Page 4 of Blitzing Emily

The doctor moved closer and pulled a small flashlight out of his breast pocket. “Emily.” He sat down on a rolling examination chair as he took her hand. “I’ll bet you think you’re the first person I’ve seen today who had an encounter with some ice.”

Emily glanced over at Brandon, and he gave her a reassuring smile. She tried to look pitiful in response. She turned her head and focused on the doctor again.

“I’ll bet none of them were wearing a thousand dollars’ worth of Italian leather boots at the time.”

While she spoke, the doctor examined the back of her head, shone a light in her eyes, and said, “How many fingers, Emily?” He held up two.

“Three,” Emily responded. Brandon let out what sounded like a groan.

“That’s never happened to me before,” he muttered.

“Are you sleepy? Nauseated? Have a headache? Follow my fingers, okay?” He asked the same questions Brandon did. They didn’t sound any better the second time.

“I mostly feel stupid.”

She glanced over to see Brandon eying the clock on the wall in the opposite corner of the room. His eyes slid back to her, but he seemed distracted.

“I’ll be fine. It’s okay if you leave,” she said.

“No, no,” Brandon insisted, but he looked at the clock once more. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Just to be safe, Emily, I’m ordering a CT scan. We’re also going to stitch that cut. Sit tight for a few minutes, and I’ll send the nurse in to start this process.”

Emily tried to sit up. “I’m fine. I have to make some other deliveries for Amy. I ...” The room spun around. The doctor caught her just before she fell off the side of the narrow bed.

Brandon jumped out of the chair and arrived at her bedside in one long stride. He pulled up the bedside railings. “Doctor, may I talk with you in the hallway for a moment?”

Emily heard only broken bits of their discussion. It didn’t sound positive. Brandon gestured toward the room a few times with his hand while they talked. The noise in the hallway finally dropped a little and she could listen in.

“Look, Doc, I’m late. I want to stay, but I really can’t,” Brandon said.

“Emily needs ...” but whatever it was the doctor thought she needed was drowned out by yet more voices, one high-pitched and panicky, from an adjoining room.

“If you tell us what you took, we won’t tell anyone else. We need to know before we can treat you.”

“I can’t talk about it.”

“You’re going to have to talk about it at some point. You’re not the first guy that showed up at this hospital after an erection of more than four hours. Did you take something besides an ED drug? Recreational drugs? Did you drink alcohol tonight? This isn’t a joke.”

“It’s Valentine’s Day. My girlfriend expected something special.”

“She’d like it better if you both were around next Valentine’s Day, too.”

A nurse shut the sliding glass door in Emily’s room, pulling a floor-to-ceiling cloth curtain around the bed Emily lay in.

“The admitting person will be here shortly, but let’s get you into a stylish hospital gown while we wait.”

The nurse was tall and stocky. She wore her hair in a long, dark pigtail. She had what appeared to be a permanent grin, and her nametag read “Cheryl.” She undressed Emily with a speed and gentleness that showed many years of practice. Emily pushed her arms through the hospital gown sleeves, and the nurse draped a warm, fluffy cotton blanket over her as she lay down again.

“It’s just like the day spa.”

“Those boots must have been gorgeous before the heel snapped off.”

“Thinking about how much they cost makes my headache worse.”

“So, Emily, how’s your pain level on a scale of one to ten?”

“My head’s a seven. The boots are a twenty.”

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