By the time I knelt down beside him, his eyes were already fluttering open. He made a sound of embarrassed distress and tried to sit up.
“No, stay there for a second,” I said. “You didn’t hit your head, did you?”
His brows tugged together, and he shook his head uncertainly.
He didn’t have any signs of injury.
“Are you okay?” I asked him. “Are you still feeling dizzy? Or do you have any pain?”
He shook his head, and his eyes slipped closed again. His face was pink, so I figured closing his eyes was more due to mortification and trying to escape the moment than actually losing consciousness again.
I reached out and hooked my fingers around a stool and dragged it close. “Put your legs up here, okay? And stay lying down for a bit. Do you have any heart issues? Blood sugar issues? Any medical stuff going on that might have caused this?”
He shook his head again, bringing a hand up to put over his eyes.
“I love a patient who can tell me their medical history,” I said, and his mouth twitched in an almost-smile that seemed like it couldn’t quite battle its way past his embarrassment. I reached for his other hand to feel the pulse in his wrist. He jerked away when I touched him at first, then relaxed again. With my other hand, I got my phone out and googled the normal resting pulse rate for humans.
His pulse was fine.
“Okay, I’m gonna finish examining your dog. Just stay lying down for a while and keep your legs up.” I stood up and fetched the dog from under the table where he was sniffing hard at a patch of linoleum that probably held an entire history of interesting smells.
I scooped the dog up and set him back on the table.
He was fine, although his overall condition was rough. The wound in his ear needed stitching, but I’d wrap his head and monitor him overnight before getting him into surgery tomorrow. I managed to keep the dog wedged between my elbow and my body while I bandaged him, wishing that I had another set of hands. I glanced down at the guy a few times as I worked and saw that he’d gotten himself sitting up now, but I didn’t bother asking him to help.
He was sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up by the time I finished bandaging the dog’s head. He had his arms folded on top of his knees and his head resting on them.
“You okay?” I asked him, and he hummed in response. “Okay, I can’t see any other injuries. I’m gonna keep this little guy in overnight and stitch him up in surgery tomorrow. That sound okay to you?”
I got another hum in response.
I took the dog to the back room and put him in one of the cages. He whined a couple of times, but at least he wasn’t shaking anymore. He had no other roommates tonight, thankfully. I took his muzzle off and gave him a pat. Once I’d gotten him settled with a couple of towels to sleep on and a bowl of water, I detoured to the kitchen and grabbed a soda from the refrigerator.
When I got back to the exam room, the guy hadn’t moved.
“Hey,” I said and crouched down beside him. “You need some sugar?”
He lifted his head, his eyes wide and his face flushed bright pink. He nodded and took the soda. “Thanks.”
The word was so soft I barely heard it over the snap of the can opening.
I stood up again. “Just stay there until you’re ready to get up, okay? I’ll grab an intake form.”
There was a stack behind the desk in the waiting room, but I had a feeling that Uncle Jim kept a few shoved in the drawers in the exam room too, so I turned my back on the guy and started to dig through the nearest drawer. I couldn’t find one.
I’d told Uncle Jim’s vet tech and receptionist, Kayla, that the practice I worked at in Cincinnati did everything electronically, and she’d raised her eyebrows and said, “Your uncle still gives me a physical paycheck that he writes out by hand and then tears out of his checkbook, Dr. Ross. He’s not moving to iPads anytime soon.”
She was right about that. Uncle Jim liked to do things his way, which meant half the equipment in the place was older than I was. If it hadn’t been for Kayla, I was sure all his records would still be handwritten and stashed in a filing cabinet.
“I’ll just be a second,” I said and headed for the waiting room. I rummaged around behind Kayla’s desk until I found a form and attached it to a clipboard.
And then I heard the familiar rattling click of the old front door as it was pulled shut behind someone.
What the fuck?
With my heart racing and a sinking feeling in my stomach, I hurried back to the exam room and discovered it was empty, except for the can of soda still sitting on the floor.
The guy was gone.
