I only then noticed her shivering slightly.
“Oh, I can get you a blanket,” the nurse offered.
But I’d already laid my jacket over her upper torso.
She sighed when it covered her shoulders and chest. “Thank you.”
“All right, I’ll get you a better blanket when we get to the med surg floor,” she said. “Sir, do you want to push her? I’d do it but you look more capable.”
So that was what I did. I pushed her through the halls of recovery, then into an elevator where we then spat out on the second floor.
I wheeled her down to a room that was at the end of the hall, and the nurse got her moved over to a much more comfortable-looking bed than the one she’d been in previously.
“Okay,” the nurse said as she hooked the urine bag onto the new bed. “How’re your legs feeling?”
“Um, okay?” Birdee sounded confused. “Should they be feeling anything?”
“I am more asking because of the catheter,” the nurse said. “Oh, by the way, I’m your nurse for the day. Medina, at your service.”
Birdee flushed bright red and glanced at me before looking at the nurse. “I think they’re fine to get me to and from the bathroom, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It is.” Medina winked. “Let me take this bed back up to surgery and I’ll be back with some warm blankets and to get this catheter out.”
“Sounds good,” Birdee whispered.
The nurse left the room like the whirlwind she was, leaving the two of us in silence.
“Was she super bubbly or was that just me?” Birdee asked awkwardly.
“Very bubbly,” I admitted. “I’m going to step out in the hall and call Charleigh and Court back when she comes to remove your catheter. I’m also going to go find out where all of your things are.”
“Charleigh probably has them,” she admitted. “Or they’re still at work.”
“Well, that’ll be what I figure out,” I said. “I haven’t seen you without a book since I met you.”
She tilted her head. “You know I like to read?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You read all the time. I don’t think you even know what’s going on around you half the time because you’re so caught up in them.”
“It’s easier to escape than to think too hard about what’s going on in your life,” she admitted quietly.
“Back!”
The nurse popped back into the room like she was riding a pogo stick, bouncing all the way.
“I’ll be outside.” I squeezed Birdee’s toes. “Yell if you need me.”
She nodded, her cheeks heating, and I stepped out into the hall and called Court.
“What?” Court grumbled.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Court sighed. “Nothing, per se. She’s just fuckin’ nuts. You didn’t tell me she’d try to kill me.”
I let that hang for a second before I said, “I’m not quite sure what you would’ve done to have her killing you but…”
“She didn’t want to leave, so we made her leave. Remember? She got in the car all nice like. I drove her home. She went into her room and came out with a baseball bat and told me to wait outside.”
