It was a bad combination.
“Is she in her room?” I asked. “You could at last tell me that, can’t you?”
He shrugged his shoulders at me. His haircut and mannerisms didn’t just suggest ex-military, they screamed it. “I don’t think I can do that. HIPAA, you know.”
“Hippo?” I asked. Was this some kind of riddle? Did he think I’d been concussed, too? I hadn’t been.
“HIPAA,” he clarified with a poorly concealed grin. “It’s a privacy law that protects individuals from having their medical information disclosed unfairly.” The doctor, like most I’d encountered, was a bit on the condescending side. Just a bit. It gave me an idea.
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, okay,” I told him. “But if you don’t tell me, I won’t tell you what the pretty little doctor said about you.”
Yeah, I was being petty, but I was bored and worried about Vanessa.
“What doctor?” his voice was unconcerned, but I thought I was onto something. I’d heard a lot of hospital gossip since my visiting privileges got taken away. Given how miserable I currently was, I couldn’t resist being a bit obnoxious.
I grinned at the doctor in front of me. “The other one that came by,” I answered. “Dr. Ford, she said her name was. Pretty, for a doctor. Short, blonde. Looked like she should be at a music festival and not here. Weirdly young though.” She couldn’t have been any older than Vanessa and had no idea who I or Axial Tilt was. How’d she even finish medical school already? Definitely weird, especially because she appeared to be in charge of the entire floor. The nurses certainly acted like she was. Mere mention of her name put them on attention.
Mention of her name worked with this doctor too, although probably not for the same reason (if the nurses were to be believed). He paused in his examination of my blood pressure. I smirked at him and he scowled deeply.
“I can’t tell you anything about your girlfriend,” he said after a moment. His eyes flashed toward the door, as if wondering if the HIPAA police were just beyond it, about to entrap him.
“Yeah, me neither,” I told him.
His dark eyes went wide and his expression became blank. “Aimee is not my girlfriend.” He appeared irritated, and I could pretty much tell that he wished she were. Good lord, he was transparent. Did he think he had anyone fooled? Maybe the nurses here lived in fear of him and kept their suspicious hidden, but I certainly didn’t have any need to do so.
“Oh, Aimee is it?” I teased. Dr. Koels’ frown deepened.
“Dr. Ford,” he corrected. “Dr. Ford is not my girlfriend.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that. I think she likes you.” That earned me a real scowl.
If I couldn’t get what I wanted out of the good doctor, I could at least irritate him. And I was pretty good at being irritating, having naturally little to no social filter, and very little to lose. We had a moment of standoff. He stared at me, clearly wondering if he should just leave or try to figure out what I was getting at. Curiosity fought pride in his expression, and the former visibly prevailed.
“Does that mean Dr. Ford was here, in your room?” he pressed.
The nurses said they hated one another, but also that they were in love. Both. Cute, or at least, entertaining. Misery, which I was teetering on the edge of with Vanessa, loves company.
“She was here. Doing a quality check on your work maybe?”
“Oh?” That clearly didn’t make him happy.
I shrugged. “She said something about performing a second CT scan? I don’t really understand all your medical mumbo jumbo.” This, of course, was bullshit. I knew what a CT scan was. I’d been in plenty of hospitals, unfortunately. A side effect of addiction and being in bad accidents before.
“You don’t need a CT scan,” he snapped. His voice was growly and a lesser man might have been intimidated. “Your break is clean. We saw it on the x-ray. I suppose you’re going to tell me she wanted to up your pain killer allotment, too? Perhaps a nice, heavy morphine drip?” His voice was condescending.
I laughed at him. On one level, I appreciated someone who could be as obnoxious as me. But on another, well, that comment was just rude. “Hardly. The last thing I want is to get addicted to pain medication,” I fired back. “I’ve done in-patient rehab a couple of times and don’t want to go back. Prescribe me anything stronger than Aspirin and I’ll sue you into next year for negligence.”
He blinked. “Sorry. I’ve seen your medical history.” He paused. “And the news.”
I shrugged, not really that worked up. I was an open book. “I know you have to worry about that. I’m sure it must get old.” I sighed. “But I’m not the one you need to argue with,” I reminded him. “It’s not like I want to be examined further like a human guinea pig. All I want is to see my girlfriend. You’ll get no complaints from me about my treatment.”
He blinked as if realizing that I was not, in fact, the fetching Dr. Ford. “Hmmm.”
I was really only messing with Dr. Koels. I’d only observed Dr. Ford from the hallway when she went over the chart with the nurse on duty. She’d largely concurred with his assessment of me and of Vanessa and seemed irritated that her superiors were making her check in on us because we were ‘high profile patients.’ I was a celebrity and Vanessa was becoming one. It led to all kinds of weird effects, not the least of which was bizarre treatment by medical professionals.
“If it makes any difference,” I told Dr. Koels, “she did say that this was all a waste of her time.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “She did?”
I nodded. “She said, and I quote, the board would be better spending her time on real issues of patient care and not idiot celebrities in fender benders.”
He laughed. “She said that to your face? I’m impressed.”
