Page 49 of Second Chance Fate

“Well…” A tiny smile curled at the edges of his mouth. “I bet you never thought you’d be the one lying in the hospital bed and I’d be using your words against you, but here we are.”

She closed her eyes and said his name in a warning tone, “Owen, I —”

“You have a few arguments to choose from. There’s the classic, which has shades of sarcasm I don’t feel get acknowledged or appreciated enough. If the doctors say you have to stay, then unless you graduated from medical school, completed your residency, and obtained your medical license that I don’t know about, you have to listen to them.”

“Owen,” she said his name again, but this time wearing a tiny grin on her face.

“There’s what I refer to as the Freaky Friday. What if it was me lying in that bed? Would you let me walk out of here against doctor’s orders?”

“Owen, it’s not?—”

“Can’t forget the Guilt Trip, which is always a crowd pleaser. Sure, you can go home against doctors orders, but ifanythinghappens to you, it will bemyfault, and I’ll have to live with that.”

“Owen, stop. This is not?—”

“And then there is my personal favorite, rated PG-13: Dazed and Confused. You should stay in the hospital; they have better drugs than at home.”

Owen had a razor-sharp wit; he was clearly using it to try and lighten the mood. It worked.

Taylor’s eyes widened, and for the first time Caleb saw some color back in her cheeks. “I never said that.”

“My bad. I guess that was just one I told myself.” Owen’s eyes twinkled with mischief.

Taylor laughed, really laughed, but even that caused her to go pale as a ghost once again.

Caleb wasn’t the only one who picked up on her complexion change. Owen clocked it as well; his demeanor shifted from lighthearted to somber.

“Mom, you have to stay. You know you do. Seriously, what if it was me?'“

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“Because it is.”

“I don’t think that would stand up in a court of law.”

Caleb watched the back-and-forth between Owen and Taylor like a match at Wimbledon. Despite Taylor being very ill, the two of them were in perfect sync. They were in their own world.

A movement in the doorway caught his eye. Dr. Davies was back. His face was set in a mask of professional calm as he cleared his throat once again, entered the room, and sat on the chair in front of the screen.

“Your blood work is back.” Dr. Davies glared at Caleb across the room.

He could glare all he wanted. There was no way Caleb was leaving unless Taylor asked him to. He wanted, no,neededto know exactly what was going on.

After a long pause, Dr. Davies went over the results. “The good news is you’re not contagious. You were concerned about that when you came in.”

“I was?”

Caleb could see that it looked like she didn’t remember that.

“It’s more or less what we thought. You contracted Lyme disease, which wasn’t treated and turned into sepsis. We will be admitting you into the ICU for a day or two.”

“I don’t need to be in the?—”

Dr. Davies cut Taylor off. “We just need to stabilize you and make sure your condition doesn’t worsen.”

Caleb pulled out his phone and googled sepsis as Dr. Davies continued making his case for why the ICU would be the best place for Taylor. He read that the reason they needed to monitor her in the ICU was because sepsis could turn into septic shock, which could be deadly. They had to stabilize her organ functions, blood pressure, temperature, and oxygen levels, which were all critical.

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