The nurse bent over, grinning like Tilly had accomplished something difficult. “Well, look who decided to join us.”
“Brayden?” Tilly begged. The last she’d seen of her boyfriend was an unconscious lump in a neck brace being hauled off in an ambulance. He’d breathed shallowly and they were saying something about his heartbeat fluctuating rapidly. With strength brought on by fear, she used her free hand to grab the woman’s scrub top and pull her closer. “Is he alive?”
“Oh, honey.” The nurse pried Tilly’s hand off of her shirt. She bent closer, a deep line between her drawn-on eyebrows and a serious frown on her deeply colored lips. “He’s alive.” She reached for a syringe and began pumping a clear liquid into Tilly’s IV.
Tilly fell back into the plastic-sounding pillows, unaware that she’d tensed so much she’d come halfway off the bed. She loved Brayden more than anything, more than chocolate or climbing or air.
Her relief was short-lived as she remembered the way Brayden’s head had cocked to the side and his back was twisted. “Can he play ball?” Her arm grew cold as the new substance was introduced to her system. “Can he …” Her eyes grew heavy and her brain fogged over. “Has to play ball.”
Baseball was life to Brayden. He was the game, and the game was him. Without baseball …
The medication kicked in and her muscles relaxed all the way, becoming part of the bed. Sleep.
The next morning, Tilly awoke feeling like she’d been run over by a truck—or more like she’d been thrown against a cliff. She vaguely remembered her hands slipping on the rope and barely catching her loose line in time. The sudden stop had jerked her to the side, and she’d hit the wall with her shoulder, her head, and her hip. Her arm had gone slack from the blunt force. Her vision blurred. She’d managed to get down to Brayden, but the memory of how that had happened was fuzzy. The ache in her ankle testified that it wasn’t a pretty descent.
She groaned and worked her mouth, trying to get the dryness out of there. Yuck, her teeth felt like they needed a lawn mower. A cool hand touched her forehead, and without opening her eyes, she sighed, “Mom.”
“I’m here, sweetie,” came her mom’s honeyed voice.
The tears came on sudden and strong, burning the backs of Tilly’s eyes and making her nose run. She pried her eyes open and her mom’s arms came around her, holding her up as she fell apart. “Have you seen him?” Tilly choked on the words. She was in bad shape, and she hadn’t fallen to the ground.
Her mom pulled back, rubbing her non-sore shoulder. Then again, her pinkies were sore and the shoulder protested. Muscles below muscles resisted movement and complained.
Tilly’s dad always said that her mom was a “stunner,” that she possessed the kind of beauty that stunned men into immobility. She was certainly beautiful today, with her shoulder-length straight hair framing her face, the highlights fresh and bright. Her hair had once been as golden brown as Tilly’s, but when the gray started to creep in, she went blonde for camouflage.
“He was in surgery when I got here.”
A fresh wave of tears spilled onto the blanket.
“He’s going to be okay, sweetie,” Mom cooed. “They told me as much as they could, but he’s going to be okay. He’ll walk. He’ll gain mobility back. He might be able to climb with you again—though that will take some time.”
Tilly sniffed. She needed a tissue in a horrific way. “That’s not good enough. He needs to play ball.”
Mom swallowed thickly, her dark eyes clouding over. “He won’t. And the sooner the two of you find a way to be okay with that, the better off you’ll be.”
Tilly bit back her wail. She gripped the sheets, wanting to hurtle something against the wall. To scream and cry. The noise would split her already aching head in two, but she didn’t care. This was her fault. “I never should have taken him climbing.”
“Well, now.” Mom scooted back a bit and loosened Tilly’s grip on the sheet. “I don’t know about all that.”
“How can he ever forgive me?” She dropped her face in her hands. “I don’t know if I can see him. He must hate me.”
“Hate you? Honey, that boy loves you! I’ve never seen a man so besotted before.” She fussed with the sheet. “Follows you around like a lovesick puppy dog.”
A small lift of her shoulder was all Tilly could muster in response. How could she explain to her mom the way Brayden felt about baseball? His body was practically made up of leather and laces; the game was built into his soul. To rip that away …
The doctor came in, followed by a nurse. He wore a white lab coat and a pair of khaki pants with a plaid button-up shirt. He looked too young to be a doctor, his face line free. As he got closer, Tilly could see the bump in his forehead from too much Botox. “I’m happy to see you’re up and moving. That head wound gave us something to worry about.”
Tilly reached up and gently probed the bandage at her forehead and then her dreads. If they’d shaved one, she’d look weird. Nothing that headbands couldn’t cover up for a while. Meg fromLittle Women, the one who had her curl burned off by Jo, would have nothing on her. At least she didn’t have a dance to go to that night.
Mom stepped back and let the doctor and nurse do their thing. They checked her vitals, discussed her meds, and made sure she could move joints not currently restricted by a sling.
“Can I see Brayden?” Tilly asked at the first lull in conversation. “Is he okay? What surgery did he have to have?”
The doctor—she’d forgotten his name—didn’t even look up from his tablet. “I’m not at liberty to discuss another patient. But I’m going to release you, and you can visit whomever you like.”
She sagged. The need to make sure Brayden was alive, to feel his fingers caress her cheek once more, was too strong to ignore. There was a physical ache in her chest, a completely separate pain from the damage the fall had done to her, that only Brayden could heal.
The doctor was talking. Tilly pulled herself out of her head to catch the last of his statement. “… didn’t break anything, but you’ll have some soreness for a couple of weeks. Your hip will be especially slow healing, as I believe you’ve partially crushed that muscle. I recommend physical therapy. I’ll have the nurse put a card in your file.”
