Page 8 of Floodgates

“It’s not funny.” I was indignant.

“Well, honey, I promise you that bi is a real thing.”

I considered that.

“Now, what were you going to ask me?”

“Not sure I want to after the bi thing.”

He snorted out a laugh. “Please.”

“Fine. Would you go…,” I started, but then I trailed off, suddenly remembering who I was. I was not as beautiful as the man. We were not a matching set.

“Would I go…,” he repeated, waiting.

“Forget it.” I shifted in my seat uncomfortably.

“I will go anywhere with you.”

“Ha! You’re just saying that because you don’t expect me to live.”

“You’ll live,” he assured me. “And we’ll go dancing.”

“Dancing,” I sighed and then heard him talking to me from far away. He was telling me to open my eyes, but I just couldn’t, no matter how much I wanted to see him.

The waking up hurt, and when I finally did my dad and my brother were there in the hospital room with me. My brother Alex was asleep with his feet on the edge of my bed, and my dad was asleep in a chair by the window. The doctor was standing beside my bed, looking down at me.

“Hey, Doc,” I croaked up at him.

“You’ve got an awfully concerned family here,” he said, smiling. “I couldn’t get either of them to go home.”

“There’s one more brother too,” I told him, just to be saying something. “And when he hears about this he’ll be flying out from New York to make sure I’m really alive.”

“Well, you can tell him from me that you are very much alive.”

His smile was contagious—I had to return it. “Am I okay? Or are you getting ready to give them bad news?”

He ran it down for me: the mild concussion, broken right wrist, broken ribs, two in all, the cut above my left eyebrow, and a gaping one in my left wrist that had needed fourteen stitches to close.

“But your feet are okay, so I can count on the dancing.”

“Awww, Doc, now that I’m okay, don’t sweat it. You’re off the hook for the dancing.”

He leaned down on the bed then, put one hand on either side of my head, and looked at me hard. “I don’t want to be off the hook.”

“Why not?” I asked him seriously.

“I don’t know, really, I just feel that we should go dancing.”

“It’ll be awhile before I can,” I said, suddenly aware that he was looming above me, waiting, not moving.

“I’ll just hang around your place until you’re up to it.”

“Oh yeah? You gonna come by and sit around with me?”

“I think I have to.”

“Why?”