“What? Are you okay? Is Matt okay?”
“I was the only one there, and now I’m in Genesee Memorial.”
“What? Shit. We’re coming.” I heard him give instructions to someone to take the next exit. “Where are you?”
“Trauma 4. They’re going to X-ray my knee. It’s a hyperextension. Probably an MCL strain. Two to four weeks if the doctor is right.”
“Jesus.” A long breath. “Okay. Is Matt with you?”
“No. He’s in the hospital with Lena, who isn’t well, so we’re not telling him anything right now.” There was a pause on his end that I recognized as Cap deciding whether to argue with me. “I have Sable with me.”
“Tell her I said, good girl.”
“She can’t hear you through a phone, Cap.”
“Then tell her in person. We’re forty minutes out.”
I closed my eyes after he hung up, dropped my hand off the side of the bed, and Sable pushed her head up under it and stayed there.
The intake nurse came back with a clipboard. I gave him my insurance card, my date of birth, and my emergency contact, Matt, even though I instructed that no one should call him.
“Allergies?” the nurse asked.
“None.”
“Medications?”
“None.”
“Any history of anxiety, panic, or sensory issues we should be aware of for treatment?”
I looked at him. He was waiting, pen up, no judgment in it.
“I’m autistic,” I said. “Loud noises and bright lights are difficult. The dog helps. If you can tell me what you are about to do before you do it, I will be fine.”
He wrote that down. “Got it. Anyone touches you; they tell you first. I’ll put it on the board.”
“Thank you.”
He nodded once and left.
I sat there in a paper-thin hospital gown on a bed that was the wrong height, with a knee that was already swelling against the ice pack, and I thought about how today had been.Tuesday: gym opens late, electrician at nine, light run, Matt back by lunch.That was the whole shape of today. That shape is gone now. The gym was probably gone too, or at least the back wall was. I hadn’t asked Firefighter Dane Rourke how bad the rest of it was because he’d told me it wasn’t gone, and I’d decided to believe the man with the pretty blue eyes without verification from another party.
They wheeled me to imaging. Sable came as far as the door, and a tech with kind eyes promised she wouldn’t move her. The X-ray hurt, but it only took six minutes. I knew because I counted. Counting helped. Counting always helped.
When I came back, Cap and Finn were in the room. Cap was by the window, and Finn was on the visitor chair with one leg crossed over the other and his hands folded around a cup of vending machine coffee.
“Hi, Chip,” Finn said.
“Hi.”
Cap dove straight into talking to me. “I caught Matt in the OB parking lot and told him.”
“I said?—”
He held up a hand. Cap was one of the few people who could stop me from talking once I had the words in my head. “He’s all good. Lena’s fine. Her pressure was high, but they are sending her home with a monitor and instructions to lie down. Matt is going to come straight here once she’s settled. He wanted to come now. I told him he didn’t need to worry.”
“Thank you.”
