Page 97 of Caught Up In You

She looks up, a white coat thrown over her pink pajamas, a stethoscope around her neck.

“What areyoudoing here? I thought you were in Indianapolis.” Her eyes sweep over me, her brow furrowed. I probably look like I got dressed in a tornado, my hair askew, mascara still smeared around my eyes. I’m wearing pants with no underwear and shoes with no socks, and I think my shirt is buttoned wrong, but I haven’t paused to check.

“Hazel called me, and I told her to bring Eden here.”

“Good,” she says slowly, like she’s trying to solve a puzzle. “But why areyouhere?”

“Because I—” I start, but I don’t have words.

“He drove me,” Wyatt says, walking up and taking my hand in hers. It feels foreign and cold, and even though she’s right beside me, she feels far away. Everything is simultaneously too loud and oddly muffled.

Fatima nods, then she studies me for a beat longer. “Well, Dr. Anderson is sick, so they called me in to do the workup on Eden.”

Dr. Anderson is the pediatric specialist for the county hospital, and while I know he’s a good doctor, I’m glad Fatima was the one at Eden’s bedside until I could get here. I trust Fatima.

But I reach for the chart at the end of the bed anyway.

And Fatima swats my hand away.

“You’re not on duty tonight, Dr. McBride,” she says, then eyes me like this is some kind of test.

“Right, but I’m here now, and I’m her doctor.”

“Not tonight,” she says. “You made sure she got here, and now we’re taking care of her.”

“Cut the shit, Fatima,” I say.

Wyatt’s hand tenses in mine.

“Owen, it’s fine,” Hazel says, her brow furrowed.

That’s when I realize that I’m making everyone in the room uncomfortable. Fuck, this is not how things are supposed to go.

“Dr. Adebayo was just telling us that Eden has RSV,” Hazel says.

Fatima nods. “We’ll admit her for a round of breathing treatments and monitor her fluids and her airway. She doesn’t show signs of pneumonia, so I’m guessing she’s going to feel a whole lot better in the next twenty-four hours with the oxygen support.”

RSV. Fuck. Of course. I missed it because of the croupy cough and because July isn’t normally the season for respiratory viruses. But it happens.

And I missed it.

“Right, okay, that all sounds good,” Wyatt says, her voice tentative. “That’s good news.”

“It is,” Fatima says, turning to Hazel. “I know it’s tough when babies get sick like this because they can’t tell you what they’re feeling. And seeing your child struggle to breathe is terrifying. But you did exactly the right thing, and she’s going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

All eyes turn to me, and it takes me several seconds to realize I said that out loud.

Fatima narrows her dark eyebrows. “Dr. McBride, can I see you in the hall?”

Fatima smiles at Hazel and says something I can’t hear over the ringing in my ears. Then she pivots on her heel and strides out of the curtained area. I drop Wyatt’s hand and follow her. But she doesn’t stop in the hall. She keeps walking past empty beds until she reaches a closed door. She opens it and gestures for me to go into what turns out to be a supply closet, then follows me in and slams the door behind her.

“What the fuck is going on, Owen?”

Her expression is a mixture of pity and scorn, and I can barely look at her. I can barely understand what’s happening, how I went from being in bed with Wyatt, happier than I’ve ever been in my life, to standing in this cold, dark hospital supply closet feeling like I’ve nearly lost everything.

Eden is fine. Iknowshe is. And yet I can’t seem to get hold of myself. It’s like someone loaded me into a roller coaster car and shoved me down a hill and I’m trying to get out while the thing is still moving.

---