Love Notes

by Savannah Kade

  He would have to call an ambulance.

  His wallet and cell phone were in the foot well that Norah wasn’t using. She’d tucked herself into a tight ball, shutting the rest of the world out. TJ didn’t want her traumatized by lights and sirens, and he gave himself one chance to find the keys.

  They were exactly where he thought they might be, lying in the grass at the top of the steps. He must have dropped them when he’d run toward the suspicion in his head. That moment seemed a lifetime ago. The reality had been far worse than the foreboding, and he knew he still wasn’t feeling the truth. It would hit him later, and he wasn’t sure he would survive it.

  Still, he took the keys and closed both of them into the car. The engine started with a purr that seemed far too normal for this day. He buckled her in, but she didn’t respond. Her eyes were closed, but he could tell she wasn’t sleeping. She probably just didn’t want to talk, and TJ felt much the same way, as he didn’t know of a thing he could say that would make even a part of it any better.

  He drove with the utmost caution, more concerned with jostling Norah than anything else. Pulling into the drive-up entrance at the Emergency room, he walked around to lift Norah out. She was heavier than she had been earlier, and he wondered if it was him.

  Once inside, medical people, doctors and nurses, flooded around him instantly seeing the extent of her injuries. They pulled up a gurney for her, but TJ refused, insisting he carry her to the bed.

  He put her on her back, and the t-shirt didn’t cover her near as well when she stretched out. Her chest gave one rise and fall, and she rolled over and curled up again.

  TJ stood beside her while the nurses ran an IV line into her arm. Norah didn’t even flinch, nothing acknowledged what was being done to her. TJ hadn’t thought it would be possible, but his chest clenched even tighter. He only turned his back to her to explain to the nurse what had happened. Norah didn’t need the recounting.

  The nurse sloughed herself off in her tidy pink scrubs and returned carrying an armful of solution-filled bags and syringes and sterile packed tubing. With certain efficiency she briskly asked if either of them was HIV positive, then injected several syringe-fulls into the bag already dripping fluids into Norah’s arm. She then turned to speak again to TJ. “I added immunoglobulins and a few doses of anti-retrovirals.”

  TJ thought he knew what those words meant, and his heart slowly came to a standstill as yet another horror was added to this day.

  The nurse kept speaking, “HIV is a real concern in cases like these. She has open cuts as well, and it looks like the two of you made him bleed. Which is a good fight, but brings this other problem.”

  TJ fought to keep his lip from quivering. He fought to keep himself from shaking.

  Continuing her steady cadence, the nurse made it worse. “You’re cut, too. You’ll need stitches as well, and a host of anti-HIV drugs. We need to start a chart on you.”

  TJ nodded, thinking that Norah could now be infected with something, when she was entirely innocent.

  “Come with me, please.” The nurse stood, straight and pink, at the doorway waiting for him. But TJ shook his head.

  “I can’t treat you without a bed.”

  “Then don’t treat me. I’ll come back tomorrow or . . .”

  The nurse shook her head this time. “You need these drugs right away.”

  “Then put me in this bed.” He gestured to the one behind him, standing empty.

  “This room is for women—”

  “I’m not leaving. Forget it.”

  “Sir—”

  TJ didn’t look at her, just grabbed a plastic chair from the corner and faced it toward Norah’s bed. He sat there, his head even with hers high up on the gurney and folded his hands at the edge of the bed. “She’s bleeding, she needs help now.”

  The nurse nodded, and he was grateful that she let him be, although he feared she’d pushed some sort of panic button and security was going to come take him away. The nurse pulled a pair of scissors from her pocket, and rested a hand on Norah. “Honey, we’re going to cut this shirt off of you so we can see what we need to stitch.”

  Beyond his hands he saw Norah stiffen, and he jumped up to still the nurse. In a hard whisper he added, “Don’t! She’s had her clothing cut off her once already today.”

