I felt vaguely nauseous as I limped up to the automatic glass doors, my stomach in knots, my heart pounding in my chest in time to the pain in my knee. Or maybe it was my knee that was throbbing in time with my too-fast heart.
When I stepped through the doors, Judy Hart was waiting for me, and she immediately wrapped me in a surprisingly strong bear-hug, given how tiny and human a woman she was. I could feel myself shaking, struggling to keep the sobs from breaking loose.
“Oh, sweetie,” she said into my sternum. “Don’t you fuss. He’ll be alright. You’ll see.” I wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince me more, or herself.
I wason my fourth or fifth cup of terrible machine coffee, my back a low burning ache and my knee swelling—I could feel my pants getting tight around the joint—by the time one of the nurses came back. Marsh was asleep, his head fallen back at an angle that would give him a horrible neck ache when he woke up. Judy was knitting furiously, her forehead furrowed.
She’d talked for a while, at first, but had lapsed into silence about a half-hour earlier because Marsh had fallen asleep, and I’d lost the ability to give her more than one- or two-word answers.
I was currently trying to alleviate some of my back pain by leaning forward, my elbows on my thighs, positioned to avoid causing too much extra pain to my knee. So instead I was slowly pinching off the circulation to both feet, and I was going to have to move sooner rather than later or risk falling flat on my face when I tried to stand up—although I wasn’t completely sure that wasn’t going to happen anyway.
I felt dizzy and sick with worry and fear, I hadn’t eaten since yesterday lunch, and all I’d put in my stomach was coffee that rivaled battery fluid for acidity since the machine didn’t have non-dairy creamer as an option.
A nurse came out and walked over to us. “Mrs. Hart?” She addressed Judy.
“Hello, Anna. I used to volunteer with your mom at the Red Cross. How’s she doing?”
The nurse flushed a little. “She’s doing okay, thanks, Mrs. Hart. Only a few treatments left, and things are looking good.”
“Oh, I’m so glad!” Judy folded up her knitting and tucked it in the tote bag at her feet. “She’s such a lovely woman.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Anna-the-nurse said. “Elliot’s out of surgery, although he’s not really awake yet. He came through well, but it was a delicate repair.” She offered a small, apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, but only one person can come back to the recovery area.”
I didn’t move. Obviously Judy was going to go back. Elliot was practically her kid.
“Go on, sweetie,” she said to me gently. “He’ll want to see you first when he comes to.”
I looked up at her. “Are—are you sure?”
She nodded, a wistful smile on her lips as she picked up her knitting again. “Don’t keep Anna waiting, now.”
I followed the nurse back, and she took me to a curtained-off bed in a long hall-like room. “He should come around in the next thirty-to-forty-five minutes,” she told me. “He might be groggy or sick from the anesthesia, but both of those are normal and nothing to worry about.”
I nodded, because that seemed like the right way to respond. I didn’t really know much about post-surgical care.
She gestured to a chair that looked like it had come from the 1970s. “We ask our visitors to stay pretty still and quiet for the sake of the other patients,” she said, and I obediently sat in thechair. “But there’s open wifi if you want to use it, please just use headphones if you stream any music or videos.”
“Okay,” I told her. “Thanks.”
I didn’t think I’d have the ability to concentrate on anything, not with Elliot lying there, his chest and arm wrapped in thick bandaging, an IV in his other arm, thin blankets pulled up to his belly. There were scrapes and bruises on his un-bandaged arm, bruising on one side of his face.
I wanted to sit on the edge of the bed, to reach out and brush the loose hair from his face, to kiss his forehead. But I was also afraid of jarring him, of causing him pain or aggravating his injuries any further. So instead I scooted my 1970s chair closer. I wanted to take his hand, but one hand was bandaged and the other had the IV, so instead I just sat there and felt powerless, watching the heart monitor silently record his heart rate and blood pressure.
I don’t know how long it actually was, but the monitors changed before Elliot himself stirred.
It wasn’t like in the movies—when someone wakes up and immediately declares their undying love. His eyes slitted open, glassy and unfocused, and he dragged in a breath.
I leaned forward. “El?”
It took him several seconds to register the sound, then turn his head. “Seth?”
I wanted to grab his hand. Touch him. Do anything. But I didn’t know what I could touch without hurting him. “Hey,” I said, feeling stupid and inadequate. I should have said something likeI love youorI’m sorryorI was so worried.But I saidHey.
I was about to apologize, my neck flaming, when a slow, crooked smile tugged on his lips. “Hi,” he mumbled, the syllable a little fuzzy. “Tried calling you.”
“I know,” I said miserably. “I’m sorry. The scene I was at was out of cell range. And by the time?—”
Elliot was frowning. “I didn’ listen,” he slurred. “You said t’ go Henry’s.”
