Page 129 of Make Me Sin (Bad Habit 2)
A smile briefly flickers over his face. “All right. After you.”
He holds out his hand, and we both enter the room. Feeling a massive sense of déjà vu, I stand on the side of A.J.’s hospital bed, and hold his hand.
It’s cold again. The entire room feels cold. I get a chill, and shiver.
The doctor leans over A.J. and says loudly, “Mr. Edwards? Can you hear me?”
A.J.’s eyes dart back and forth beneath his lids, but he doesn’t open his eyes.
I squeeze his hand harder. “Is that bad?” I whisper, trying to remain calm.
“No. He’s still heavily sedated.” The doctor takes a slender silver flashlight from his coat pocket, opens A.J.’s left lid, and shines the light into his eye. He repeats the procedure with the right eye, but, unlike with the other side, pauses and says, “Hmm.”
Ice water is injected into my veins. Terrified, I ask, “What does that mean?”
He looks at me briefly before straightening. “There’s some pupillary response in his right eye.”
This damn doctor! Am I going to have to stab it out of him?
“And?” I holler.
He’s completely undisturbed by my outburst. “And there shouldn’t be.”
I drop A.J.’s hand, lean over the bed, and grab the doctor by his lapels. “And what does that mean!”
He can obviously tell I’m losing it, so he quickly adds, “It means, at least in his right eye, the ocular nerve still has some function. It’s a good sign, Ms. Carmichael. It’s a very good, very unexpected sign.” He carefully peels my fingers from his coat.
My heart soaring with hope, my lungs gulping air, I rock back on my heels. “When will we know more?”
He obviously has a lot of experience dealing with crazy relatives of sick people, because he blandly smiles at me instead of running away. “I’m going to give him another hour or so, and then we’ll do a few more tests. There’s a whole series we go through to assess his condition as he starts to regain consciousness, so I won’t have anything definitive for you until later, but for now, he’s stable. All right?”
I’m so relieved I want to slide to the floor. Instead I tear up. “Thank you.”
He nods. “And if he wakes up, feed him ice chips. I’ll have them sent in. He’s going to be really thirsty, but he can’t have water yet. And I’m sorry, but the time limit for visits in ICU is ten minutes, so I’ll leave you to it.”
He turns and strides out.
I look at A.J. There’s some kind of weird jelly on his scalp, and the incision is hideous. I thought the stitches on my cheek were bad, but this is total Frankenstein territory. We’re talking metal staples. I gently rest my hand on his forehead, and sigh.
“Mmrpph.”
I jump. “What? A.J., oh my God, are you saying something?”
His lids flicker. His eyes are darting back and forth beneath them again. I grab his hand and lean close to his face, dying to rip out the tube that’s stuck in his nose because maybe it’s hurting him.
I squeeze his hand. “Baby, I’m here. You’re doing great. Just rest, the doctor says—”
“Mmrpph!” he insists, frowning.
I
don’t know whether to cry or have a panic attack, so I just hold on to his hand as tightly as I can, my lower lip trembling. Will he not be able to speak? Is this it? Will that sound be all he can make from now on?
His eyes flicker open. They roll around in his head like he’s spinning.
I stop breathing.
He blinks a few more times, squinting. His hand tightens in mine.
