And just like before, Deck sat next to me, paced behind me, and fidgeted with the vending machines. Except this time, it felt completely different.
Every few moments, Deck’s hand brushed over my shoulder. He’d brought me the latte with a kiss to the cheek and the warm reassurance that, “Johnny’s tough.” He called Marisol, Rosa, and his parents. After pulling their numbers off my phone, he texted Marcus and Britta as well. When we arrived, he helped me obtain information from the harried nurses and saved me the burden of paperwork by filling out most of it himself.
In speaking with the hospital staff, he referred to me as “my wife.”
Everything had changed for Deck in the few hours since we’d spent the night together. And I knew I needed to lean into it, knew that the change was warranted. It hadn’t only been one night. It had been twelve years. I’d wanted this since the eighth grade.
But it was tough to swallow. We hadn’t had five minutes to settle into a new normal before shit hit the fan. And long-standing coping mechanisms had a way of surfacing in stressful situations. No matter how much I’d done over the past few months to heal, the allure ofRobot Coricalled to me like a siren’s song. That woman could make decisions without worrying about anyone else’s opinions. She functioned best as an island.
Now I had supportive messages coming in from Britta, Marcus, and Marisol. Suddenly, I was a kid again, and everyone knew my dirty stuff.
All I wanted was to check off a to-do list. Step by step. Be in total control. Whatever it took to fix Johnny. And if I couldn’t, I wanted to fail without eyes on me.
I resented feeling exposed almost as much as I did being back in this stupid waiting room.
From the way Deck described it, his phone conversation with the nurse had not been promising. When we arrived, we found out that Johnny had been found under an overpass near I-5 in Everett, in a popular hangout for addicts and the unhoused. When the EMTs arrived, they administered Narcan and revived him. He’d been lethargic but had conversed with the EMTs for a few minutes before surprising them by fainting. The medics took him to the hospital. During the ambulance ride, they had to shock him, and he was breathing on his own by the time they reached the emergency room.
The ER docs hadn’t initially been optimistic, but as Johnny’s heart continued to beat, they became more so. They transferredhim to the ICU for more tests and observation. By the time Deck and I burst through the hospital doors, he was still critical, but stable.
Two hours after we arrived, after I’d downed the last dregs of my latte, a nurse led Deck and me back to a separate ICU waiting room. Dr. Alvarez walked in a moment later, wearing scrubs and an exhausted expression. The eerie, familiar feeling returned.
“Mr. and Mrs. Decker,” he said. “I’m sorry we have to meet again under these circumstances.”
“Um, she’s still Raney, like Johnny,” Deck said.
“My apologies,” Dr. Alvarez replied, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’ll forgive me for that mistake. I’m usually more careful about those types of things. But it’s been a heck of a roller-coaster ride with your brother-in-law today.”
“It’s okay,” I said, looking over at Deck, silently asking if he remembered it was Dr. Alvarez who’d given us the bad news on Johnny last time. Deck nodded subtly, slipping his hand into mine. I tamped down my instinct to pull away. “I appreciate you taking care of Johnny…again,” I added wearily.
“Yes,” Deck chimed in. “Thank you.”
Dr. Alvarez sat down in a chair across from ours. “I’m grateful to be the doctor on call tonight. The last time he was with us, your brother was a very popular patient. He’s certainlyfun, not to mention polite to the staff. We were all hoping for a better outcome. Not such a quick return visit.”
I hummed hollowly.
“We know the feeling.” Deck squeezed my palm.
“Yes, well…” Dr. Alvarez cleared his throat. “On the positive side, I can see from his lab results that Johnny’s been trying to take care of himself. He’s put on a bit of weight, and his HIV meds appear to be in order. His viral load is significantly lowered.” The doctor glanced at his tablet and then back at us. “Not to be too blunt, but I take it rehab didn’t work out?”
Tears welled up behind my eyelids. “No,” I ground out, barely audible.
“He checked himself out after about two-and-a-half weeks,” Deck said. “He’s been staying with Cor—…um, with us, barely leaving the house. We were out tonight, though, so he was on his own.” Deck pulled his hand out of mine to fist it in his lap. “Doctor, can you tell us anything more about what happened?”
Dr. Alvarez leaned back. “Johnny went into acute cardiac arrest, likely due to a fentanyl overdose first responders initially reversed with naloxone. Essentially, your brother overdosed and was revived, but that trauma put a lot of strain on his heart, and he fainted. Based on what EMTs saw at the scene, it looks like Johnny smoked a laced joint. Another overdose happened about a half hour after your brother in the same vicinity, so maybe they were sharing, or it’s a bad batch on the street.” The doctor exhaled loudly. “The police will figure that part out. Johnny doesn’t appear to have any other drugs in his system, other than THC, so I suppose if there’s a silver lining in all this, it’s that. We were able to shock his heart into a normal rhythm, but we won’t know for sure if there is any cognitive damage until we can speak with him further. He’s still groggy. We ran tests that will determine the severity of the damage to his heart, but we don’t have all those results yet, either.”
“Can we see him?” I asked.
“He’s getting scans done now. You're welcome to wait, and he should be back in his room in about forty minutes.”
“Dr. Alvarez?” I asked as the man rose to his feet. “Do you know how long Johnny will be here? Or what comes next?”
He looked back at his tablet. “I’m optimistic that Mr. Raney had a mild cardiac event. We need to monitor it, but I doubt the cardiologist will recommend surgical intervention at this time, although she may recommend some changes to his meds. The tests will tell us more. We’ll keep him here a few days forobservation, but I’m guessing he’ll be ready for discharge before the weekend.”
Deck looked as overwhelmed as I felt. “Thank you,” he said dully.
While I was grateful Johnny was breathing and apparently had been very lucky, the prospect of him coming home with me was terrifying. Like the clock on the ticking bomb would simply restart again. Why the hell had he been near that overpass?
“Johnny needs to go back to rehab,” I declared. “There’s got to be someplace.” Speaking to the doctor, I asked, “Can you recommend an in-patient facility that can accommodate his needs? Maybe one a little lesspolished.”
