“Okay, good thing I have the Navigator. Whoever wants to come let’s get going.”
I was glad everyone went to the hospital. We were family, not by birth but by love and commitment. More of a family than a lot of real families. My hands were clammy, and I had goosebumps on my arms. I couldn’t shake the image of Michelle so pale and still on the gurney as they wheeled her out. Fucking surreal is what it was. I wanted to see her, touch her, hold her and tell her I loved her. Unease gripped me, acid churned in my stomach and I couldn’t shake the feeling something horrible happened to her and it was my fault since I’d left her alone. What the fuck was I thinking?
“She’ll be fine.”
We were in the waiting area, she was in the Emergency Room and they wouldn’t let us see her yet. Looking into Cyn’s green eyes I could see the concern. “She has to be.”
“She will. It’s not your fault.”
I was surprised and I must have looked it too.
“It’s all over your face, Flame. Whatever happened it wasn’t your fault. So stop beating yourself up.”
“I should have been with her.”
“Maybe, but it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have happened to both of you then.”
Fuck.Was she right?
A doctor walked into the waiting area. “Excuse me, who is here for Michelle DeAngelo?”
We all stood.
“All of you?”
“Yes,” Joe said. “What’s going on?”
“Are you family?” the doctor asked.
“Yes, well all the family she has,” Cyn answered. He hesitated for a minute then nodded.
“We’re waiting for the blood tests to come back but she appears to be fine. Her vitals are all good. We gave her a CT scan and it was clean as was the EKG.”
Good news right? I was going to believe that until I heard otherwise. None of this made sense though.
“Is she awake? Can we see her?”
“She’s groggy, but has been able to respond to some questions. She fades in and out of sleep. We’re going to keep her here until we get the blood work back. Then we’ll decide if we need to admit her. Two of you can go in at a time to see her. But keep I mind she’s more asleep than awake. As soon as a room is ready we’ll admit her.”
That’s what I’d been waiting to hear and I was off as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and Cyn was with me. Joe nodded at me and moved closer to the doctor. I wondered what they were talking about but at that point I just wanted to see Michelle to make sure she was okay.
Emergency Rooms changed a lot from how they were when I was young. I’d spent a lot of time in them with my dad. I remember asking my dad if we lived there when I was really little, were had to be there every other day—or at least that’s how it seemed to the young me. My mother the druggie. I didn’t have a stable family lifeuntil she OD’d and my father took off. I went to Jack and Sally’s and it was the best thing that could have happened.
I hated hospitals, and for a moment I felt like I was eight again. Waiting with my dad to find out if mom could go home yet. The nurses knew me and would give me lollypops and coloring books. They’d even bring me extra blankets and pillows so I could sleep in a chair in mom’s room. Yeah it was a real home away from home, and not an experience I wanted to repeat.
Michelle…
Something wasn’t right. I hadn’t opened my eyes yet but I could tell. I wasn’t even sure what woke me up but as the light seeped through my lids I felt like Dorothy, and I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. What the hell?
It took a moment for my eyes to focus. I must have been sleeping a long time for them to be like that. There was a tug as I raised my hand to rub my eyes, and that’s when I realized where I was—hospital. But why?
“Shit.”
“Hello, sleepy head. Nice of you to come back to the living.”
Eric? His voice sounded so far away or like I was under water. What did he mean back to the living? I felt like a broken record in my own head as once again the words ‘what the hell’ skidded to a stop on my tongue just before I said them.
The blurriness cleared and I turned my head toward his voice. He looked like shit. Big black circles under his eyes and he must have been running his hands through his hair. He could have passed for a scarecrow the way it was standing up in every direction imaginable. If I wasn’t so out of it I would have laughed.
