Page 64 of Fall Into You
I start running once I’m out the building, the cold December air cutting into my lungs sharply like small shards of glass—but I don’t give a shit. Liza’s in the emergency room, and I don’t know what’s wrong with her, so I push through.
They can’t tell me over the phone because I’m not related to her, but I can probably find out from the hospital, get one of my colleagues to pull the chart up, let me “accidentally” read it while they leave it open on the screen.
I don’t know what’s wrong with her, and it’s killing me.
Dr. Parker was the one who called, though. Does that mean that she was his consult? Did they need a cardiologist? My heart starts beating out of my chest, and I’m suddenly breathless, but it’s not from the two-block sprint. I start thinking how familiar this situation is, how I lived through it with my dad andhisheart. I remember perfectly how my mother called the house, told me to find my way to the hospital somehow—even though I was just a kid—because my dad was sick. By the time I got to the ER, my father was already gone. My mother had lied. He had already passed away when she called. She had just tried to get me to use the trip over as a way to mentally prepare myself for the possibility.
Was that what Parker was doing?
Oh, God.
A wave of nausea hits me at the thought of losing Liza. I cannot stomach the thought.
Right before entering, I place my KN95 mask over my face as hospital policy dictates everyone wear one nowadays. I finally make it to the ER entrance and flash my badge at the security guard as I make my way inside. He’s unfazed by my rush—this is the emergency room, after all.
I make my way through the wing, and it’s a maze of beds and machines, but I know my way around by now.
Bed eleven, bed eleven. I need to make it to bed eleven.
I power-walk through the different designated areas, trying not to draw too much attention to myself, until I finally reach the curtain outside her bed. I slide it open a little too aggressively, scaring the patient in the bed across from her awake.
“Liza!” I run to her and take in her condition. She’s asleep—or passed out? Her skin is pale, and her lips are chapped, and they’ve already changed her into a gown and covered her with a blanket in her hospital bed. How long has she been here? Is she alone? I take her wrist in my hands and check her pulse. She’s in a resting position, but her heart is racing. I place both hands on the sides of her face and say her name, but she doesn’t wake. There’s an IV hooked up to her arm, and I wince. I’m a fucking doctor, but the sight of her like this is driving me crazy and making me nauseated all over again.
I try calling Vinny before looking for a nurse who can help me, but he doesn’t pick up. I walk up to the nurses’ station, still wearing my white lab coat from work and, as casually as possible, ask for some more information on the patient in bed eleven. I need to be careful here and not reveal who she is to me. The second they find out my personal relationship to the patient, they’ll shut me out of receiving any type of medical information without her next of kin present.
But there’s no need for any of that, thankfully.
“Dr. Wilson.” I hear a voice behind me and turn to see my boss standing in his lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck. His pants are pressed, his shirt neat, and hair styled—probably a stark contrast against what I must look like right now. I practically run to him, feeling the strange urge to wrap my arms around him.
“I can’t thank you enough for calling me, Dr. Parker. I’m—I don’t know what to say. I just want to know what’s wrong with her.” I’m a desperate man, dude. Just fucking tell me.
I know he technically can’t because of my relationship to her, but there must be a gray area for boyfriends who are doctors in the hospital where their girlfriends are being treated. A loophole he’s willing to take? I’m too new here to ask any of the other doctors, having not become as friendly with them yet, but isn’t there some sort of unofficial code?
“I haven’t looked at her chart yet. She wasn’t my consult,” he explains.
I exhale a deep sigh at this brand-new piece of information. It’s as if I’ve been holding my breath since running out of the office.
It’s not her heart.
It could be something way worse, of course, but the thought that it was related to her heart had me so concerned. The similarities of what’s happening right now to the day my father passed are so intense that the relief almost brings me to my knees, almost makes me cry.
I choke down a sob, and I do my best to swallow it down. I don’t think I’ve ever been this scared. The cheerful holiday decorations that cover the nurses’ station and the twinkling lights above us do nothing to lighten my mood or ease the tension caused by the fact that my girlfriend is currently lying in a hospital bed, and I have no idea what’s wrong with her.
“I was down here to check on a patient of mine that was brought in and saw her lying there while they inserted an IV and drew some blood. After about an hour, when I didn’t see you or anyone else with her, I thought it would be acceptable to give you a call and talk to the nurses about her case.”
“Thank you,” I say again, my voice cracking. I feel a bit lightheaded, the adrenaline slowly waning after having made sure that she wasn’t in some sort of horrible accident and that it might not be as awful as all the scenarios that went through my head—all of which included having to face a world without Liza in it.
I don’t think I’ve ever experienced this completely crippling anxiety over the possibility of losing someone and the ability the mind has to race and imagine the worst.
It’s fucking horrible. I feel like I’m having an anxiety attack.
“Sit down,” he says in a surprisingly gentle voice. “Let me go find a tablet so I can look at her chart.”
This is the trouble with going digital—the files are no longer hanging on the patients’ beds for everyone to see. Sure, it’s amazing because files are easily accessible now for all of the patients’ doctors to see in one place, but it leaves an electronic trail of who’s seen your chart and when—which means that if I were to try and access her chart and someone found out, I could get into a lot of trouble.
I sit on the chair by her bed and reach out for her hand, running my index finger over the red scar forming on her palm from Thanksgiving night. I call Vinny again, but he sends me to voicemail after one ring.
I make a mental note to kill him the next time I see him and hope to God he at least picked up the hospital ER call, because I don’t even have her mother’s phone number.
