“His arm?” she asked, incredulous.
“Wrist, I think,” Evander said thoughtfully. He splayed his long, manicured fingers over his keyboard and click-clacked the keys to life. “Let’s see. It looks like he’s already been seen by a doctor. He referred him to Imaging.”
Sassy swiped the hair from her eyes. It was still wet from the shower she’d hopped out of when she’d received multiple phone calls from Nick’s EMT partner, Raquel Perez. “Look,” she said, prepared to beg if necessary. “Do you think you could get me back there to see him? I know I’m not family. I know it probably goes against protocol. But you know his situation. His mom is in a long-term care facility and his dad…”
Evander waved his hand. “Say no more, girl. I’ll buzz you in.”
Sassy breathed a sigh of relief. “Evander Rosenberg, I’m going to kiss you right here in front of all these people.”
He winked. “Wait until I’m off duty. The other admins are threatened by my good looks and excellent people skills. They’ve been cruising for a good reason to get me fired.”
“A drink then,” Sassy offered, “at the alehouse. Friday after work?”
“Make it the Bootleg,” Evander countered. “They wrap up the week with line dancing and I’m all for it.”
“A drink and a dance, then,” Sassy decided.
“It’s a date,” he returned, hitting the switch to unlock the triage station’s door from the outside. “Your man’s behind curtain number three.”
Your man…Those words blazed across her consciousness like an ill-fated comet whizzing in the wrong direction.
Gina in triage showed her onto the floor of the ED. She ignored the smells of antiseptic and bodily fluids, counting one, two closed curtains.
The third was open to reveal an empty bed with rumpled white linens.
He’d been here, she surmised. Wondering how long he’d spent in Imaging, she sat on the edge of the abandoned sheets and worked on some deep breathing exercises.
He was okay. Nick was okay. Raquel had been too rushed on the phone to offer Sassy details on Nick’s status. Admittedly, all Sassy had really heard wasNick…hurt…hospital…
Sassy couldn’t remember if she had washed the soap out of her hair before sprinting from the shower to the closet and haphazardly throwing on enough clothes to be deemed decent.
That’s a stretch, she thought, eyeing the pointy toes of her boots. She’d gotten her hands on a black maxi skirt with a slit up the thigh. From her drawer, she’d blindly chosen an overlarge ’90s crewneck grandpa sweater she’d stolen from her father, complete with russet and beige pattern. It was falling off one shoulder, displaying the full strap of the black lace bralette she’d snatched from the clean clothes basket almost as an afterthought. She attempted to draw the sweater neckline back up into place. In response, it slumped over the slope of her shoulder once more and she rolled her eyes.
Some of the panic was fading. Since her Bronco was still out of commission, she’d had to knock on her neighbors’ door to ask if she could borrow their minivan. They were a young couple she’d bonded with when their twin girls had painted their shared driveway with hearts, right up to Sassy’s porch steps. When they had come over to apologize, she’d assured them that she thought the trail of hearts livened up the place and that the girls could come use her paints after school, if they liked.
The key fob to the minivan bit into her palm and she relaxed her grip on it. The indention in her palm told the story of the tense few minutes it had taken her to get from her neighborhood to the hospital, all the while assuming the worst. She’d thought of Ava’s kidnapping, Fern’s memory of her abductors, the body of Annie Ross, who had been found in Dark Canyon Wilderness, and the frickin’ Ford that had nearly taken her out on the sidewalk this morning. She’d thought of the warnings that Dark Canyon wasn’t the safe place many assumed it was anymore. Terror had taken a firm hold as she’d envisioned Nick locked in the crosshairs of whoever was attempting to turn their hometown into the Upside Down fromStranger Things.
If she lost Nick…ifanythinghappened to him…what was she supposed to do? He wasn’t simply her best friend. He was often the first person she spoke to in the morning…the last person she spoke to at night…the person she spent the most time with…
They’d done life together for so long, she couldn’t remember what it had been like before they’d sat down to lunch together in the cafeteria and she’d been grossed out over the egg salad sandwich his mother had packed him. She could still remember the dubious expression on his face as she’d thrown her potato chips in with the pickles, mashed them all together between bread slices and devoured hers. She’d agreed to take his carton of chocolate milk off his hands when he’d offered to trade it for the Campbell’s Soup thermos filled with almond milk her mother had placed neatly inside her backpack.
His cartoon lunchbox had been their chief conversation piece before the bell had rung, signaling lunch was at an end. They’d agreed to meet back at the same table the next day. The day after that, they’d met at the playground, then raced her cousins down Dark Canyon’s biggest hill on their bicycles. Nick had earned major points from the Colton boys when he pulled ahead by more than a car length.
Nerd Boy’s a speed demon!Ryan had crowed while Sassy and the others whooped.
From that day, Nerd Boy and his lunchbox had been honorary members of the Colton clan.
Sassy had loved him from the moment he’d taken the injustice of drinking her mother’s almond milk off her hands. In a way, she’d lost part of him after his father’s death. It had taken a long time for him to recuperate physically. Emotionally and psychologically, his recovery was still taking place.
That boy at the lunch table hadn’t made it out of Dark Canyon the day of the flood.
As she’d driven to the hospital tonight, she’d remembered the first time she’d seen him after his rescue. The look in his eyes hadn’t been haunted. It hadn’t even been sad. Instead, his eyes had looked glassy. Almost dead. The absence of light…ofNick, of the essence that was him…had scared her to the marrow of her bones.
He couldn’t go back there again. She couldn’t watch him go back there.
His wrist, she remembered Evander saying.It’s just his wrist. He can handle that. It’s completely fixable.
Even if it was broken, they wouldbothhandle it.