  He didn’t know how he finished that sentence, it hurt so much to say the words. But like so many things today, he pushed it aside and turned his attention to Norah. “Baby, can you sit up? We need to get my shirt off you so they can see to help you.”

  Norah nodded at him. Her eyes didn’t connect, but she nodded. Slowly, with his help, she pushed herself to sitting. Gingerly he pulled the shirt up and off her, the nurse held out a gown that he quickly wrapped around the now shivering Norah. While the nurse pulled the shirt along the tubing and over the IV bag, he tried to ignore the almost continuous webbing of bruises and cuts that had ringed her body.

  The nurse called for plastic surgeons.

  Security showed up at the doorway, luckily only to complain about the car he’d left blocking the ambulance bay. TJ told the man about the knife, sent him after his wallet and handed over the keys, telling him to take the car and do whatever he wanted with it. It was of no importance.

  Fortunately, the plastic surgeons only needed to suture. There were a few spots that needed stitches along her jaw and across her face, and TJ clamped his urge to vomit again when they reassured Norah that there would be little to no scarring. It took them over three hours and fifteen different positions to put all the stitches in her. She had cuts down her chest, on her side, one on her back, her hand, he lost count. Luckily, only a handful of stitches needed to be laid under her skin.

  Then they turned on him. Convincing the nurse to admit him to the next bed was a job that took TJ refusing treatment otherwise, as well as Norah’s desire to have him there.

  TJ would have left in a heartbeat had she asked. She sat on her own bed, IV dangling from her arm and feet dangling over the side in her doubled-up hospital gowns while he was stitched. The plastic surgeons rolled him from one side to the other, trying to both work simultaneously, but he kept his gaze trained on her. He didn’t feel the needles poking into him and only peripherally registered the burn of the anesthetic. She looked beautiful and brave and damaged as she watched him get stitched.

  When the doctors were finished, the nurses came to work on them like ants on food. They crowded and cleaned blood, and partially pulled the curtain between the two beds. Before he knew it he was covered in gauze. They had parked a serving cart with dispensers of tube gauze that they cut repeatedly, sliding it over his feet, up his arms, around his torso even to hold gauze pads in place where there wasn’t undamaged skin to adhere to tape.

  Not all of the gauze they cut came his way, and he figured Norah would be at least as covered as he was. When they finished and rolled away the cart, he pulled back the curtain to reveal that he’d been right. The parts of her he could see were half covered with the mesh tubing, much of it with padding tucked underneath.

  She lay back, not making eye contact. Words fell out of her mouth, a whole sentence, and he felt his first ray of hope. “I’m a mummy.”

  “Yes, you are.” He felt the smallest of smiles at his mouth, and pushed himself off the bed only to find he was tethered to the IV and that was looped onto the pole at the end of the bed.

  He unhooked the bag and walked over to her. Norah nodded at him when he asked if he could piggyback her IV pole, and he pushed his bag next to hers before taking her hand. She squeezed, that one little contact keeping him breathing.

  The nurse in pink returned with another set of sterile bags. She eyed him with disapproval but TJ didn’t move from where he stood. Hurricanes wouldn’t move him.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m going to have to ask you to get back into your bed or step out of the room for a moment.”

  Out of the room?

  Norah’s face reflected his puzzlement.r />
  The nurse held up the package with a grim look on her face. Her voice was soft. “We need to do a rape kit, and that involves an exam.”

  Chapter 46

  If someone had opened the soles of his feet and let all his blood drain from him, TJ couldn’t have felt more empty. He couldn’t look at Norah. He just wanted to disappear.

  “No!” Norah’s voice sliced through him.

  “Honey,” The nurse used her most soothing tones. “I know that this is awful, but this is how we catch those bastards. You’ll likely be glad later that you did.”

  “No.” Norah struggled to sit up, the sheets and her gowns hindering her. She turned to TJ and he waited for her to plead with him to tell her it was okay, that she didn’t have to. And he knew that’s what he’d say. He’d nail the bastard himself, she didn’t have to suffer anymore.