I shrugged. “I was pretending to be asleep,” I told him. “But seriously though, you might go have a word with her. You’re the talk of the floor.”
He froze. “What are people saying?” Even super tough military doctors don’t like being gossiped about.
I grinned at him. This was by far the most I’d been entertained all day. “If you won’t tell me if Vanessa is in her room, I certainly couldn’t share hospital gossip with you. That wouldn’t be seemly.”
Dr. Koels, or Brandon, as I was beginning to think of him in my mind, seemed irritated. I could see the moment when he let curiosity win a second time. “Just for the record, you’re the worst patient I’ve had all week. And I had someone come in with maggots in their scrotum who thought I was Barack Obama.”
I blinked at that. “Thanks?”
“She’s in her damn room.”
“Vanessa?”
“I didn’t say her name, did I?”
“I see. HIPAA. That wasn’t that hard, was it?”
“Your turn.”
Fair enough. “As far as I can tell, the nursing staff is convinced you two are passionately in love and just pretending to be enemies to keep up appearances.”
“On what evidence?”
I blinked at him. “Your respective behavior.” I smirked. “And I think they’re right.”
He rolled his eyes, but I could see something resembling hope on his face. “Well, this conversation has been a waste of time,” he said. “This is why hospital gossip needs to be shut down. I’m discharging you tomorrow. Go see your regular doctor within a week.” He made for the door.
“Okay. Sure thing, doc.” I grinned at him. “For what it’s worth, I think she likes you back. She had nothing but praise for your work and seemed disappointed you weren’t around.”
He scowled over his shoulder and closed the door. He wouldn’t be back, so mission accomplished. I looked over to see a wheelchair folded in the corner of the room. Now, I just needed to make a call to totally reorder my life, and then win Vanessa’s heart.
Easy.
53
Vanessa
The problem with the world crashing in on you is that the world doesn’t really crash
in on you. The world doesn’t give a damn about you. The world is completely oblivious, and it goes on turning. No matter what, it’s only you that crashes in on you. I was imploding.
Three days ago, I thought I could let Ian go. Even as we drove off from the party, I thought I could, if I had to. But after the car accident? I didn’t know anymore. After almost having the universe making that decision for me, I couldn’t say the same now.
So, I sat in my hospital room and felt terrible. The party had marked the last of my bravado and confidence. I was fresh out of my supply, and cowardice and self-pity were all I had left.
I could have called Caroline or Faith and talked their ear off about my troubles. I probably could have used someone to rip me out of my funk and remind me that my life was good. I had a good thing going for myself professionally.
Shooting the video for Rosie was going to be a big deal for me. I knew that I liked what I was doing, and that I should be doing it. It felt oddly like the universe was aligning for me in one department while ripping me apart in another. Not a pleasant feeling at all.
Yet, not entirely hopeless, either. Because at least I had hope for my career if my personal life was as utterly doomed as it seemed. I could imagine a future for me that would be interesting and rewarding. I attempted to channel my relationship misgivings into something more like productivity.
Rosie said she trusted me to come up with some ideas for her video? I could do that. Given that I was now basically confined to this hospital room until Dr. Brandon Koels released me, I might as well do something. The doctor called it observation, but I was completely alone. Nobody was observing me at all. Which, I had to admit, was my preference. I had no desire to be observed while I worked.
And work I did. I always carried around a notebook. I scribbled until my fingers went numb. Ideas flowed out of me far more easily than I would have thought possible. Even in my relatively distraught emotional state, I was able to produce something. It felt good, in a perverse sort of way. I might be tearing at the seams, but I was still me where it counted.
Rosie’s single was very beautiful. She’d sent me an early version of the song. It was hauntingly lovely, her ethereal voice rising over twangy guitars and a more driving bass rhythm than her earlier music. I think she’d been inspired by her time working with Axial Tilt.
I know I had. I’d learned that there was considerable power in little details from my time creating the video for ‘This One’s For You.’ I’d learned that tiny shifts in angle, tone, volume, and filter had huge effects. Now, with my newfound experience, I could imagine a million minute adjustments within my mind’s eye. Like a composer choosing a note, I could see the possibilities and the results. It was exhilarating, but it was still not quite enough to fully distract me.
There was nothing that could fully distract me from the prospect of losing Ian. Not even the prospect of being successful could do that. The worst part, and it definitely was the worst part, was that ‘This One’s For You’ was on heavy rotation in my brain. Of all the songs to have stuck in my head, it had to be that one. It should have been Rosie’s single. But no. That would have been too easy.
The hours wore on with more difficulty as the afternoon progressed. Ian texted a few times, but I didn’t reply except to say that I was fine. I couldn’t bring myself to go to see him, even though he was just down the hall.
It was as I was finally putting the finishing touches on a storyboard for the video that despair began to really encroach on my creativity. Even good ideas couldn’t keep me distracted forever. Thankfully, a new distraction was knocking on my door and sticking her pretty blond head into the room.
“Caroline!” I squealed, tossing aside my notebook and struggling to get up.
