Page 42 of A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances
By the time we arrived at the hospital, all the adrenaline from the EpiPen had worn off and I felt awful.
‘I really just want to go home,’ I said to Alex, as soon as the room was free of nurses. Miranda, after making sure I was okay, had wandered off to take an urgent client call from one of her other projects.
‘You can’t,’ Alex said. ‘You might be okay now, but there’s a risk you’ll have another attack even without further exposure.’
‘That hasn’t happened before,’ I said. Though I also knew that I’d never had such a violent reaction. I’d been warned that my allergy could become worse with each attack.
‘You might need more drugs or oxygen. And they’ll probably want to monitor you,’ he said.
‘Do you actually know what you’re talking about?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said simply.
We were interrupted by a doctor, a distinguished looking man with an aura of extreme competence, replacing the harried doctor (he’d barely looked old enough to have finished med school) who’d examined me in the ED. As Alex predicted, the older doctor considered out loud whether I needed an IV drip or help breathing. In the end, he decided to see if my body would be okay on its own, but that I needed to be monitored.
‘We’re going to take excellent care of you, Ms Evans,’ he said, in a practised reassuring voice.
‘Can I monitor myself at home?’ I asked. I hated hospitals. ‘If I feel even a tiny bit strange, my house is only a ten-minute drive from an emergency department. And I have a stack of in-date EpiPens.’
‘We recommend that anaphylaxis cases are monitored here,’ the doctor replied, thick brows furrowing.
‘I’m a doctor,’ Alex said. ‘I can monitor her.’
The doctor now assessed Alex for the first time, as if he was a ghost who’d taken on a body.
‘Well, in that case... I’d be comfortable with a discharge if you’re under medical supervision,’ he said.
A discussion must have taken place in the hallway, but in the end I was informed that Miranda would return (reluctantly, she insisted) to the offsite, and that she’d booked an Uber to drive Alex and me back to Melbourne.
By that point, I didn’t care how I got there, or who I was with, I just wanted to get home. I must have slept the whole drive because the next thing I knew I was being shaken awake. As I slowly came to, I realised that it was Alex pulling on my arm and that we were outside my house.
The hideous afternoon all came flooding back as I wiped dribble off my chin. I still felt like I’d been run over by a truck, but I was much less wobbly now.
‘You don’t need to come in,’ I said, as I unbuckled my seatbelt. I thanked the driver and opened my door.
‘Of course I do,’ Alex said. ‘Can’t break my Hippocratic Oath.’
‘What if I pinkie promise not to die?’ I asked.
He laughed, joining me on the kerb.
I wondered if a night in hospital might have been preferable to an afternoon with Alex in my house.
‘Is Matt home?’ Alex had reached the front door before me, holding my work bag and my now-dead phone, and was poised to ring the doorbell.
‘He’s in Sydney for work,’ I said. I hadn’t told Matt about my reaction yet. His company had a massive investor presentation the following day, which he’d been working towards for weeks. I didn’t want to distract him.
I rifled through the front pocket of the bag Alex was holding until I found my keys, and let us into the house.
‘Do you want a drink or something?’ I asked as I led him down the hallway.
‘I want you to get into bed,’ he replied.
I could see him taking it all in. Just after Matt and I had got engaged, we’d moved in together, renting a single-fronted cottage in a row of identical houses, only differentiated by whether they had a modern addition stuck on the back. Ours didn’t, but we hoped one day we might be able to buy one that did.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘But you’re staying out here while I’m getting changed. Make yourself at home. Help yourself to anything.’ Why was I speaking like a hotel concierge? Next I’d be offering him an early check-out.
I quickly took off my work outfit. As my skirt slipped off, I remembered Alex pulling it up, the silk lining moving up my thigh. Had he needed to do that? Of course he had, the training had made it clear that the EpiPen needed to go into the upper leg muscles. I was worse than Fiona, writing up a mental incident report. He hadn’t been feeling me up; he’d been trying to save my life.