  She tugged at his hand forcing him to look at her, and for the first time her eyes met his, and she was really in there. When she had his attention, she spoke. “He didn’t rape me.” Her head shook side to side, “You got there in time. He didn’t.”

  His legs went out from under him then and he crashed, knees first, to the cold hospital floor, hearing the words falling from his mouth, thanking a God he’d forgotten existed.

  “TJ!” Norah shrieked and started to scramble over the side of the bed, only to be stopped by the pink nurse who beat her to his side.

  Getting his legs under him, he sat on the floor, his lungs heaving for oxygen as though he’d been underwater this whole time. His eyes blinked, his hands went to his face.

  Norah’s hand appeared in his vision and, like a drowning man, he grabbed at it and held tight.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

  It was Norah’s voice soothing him. When he was breathing well enough, he looked up to see her still hanging over the side of the bed at him.

  But the nurse cut off any conversation, helping him to his feet and pulling his IV bag down, she asked him to join her in the hall. Since he was tethered to the bag and she was leaving with it, he let Norah’s hand slip from his, “I’ll be right back.”

  Norah nodded in response.

  Once in the hallway, the nurse gave him a stern look. “I don’t want to burst your bubble, but women have lied about this. They don’t want to believe it happened so they say it didn’t.”

  TJ frowned, but the nurse continued delivering her bad news. “One of the major reasons they lie is because they don’t want the men who love them to know. Boyfriends and husbands have left over these situations. Her recovery depends on the truth, whether or not she does the rape kit. And I don’t know that what we heard back there was the truth.”

  The nurse was right, his bubble deflated. “How do we get the truth?”

  The nurse looked him square in the eye. “Does it matter to you if she was raped?”

  “Hell, yes, it matters. That bastard—” He was near yelling when the nurse cut him off.

  “I meant, does it matter about what you think of her?”

  “No.” It was shorter than a single syllable.

  “Then go back in there and convince her of that.”

  He let out a sardonic laugh. “I’m not her boyfriend. I’m just a friend.”

  “Are you sure?” The nurse squinted at him.

  “I wish it was more, but it’s been a fucking bad morning.” He put his hands on his hips, and snatched the IV bag from the nurse, before plunging another knife into himself and trying to convince Norah to give them the truth.

  In the end, Norah shooed him out of the room, and asked the nurse if the exam would show that she hadn’t been raped. “Don’t even bother opening your little kit.”

  TJ left, knowing the nurse still wasn’t convinced.

  Three minutes later, the nurse emerged. “I didn’t even have to do the exam, she’s telling the truth.”

  “Thank you.” The words were a whispered prayer to the empty beds and gauze cabinets where he sat on the floor in the hallway just outside her door.

  The police came next, and spent far too long interviewing them. They gave statements separately, TJ itching to be beside Norah, but knowing that getting the bastard convicted depended on following the right procedures. He told them everything.

  They were both given scrubs to wear, and finally released, no injury was serious enough to hold either of them. Norah was wheeled to the front in a wheelchair, which TJ pushed. He might have enjoyed the irony in another circumstance, but today he was just sick to his stomach. The nurses handed them prescriptions for painkillers, antibiotics, and anti-HIV drugs. The security guard gave him his wallet, keys and directions to where the car was parked.

  Holding her hand for support, he led her on shaky legs across the lot. At the car he opened her door and started to hand her in, but stopped halfway through, pulling her into a bear hug. She buried her face in his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. They clung until his shaking stopped, then her voice piped up from between them. “Ow.”

  “Sorry.”

  She shook her head lazily, and a little drunkenly. She’d been sedated and it hadn’t all worn off. Nor should it. She was in for a world of pain while she healed. “Don’t be sorry. I needed that.”

  “Me, too.” This time he handed her into the car, gently closing the door while she tipped the seat upright and made faces at the blood that had smeared and soaked into the once beautiful gray leather seats.

  He tried to slide into the driver’s side and found he was too stiff, that it was more painful than he had expected.

  “You need to get home and take some drugs.”