“No, no, no,” she clucked, crossing the room and coming to my side. “You had better stay right there and rest. Faith told me that you were supposed to be resting all day.”
“You’re here!” I stuttered, forgetting for the moment that I was being chided for trying to get out of the bed. “You’re supposed to be in Africa.”
Caroline grinned at me, looking halfway confused that I should be so shocked. She straightened the covers on the awful little hospital bed and tucked me in more securely like I was a small child.
“Faith called me,” Caroline told me. She went to brush my hair back and I almost rolled my eyes except that she was being so genuine. “I was on a plane as quickly as I could manage it. I feel like it took ages.”
I almost laughed at her expression of complete and utter contrition, but of course I couldn’t. She got here in record time. Botswana was very, very far away, and it should have taken her another day, at least, to get here. Given the financial resources at her disposal, that would be pretty quickly. I could imagine that she could have a plane ready within an hour if she wanted it. My dad was only in Scotland visiting his brother and he wasn’t here yet.
“Thank you for coming,” I told her. The thing about real friends is that they will move heaven and earth when you need them. And right now, I definitely needed Caroline. She hugged me and I had to resist bursting into tears right then and there.
“Of course, I came,” she replied. She had the gall to seem vaguely offended. “I wouldn’t just leave you in the hospital alone.”
This time I did laugh at her. “I’m not alone,” I told her. “Faith was here and Eric. Plus, Ian’s just down the hall. Oh, and I’ve got all the doctors and nurses I could ever want to observe me.”
Caroline was used to me minimizing things, especially feeling-related things. She’d put up with my antics for years. Her eyes said she knew just exactly what I was doing and why I was doing it.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I told her. “I really am.”
She nodded at me, her expression shifting to a more understanding one. “I’m glad I’m here too.”
I’d missed her Texas twang. I found it intensely comforting. I was from Texas too, but from a big city. We don’t have thick accents in the cities, just out in the Nowheresville that Caroline grew up (and got out of).
“I think I have a new job,” I told Caroline. “I’ll be shooting Rosie’s music video.”
“Really?” Caroline grinned. “That’s great.”
I smiled back, although I wasn’t feeling quite as excited now. I’d remembered Ian.
“Yeah, it is great,” I told her. “I’m a director now.”
“So why don’t you look as happy as I thought you would.”
I sighed. “Ian.”
She frowned. “I thought you two were doing well.”
“He’s going on tour.” I hadn’t spoken to Caroline in almost a week. She didn’t know the full extent of the news.
“Well, that’s not really a surprise though, right?”
I shook my head. “It might be almost a year.”
Her pale blue eyes widened to show a ring of white all the way around. “A year?”
“They’ve been doing so well,” I told her. “I’m happy for Ian, you know? I want him to get what he wants. And he wants this tour so badly. But I can’t go on tour with him. I’ve got my life here.”
Caroline took me in, lying in a hospital bed, concerned my new relationship was about to dissolve, and hugged me again. I leaned into her, remembering the last time I’d broken down in her presence. I didn’t want that again. Even though I knew she’d never judge me for crying, I was too proud to go around crying in front of people. It wasn’t something I wanted to do.
So, with an effort that felt nearly superhuman, I choked down the tears.
“I’m fine,” I told her.
“You are not fine.” Her tone was disapproving.
“I’m managing,” I replied.
It didn’t sound true.
It wasn’t.
I was on the verge of melting down.
“He loves you,” she told me.
My greedy heart skipped a beat, but I shook my head. “Maybe he thinks he does, or maybe he actually does, b
ut it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to be the reason he gives up everything he’s waited all this time for.”
“What if the thing he wanted, the thing that he really wanted, was you?” Caroline asked me.
My heart was pounding itself apart, although I didn’t know why. Misplaced hope? Fatalism? Caroline was wrong. I wriggled in my seat.
“That’s ridiculous,” I told her. “I’ll never be able to compete with Ian’s dream.”
She looked like she was torn. After a moment, she took a deep breath and shook her head. “No. You’re his dream, Vanessa. Ever since he first saw you.”
54
Vanessa
“Caroline, please,” I told her. “Don’t say that.” My throat felt suddenly dry and scratchy. I grasped for the glass of water that was sitting next to my bedside with shaky hands and gulped down the water like it was clarity. It didn’t have the effect I would have liked on my psyche, although at least I wasn’t thirsty anymore.
“He called me after you met,” she told me, staring at me like I was the one who was talking crazy, and not her. I blinked back at her in total confusion.
“You mean at the support group?” I asked her.
That had been ages ago. Months. Or had it been a year now? I’d been dragged by Caroline very much against my will to that damn group. Talking about my feelings in a drab basement with a bunch of crying strangers? No thanks. I’m not a natural sharer. I’d met Ian at that meeting, but only briefly, and I had been shocked when he even remembered me when we met again, much later.
“Yes,” Caroline replied. “He called me and asked all about you.”
I frowned. “Right. You told him I like roller skating.”
She looked deeply confused. “Huh? I didn’t tell him that.” Then she smirked. “Okay, I might have mentioned that at some point, maybe. But roller skating was not the focus of the conversation.”
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