Page 8 of Ma Belle Marguerite
I look out the window to see a lifted Ford F-250 parked on the curb, blocking the entrance. A tall man runs around from the driver's side as another man jumps out of the passenger side. They rush to open the back door and pull an unconscious man out of the back seat.
The man they are carrying almost looks dead, the way his arms and legs are hanging. My view of the man's face is blocked by the two who are carrying him. Seeing the way he is draped over their arms brings back flashes of Adrien lying on the stretcher as they wheeled him in. My body refuses to move. This is too much. It was supposed to be a quiet, calm pace.
The sound of the automatic doors sliding open jolts me from the memory, and I rush back to my computer as the nurse brings a stretcher to them. I need to be ready for whatever is coming through those doors. I can’t decide if I should sit in my chair or stand here and wait.
As the men lower the unconscious man to the stretcher, I struggle to concentrate. My mind is reeling, and I feel like I can’t breathe. Flashbacks are trying to overwhelm me.This is not Adrien. You can do this!I tell myself.
Looking up, I see the nurse wave me over to where they are huddled around the stretcher. She is putting a blood pressure cuff on his arm as I approach.
“I need you to get him registered while I bring him straight to the back.” She keeps checking the man over while talking to me. Almost as if I wasn’t actually here.
The men who carried him in must be over 6 feet tall and built like a couple of linebackers. The one who was driving looks at me, and I notice his brows furrow quickly before he looks away, but not before I notice that he has the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.
I break myself out of the trance I feel myself in. “Can one of you come with me to tell me this man’s information so we can log him into the system while the nurse assesses him?” I ask.
“Josh, are you sober enough to go with her?” Blue Eyes asks the other guy, who I now know as Josh.
“Yeah, man, I’m good. Stay with Rex. Don’t let him out of your sight,” Josh tells him.
Wait, Rex? It can’t be my Rex.I move to look around the tall men, and my heart skips a beat. Blue Eyes tries to step in front of me, but not before I catch a glimpse of the face that I once dreamt about every night. ItisRex, my high school sweetheart, who broke my heart. I feel like all the air has been stolen from my lungs as I just stare at his body on the stretcher. How can this be happening again? Why is this happening to meagain?
“Umm, Isabella, hello?” Josh waves his hand in front of my face to get my attention.
“Oh yes, sorry, let’s go to my computer.” I turn around quickly and walk to my desk as fast as possible. I need to sit before I faint. Holding the arms of the chair, I try to steady myself as I lower my body into the seat. I haven’t even been back a week, and there he is, right before my eyes, and injured to boot. “Wait, do I know you?” I ask Josh. He doesn’t look familiar to me.
“No, ma’am. I just read your name tag.” He points to my chest, where my name tag, which I forgot about, is hanging from my lanyard. “Are you okay? You look a little pale.”
“Oh, right, I forgot.” I feel my cheeks heat at the embarrassment and wave him off. “I’m ok, thank you.” He doesn’t look like he believes me but lets it drop.
“I have his wallet. Do you need his health card?” He digs through his jacket pockets and pulls out a wallet I recognize. It’s the same one I gave Rex in high school, but it looks a lot worse for wear. It’s tattered and close to falling apart. I can’t believe he kept it all these years.
“Oh, uh, yes, please.”
“Here it is.” Josh places a card on my desk. “Can we hurry, please? I need to see what’s going on.”
Taking the card and entering the information into the computer as quickly as my trembling fingers can go, I run down the list of questions I need to ask on intake. Soon, we get to a question that makes me pause. I look up at Josh, unsure if I want to know the answer. “Is his next of kin still his father, Martin?”What if he is married or engaged and hasn’t updated his information?
Pausing before he answers, “Yes, Martin is still his next of kin.” Josh looks at me curiously before adding, “Phone number and address are all the same too.”
“Okay, thank you. What happened to Rex—I mean Alexander—tonight?” I try to keep my eyes on my computer screen so Josh can’t see my thoughts, as I’m sure they are written across my face.So he isn’t married, it seems.
Focus, Bella!
“I’m not sure. I just know he was in an accident,” Josh talks quickly, looking towards the nurse who is still assessing Rex.
“Okay, anything else the doctor may need to know?” I ask quietly.
“No, I don’t think so.” He looks back at me, clearly distracted, and I hand him Rex’s health card.
A picture falls to the ground as he opens the wallet to put the card away. I lean over to pick it up from under my desk, and my jaw drops. My hand shakes as I stare at a picture of Rex and me from my prom.Why does he still have this in his wallet?
Josh clears his throat as I stare at the picture in my hand. I look up at Josh and see him staring at me with his hand out impatiently. “Sorry,” I mumble as I pass him the picture back.
“Thank you,” I hear as Josh leaves me sitting at my computer in a daze.
My world feels like it has just been turned upside down again. I knew I would be running into Rex at some point in this small town. I just hadn’t imagined it would be like this, or so soon.
I let myself look over to the stretcher where he is still lying unconscious, and it’s as if there was no time lost between us at all. While he looks a bit older, his appearance, from what I can see, hasn't changed much. Seeing his face has so many old emotions flowing through me.
