Page 19 of Come Back to Me

I can’t help but stare as Annie walks out of the room. Everything in me screams to follow her, to talk about this past weekend.

She wouldn’t even look at me when she was in here helping Dr. Evans as he stitched up our patient.

Maybe I went too far with her on her porch, or maybe she thought about it and regrets what happened with us on my couch after the brunch.

When my sweet patient has stopped crying and her sutures are done, I say goodbye and leave the room to speak with Annie. She’s nowhere to be found.

Unfortunately, my efforts are interrupted by the grainy static and blaring alert of my radio. I have to abandon my efforts to find her to go on another emergency medical call.

An hour later, at six forty-five p.m., Fitz and I are back at the ER, rolling our eighty-seven-year-old confused patient in from one of our city’s local senior living apartments.

If I had to guess, I’d venture that this is a bladder infection knocking her on her butt. At least she’s pleasant.

The last time Fitz and I had to bring in an elderly patient who was confused, he was combative and bit me. I can still remember the deep ache in my shoulder from the tetanus shot I had to get because of that one.

Given the late hour, this will probably be the last chance I get to see Annie today before her shift ends. Fitz and I lift the patient from our stretcher to the ER cot, and Janie, who is her primary nurse, walks in with Annie in tow. I know she’s here to help Janie get her patient settled, but my frustrationescalates when Annie refuses to look in my direction yet again.

I’m determined not to let her escape into one of the many hiding places the ER provides. This time, when I leave the patient with them, I decide to wait outside the room to get a word with her. I don’t understand why I can’t get this woman out of my mind.

She comes out of the room tentatively, first peeking down the hall to the right, and now I’m sure she’s been avoiding me.

As she looks to her left, where I am, she clearly startles. I smirk at her. “Hi, Annie.”

Trying to act like she wasn’t just trying to avoid me, she smiles politely.

“Oh, hey, Jack. How are you?” Her voice is high pitched and her speech is more rapid than usual.

I find it adorable as hell. “I’d be better if I hadn’t been here four times today, and each time it seemed like you were trying to avoid me.” I smile at her, not wanting to freak her out. “I’m hoping like hell that it’s not because you regret the weekend.”

She puts her hands over her eyes for a second, looking like she’s trying to gather her thoughts, and I panic, thinking maybe she really is going to tell me she regrets it.

When she looks at me again, she says softly, “No, I don’t regret it. I wish I did. It would make it easier.”

I move closer to her, careful not to crowd her, though.

“Listen, Annie. I meant everything I said when I dropped you off Sunday. I want to get to know you better. I want to spend time with you. I promise you I won’t do anything to mess with your work situation. I can tell your career and this position is important to you.”

She hesitates. “I don’t know, Jack… My rule…”

Seeing a glimmer of hope that she’ll reconsider, I decideto go for it. “Don’t decide anything now. Just think about it. I’ll make a deal if it helps.”

“What kind of deal?” she asks, finally looking me in the eye, eyebrows lifting toward her hairline and her curiosity clearly piqued.

“I’ll likely be captain soon, which means I won’t usually have to do the paramedic runs unless I want to. If you agree to let us spend more time together and it doesn’t work out, I promise I’ll stop coming in on optional squad runs once I make captain… if you want me to.”

She peers up, staring at me with those enormous eyes for a minute but, before she can say anything in reply, my radio goes off for another emergency call.

I wink at her. “Saved by the bell. Just think about it, Annie.” And I head out for yet another emergency run.

ANNIE

Standing outside of our ER trauma rooms, I scratch out a few notes on the scrap paper I’m using to write what supplies I need for restocking these crash carts. I flip the defibrillator on to make sure it charges correctly. It would be pretty bad if we needed to shock someone’s heart, and it wasn’t working, so we check it every day. Well, we aresupposedto check it every day. Looking down at the clipboard to initial that it’s been checked, I see that it’s been five days and the last person to check it off was me.Jesus, it’s not that hard, people. Do your job.

It’s also been five days since I’ve seen Jack, and it’s nearly driving me insane. Between Jack’s days off and mine, I knew I wouldn’t see him again until at least today.

Since I had a long weekend off and needed to get Jack out of my mind, I made the trip back to Columbus to see Kelly,her kiddos, and Mom. Seeing the littles was great but having to deal with my mom’s hounding did nothing to help prevent my impending slide into insanity.

I got through it, though, and Bean and I arrived back in Elladine yesterday afternoon. I’m here at work today and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’m itching to see a certain firefighter.

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