Page 12 of Holiday Love
“You’ve got a hematoma back here. A big lump.” An unhappy twist of her lips. “I can’t believe I missed that. You were so busy dying I got distracted. Never finished my physical exam.”
“Dying?!” The word punches through the fog of narcotics. “What do you mean dying?” A cold, hollow feeling spreads in my chest as reality hits.Holy shit. Is she serious?I could be dead? Helen’s standing here, alive, furious, beautiful, telling me I should be nothing. Just a body pulled from the ocean.
What happened?
She waves her hand dismissively like she didn’t just say the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard. “You coded. I saved you. You’re fine, except for the broken bones.”
She sums up the last twelve hours of my life in three shocking sentences.
Chapter seven
Helen
Teddy’s in the hospital for four days. On the second day, he gets a long leg cast that goes from his foot to the top of his thigh. On the third day, he’s given crutches and encouraged to hobble around the hallways so he can get used to them.
I stop by his room to visit each day, before or after my shift in the ER. Each time I drop by his room, we keep our conversation superficial. Mostly it’s me asking how he’s feeling and him answering that everything’s fine, an obvious lie considering he can’t bend his leg because of the enormous cast covering it. I stay long enough to justify a cheery reassuring text to Gwen accompanied by a picture of Teddy.
“Cheese,” I tell him as I raise my cell phone to capture his image for his sister.
He gives me a fake grin and a sarcastic double thumbs-up, both of which vanish as soon as the camera clicks.
Our interactions during those visits are weird and awkward. We act like people who barely know each other, cordial and distant, which probably makes sense. Wedobarely know each other, except he knows how I taste and I know he likes to take charge in bed.
I think we’re both working hard to forget those little details.
On the fourth day he’s discharged, and I come to drive him home.
“You sure this is everything?” I ask as I carry Teddy’s backpack to my car. I’ve parked it by the curb at the main entrance to the hospital.
Teddy moves faster than I expected, swinging his crutches along next to me, with one tucked under each arm. “That’s it. I had my best friend Jamie bring it to me that first night. Just some toiletries. Didn’t need much since you all wouldn’t let me wear anything besides that awful hospital gown.” He shoots me an angry side-eye and adds, “Oh, and he brought a fresh pair of jeans and a shirt, sinceyoucut up my old ones.”
“It wasn’t me,” I protest. “It was the ambulance guys. They had to see where you were hurt.”
“Those were my favorite pants,” Teddy mumbles to the ground, frowning angrily.
It takes us three tries to get him into my four-door sedan. First, we move the passenger seat all the way back, but Teddy’s tall and with his leg outstretched in the cast he can’t fit. Finally, he slides into the back seat, stretching across the entire length of it. I close the door gently, worried I’ll squash his toes.
When I climb in the front seat, I feel like a mom driving her kid to soccer practice. He is younger than me, after all.
“I know you live in Venice Beach, but where?” I ask over my shoulder.
He gives me an address on Rose Avenue. It’s not far from my hospital, about fifteen miles. With traffic, it’ll take forty-five minutes to get there. It’s going to be a long, awkward trip if we don’t talk to each other.
“You live with friends?” I’m secretly furious at them, these friends. Who lets someone you care about go surfing at night?
“Jamie’s family owns the house. There’s me, Jamie, Anthony, and Gina.”
Gina.
He lives with a woman. Are they friends or more?
I shake my head, annoyed at myself for caring.
What does it matter? He can live with a thousand women. It’s none of your business,I remind myself.
“That’s nice,” I say, then realize I sound like a stodgy grandmother. “I mean, that you have friends—”Crap. That didn’t come out right.I try again. “Nice that you have friends who want to live with you.”Still not what I was trying to say.
A soft chuckle from the backseat. I peek in my rearview mirror to see a small smile on Teddy’s lips. My heart does a slow flip-flop. It’s the first smile I’ve seen from him during this whole ordeal.
