
“I’ve brought your boyfriend to see you, Austin,” she says too cheerfully, pulling back the curtain enough to wave me in. Despite everything that’s happening, there’s a weird tightening in my chest when Megan calls me that.
I stumble when I see Austin, taken aback by how much different she looks since I saw her last. Her pretty face is no longer covered in her own blood, thank god, but it’s swollen and red. There’s fresh gauze covering the cut the paramedics had me help apply pressure to in the ambulance and her bottom lip is split. I can only imagine how bruised she’ll be within the next few hours and days, and it makes me want to find out where they’re keeping Wayne and point my gun at him again. This time, I’d pull the trigger.
She doesn’t seem very happy to see me, barely blinking open her eyes, but I think it has a lot to do with her being in so much pain and less to do with me. “Hey, baby,” I whisper, scared that anything louder may find a way to break her. I start to kneel by her bed, unwilling to take a seat in the chair that’s too far away from her, but Megan comes around behind me and pushes it up against the backs of my knees.
I don’t even think to thank her as I reposition, reaching out to brush my thumb across Austin’s cheekbone. Her eyes flutter shut, but her pouty lips twitch in a put-on smile on one side, despite the cut splitting the bottom one.
This close, I can see tiny red marks around her eyes that almost blend in with her freckles. I have a million and a half questions I want to ask her, but it’s clear she’s not in the right headspace to answer them, and I don’t think I’m in the right headspace to hear the answers either. The door clicks closed and I realize the nurse has left us alone.
I can’t take my eyes off of Austin, terrified that if I blink, I’ll miss some tiny change that could indicate that she’s not doing as well as the doctors think. Instead, I touch her everywhere that looks safe—kissing the top of her head over her hair, thumbing the side of her forehead that isn’t bandaged, playing with the tips of her fingers.
When she opens her eyes again, the pain she’s in is so evident, it makesmewant to cry. I have no clue how she’s soldiering through it. She won’t speak to me, won’t even look at me, just at the ceiling. Every so often, she pushes a breath through her lips and winces, and it takes me far too long to realize she’s literally preventing herself from breathing because of the pain it causes.
“Tex, you need to let them give you something for the pain,” I tell her, thumbing the wrinkle between her brows.
“No,” she barely gets out through her clenched jaw.
“Listen to me,” I admonish, a little stern. “If you don’t breathe properly, you’re going to get sick and you’ll be right back in this hospital if they even let you leave at all. I know you’re scared, but I can’t stand seeing you in pain like this.”
“Don’t look.”
At first, I can’t make out what she’s even mumbled, but once I do, I’m shocked silent for a few seconds. In this much pain and still finding a way to be snarky? Her eyes flutter closed again before I can figure out a retort, and since I’m not sure if she’s falling back asleep or not, I leave it be for now. If she’s asleep, she’s not in pain.
About thirty minutes later, the nurse knocks at the door and then lets herself in again with a rolling computer, looking over the machines after tossing me a required smile. She watches Austin’s breaths, lips twisting as she takes note of the count in her computer. “Any luck?” she whispers my way.
“Nope.”
“I can hear you all,” Austin mumbles, blinking her eyes open to look up at the ceiling again.
“Wonderful,” Megan replies, overly joyful. “I’ll mark in your chart that your hearing hasn’t been impaired.” I can’t help but snort and Austin shoots me a glare without moving her head. “How’s your pain on a scale of 1-10, Austin?”
“Two.”
“Aus—”
But Megan tuts, cutting me off. “Well now, if you’re not going to be honest with me, you might as well not answer me at all,” she tells her gently. “Do you need to use the restroom?”
Austin hesitates for a second before nodding.
What follows is ten solid minutes of me feeling like the most helpless motherfucker on this side of the Rockies. Austin’s not able to hold back her tears anymore, wincing and whimpering as Megan helps her sit up and then stand. She tries to stabilize Austin as she wobbles on her feet and I swoop in to help her, finally deciding against the hands-off approach I’d been maintaining out of fear of touching her somewhere that made her hurt worse.
Austin tilts her head just so and drops the unbandaged part of her forehead against my chest, trembling. I’m stiller than I’ve ever been, scared to bump her broken nose. The roughness in my voice gives away how close I am to crying with her despite the several swallows I’d taken to prepare beforehand. “Baby, please.”
She doesn’t say anything right away, but after a few seconds, she finally nods against my chest. I breathe a sigh of relief and kiss her hair. Between Megan and I, we’re able to get her seated back down on the bed again.
“Austin, some people reject pain medication because they’re nervous about becoming dependent on it. Is that something that’s worrying you?” Megan asks gently once she’s settled again.