  He nodded. “I’m taking you home.”

  TJ had no intention whatsoever of going to his own cold house. He had no intention of leaving her side for the near eternity.

  “Can I call the dance studio?” Her words weren’t clear; she couldn’t move her face where the swelling and bruising made it difficult for her to talk. Just looking at her made it difficult for him to talk. So he nodded.

  “Tell me the number, talking doesn’t hurt me.” He lied.

  She dialed and handed him the phone. For a few minutes he understated every truth he knew. Norah wasn’t feeling well, she wouldn’t be in tonight. No, not tomorrow or the next day either. He hung up and handed the phone back to her, “Your Dad.”

  This was the phone call he dreaded, and he couldn’t do all of it. If someone told him this had happened to Norah, he would have run down fifteen people on the way to get to her and not cared. “Sir, TJ Hewlitt. First, Norah is all right.” He hoped it wasn’t a lie. “But she’s not feeling well, so I’m going to bring her home.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you on your way home?” TJ could tell that Mr. Davidson didn’t know why he was getting a call from someone who sounded like he was going to tuck Norah in and give her some chicken noodle soup.

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll meet you there in about half an hour.” TJ hung up, figuring that mysterious was better than lying or alarming the man too much.

  Finally turning the engine over, he headed out of the parking lot. The dash clock read 5:13. He hit traffic every step of the way, his aches settling in with every crawled mile. Norah was asleep within minutes, her bloody sneakers worn barefoot beneath the hem of green scrubs. He looked away, knowing he could stare at her forever, and that it wasn’t safe to drive like that. The last road was easier, almost deserted, as it always was here on the edge of town.

  He cruised up the long drive, parking as close to the front porch as he could, and forcing himself to unfold. Trying not to wake her, he tucked his arms under her, attempting to not prod or rub any stitches or bruises, and knowing his efforts were futile. There was no place left to touch her it seemed. In the end, he hoped that her medication took the worst of the sting away and pushed his arms behind her, lifting her from the seat.

  She mumbled but didn’t wake.

  With her sleeping bruised and battered in his arms, TJ turned to find he
r father standing in the open doorway, alarm written all over his face. He was certain that the man would take Norah from him the second they were close enough, and he climbed the stairs dreading the loss of her from his arms.

  But Mr. Davidson didn’t. He met TJ’s eyes and held the door. “Her room is up this way.”

  He went up the stairs almost backwards, examining his daughter but not taking her. For that, TJ was grateful. The older man grew more worried as they neared the top of the stairs, but again held the door and left the light off while TJ nestled her on the bed and slowly removed her sneakers.

  Again he saw the blood on her shoes, so he turned to hand them to her father, “Burn these.”

  Mr. Davidson set them aside and motioned TJ into the hall. He pulled Norah’s door mostly closed but left a sliver of light shining in.

  Here it was. TJ had been fearing facing her father, but had never imagined it would come this way. How did he tell the man what had happened? How did he explain that they hadn’t called earlier? So he opened his mouth and started with the basics. “She was at the track this morning, and she was attacked. He tried to rape her, but Norah fought him off, sir.”

  Mr. Davidson put a hand to his face and tried to digest that. He breathed deep for several full minutes before he finally looked up.

  TJ braced himself for the blow, the questions, the accusations.

  None of it came. “Then who did you tangle with, son?”

  “Him.” It was the only way to put it.

  Mr. Davidson’s arms came around him in a bracing hug that he hadn’t seen coming. Watery words were spoken at his ear. “Thank you.”

  TJ nodded, feeling everything drain out of him again. He’d been set for a fight. When it didn’t happen, he didn’t know what to do.

  “You going home?” Mr. Davidson tipped his head.

  “No, sir.” TJ pointed at the top step, “If you don’t mind, I figure this is about as far as I’m headed.” He sat.

  The older man smiled.

  “Oh!” TJ pulled the papers from his breast pocket on the scrubs, “She has prescriptions she needs filled. Can you . . .?”