The nurse leaves and the room goes quiet again. The machines beep in a rhythm I’m starting to memorize. The IV drips. The clock on the wall ticks.
I close my eyes but sleep doesn’t come. I’m just lying in the dark behind my eyelids trying not to think. The thoughts come anyway. The career and the badge and my little house with the screened-in porch. The dating apps that are useless now because who’s going to swipe right on a cop in a wheelchair.
The sex I might never have again.
I stop that thought. I stop it hard and shove it into a box and close the lid and put the box in the back of a closet in the darkest part of my brain. The thought is still there, rattlingaround, because some thoughts don’t stay locked up no matter how many doors you put between yourself and them.
I’m almost asleep when the door opens with a small sound. It’s not a nurse. Nurses push through in a hurry like they belong here. This is tentative. A tiny crack, just enough for a sliver of light to fall across the floor. And then a head, just barely, just the edge of a face peeking in like a kid checking on a sleeping parent.
Blonde hair. That’s what I see first. Blonde hair catching the light from the corridor. The head quickly pulls back and the door starts to close.
“Hey,” I say. “Wait!”
The door stops half an inch from the frame. There’s a pause. Two seconds. Three. Then the door opens again, wider this time, and he steps into the frame.
I recognize him immediately.
The blue-gray eyes. The face that, even through blood and tears on a bar floor, I noticed. His hair isn’t styled today, just pushed back like he didn’t care what it did. He’s wearing jeans and a plain white T-shirt and he looks nothing like the person I remember from the hallway. Still beautiful, maybe more so, but different.
His face is bruised, going green and purple on the cheekbone, butterfly strips on his lip. He’s holding himself carefully on the left side, favoring the ribs. He looks like he hasn’t slept. He’s standing in my doorway with his weight on one foot like he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to cross the threshold.
“You’re Benji,” I say.
His eyes go wide. He wasn’t expecting me to know his name.
“You’re awake,” he says.
“Unfortunately.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you. I just wanted to...” He stops and takes a breath. His hands are moving while he talks.
“You wanted to what?”
He glances at me then looks away. “I wanted to make sure you were breathing. That you’re really alive. That’s all. I was going to take a quick look and then leave. I wasn’t going to bother you. And I did. I’m so sorry. I’ll leave now.”
“You’re not bothering me.”
He stays in the doorway. One foot in the room, one foot in the hall. Ready to bolt. Everything about him says he thinks he’s somewhere he shouldn’t be, which he is. Visiting hours are over and I’m pretty sure the spinal unit has a list and he’s not on it. He’s not family. He’s not even a friend.
“How’d you get past the nurses’ station?” I ask.
“Same way I crash parties. Walk fast. Look like I belong. Except this time, I hid my face because... well, you can see why.”
He waves a hand at his battered face. He’s still hovering in the doorway, his hands wanting to move, his feet wanting to pace, his whole body wanting to be doing anything other thanstanding in a hospital doorway trying not to look at a man in a bed who can’t feel his legs.
“You can come in for a minute,” I say. “If you want. It’s okay.”
He hesitates. Then he takes two steps into the room and stops. That’s it. Two steps. Like the room has a boundary only he can see and he won’t cross it.
We look at each other. This is the first time we’ve been face-to-face without violence happening around us, the first time I’m seeing him upright, standing on two legs that work. And he’s looking at me, a man whose legs do not work, and I don’t need to be a detective to read his face. His eyes are too bright and he keeps blinking hard like he’s holding tears back by sheer force. The guilt is written all over him.
“Tex told me you were downstairs in the lobby,” I say. “He said you drove two hours to check on me.”
He nods and looks around the room at everything except me. “Yeah, I did.”
I should ask him why he came. I should tell him what Tex told him, that it’s not his fault, that he doesn’t need to be here, that he can go back to his life whatever that is. This guy doesn’t owe me anything. He doesn’t know me. He’s here anyway.
“How are your ribs?” I ask.
