Four Letter Word

by J. Daniels

Taking my chances and returning to the department after an amount of time I felt was appropriate, I relaxed, realizing with three of us left and two OR cases going on at the same time, the other two techs handling those upon my return, I was safe from being told to leave.

  I sat by the printer waiting for a requisition to print out, and when it did, I’d go handle house patients or x-rays that needed to be done in the emergency room.

  Even handling all of that by myself, I still wasn’t busy.

  But at least I was here and not in my car on my way to Brian’s.

  Things were looking up.

  Sort of.

  I say this because I was currently filling out a crossword puzzle from the Sunday paper we had lying around the department, waiting for another requisition to print out, thinking about Brian because I was filling out a crossword puzzle.

  I wasn’t even reading the clues. I was just filling out four letter word blocks with whatever came to mind.

  Love.

  Wild.

  Hate.

  Risk.

  Liar.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  FUCK.

  If someone were to find this paper when I was finished with it, there was a chance they could use it as evidence when I went on trial for my sanity.

  I’d be sent to the psych ward for sure.

  Yet knowing that, I still filled in my own answers.

  When the department phone started ringing on the desk in front of me, I dropped my pen and reached for the receiver just as a requisition started printing out.

  “X-ray, this is Syd,” I answered.

  “Hey, it’s Melissa up in ICU. I just put in an order for a stat portable chest to check a line placement. Can you come do it right away? The doctor is waiting.”

  I stood and grabbed the requisition off the printer.

  “Yep. It just printed out. I’ll be right up.”

  “Thanks.”

  I hung up the phone and studied the order.

  It was for an eight-year-old boy with pneumonia. I immediately thought about Oliver.

  My nose starting stinging.

  Shaking those thoughts away, I snatched the key off the desk, took the requisition, and left the department, stepping out into the hallway where we kept our portable machines plugged in and charging.

  When I reached the fifth floor, I pushed the machine off the elevator and started down the hallway, looking up at the room numbers because I always forgot where they began.

  I was at Room 17 and the patient was in Room 4. That was on the opposite side of the department.

  “X-ray,” one of the nurses called out to me when I was passing by the reception desk.

  I looked to her and stopped pushing the machine.

  She was carrying an IV bag when she came closer, stopped at the tall counter that circled the desk, and said to me, “Just hang around up here for a minute. The doctors are in there working on him. They might still need it.”

  The way she was speaking, I knew what that meant.

  I nodded and gave her a sullen smile.

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Then I pushed the machine past the desk, cut down the small corridor connecting the two sides of the department to get to the even-numbered rooms, turned the corner, and froze.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  “Brian?”

  My boy was standing in the hallway outside Room 4, staring through the glass and watching the doctors work on the patient I was supposed to be x-raying, but when I said his name, Brian turned his head.

  My heart seized in my chest.

  He looked devastated. His skin was pale and his eyes were lifeless as they locked on to mine.

  It was like I was staring at a ghost.

  I parked the portable machine against the wall and ran to him.

  I had to.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked when I reached his side, but before he could give me an answer, I got it for myself.

  I turned my head and looked through the glass at the boy in the bed, who was currently getting CPR administered on him. A doctor was hovering over and compressing down on his chest while a nurse was squeezing the bag attached to this breathing tube, giving him air.

  There was a crash cart next to the bed and several other nurses circling and doing their jobs, plus other workers standing around watching. Then my eyes cut through the crowd and fell on the parents, who were huddled together at the back of the room, holding each other and crying.

  I recognized the father first. He was facing the door. Then I recognized the kid when I looked back at the bed.

  His wheelchair was in the corner next to the bathroom.

  “Oh, God,” I whispered, bringing my hand up to my mouth. “Oh, my God.”

  Brian didn’t say anything, but I heard him make a noise deep in his throat like he was choking, and I reached down and grabbed his hand, slid my fingers between his, and held on tight.

  He held me back.

  We stood outside that room together, watching as the doctors and nurses did everything they could to keep that boy alive. They worked tirelessly, switching off with compressions after several minutes, and at one point a doctor looked up and motioned for me to come in and shoot the x-ray, but then the heart monitor started alarming again and they had to go back to doing CPR.

  Brian and I didn’t speak. We didn’t look at each other. I didn’t let go and neither did he.

  Pneumonia can be a complication of spinal cord injuries.

  People died from pneumonia. I wished that little boy could’ve been the exception that day.

  But he wasn’t.

  After eleven minutes, the doctors and nurses stopped working. There was nothing more they could do. His body gave up.

  The parents ran to his side and held him as the team cleared the room to give them their privacy.

  I was already crying but started crying harder.

  I was devastated for them.

  Brian dropped his head into the hand I wasn’t holding and fell apart next to me. His big, strong body nearly buckled in half.

  “Honey,” I soothed, my voice trembling. I turned into him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, holding the back of his head as he buried his face in my neck and pressed closer, his tears absorbing into my skin, his arms holding so tight around my back it hurt, but I let it.

  I had to comfort him.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I whispered as we cried together, because I didn’t know if Brian was allowing himself to think that again and I couldn’t let him do that. I couldn’t. “Don’t go to that place, Brian. You didn’t do this, okay? This is not on you.”

  He didn’t say anything back, but his arms squeezed tighter.

  I winced and came up on my toes.

  I didn’t tell him to stop. I kept comforting him.

  And he kept holding tight.

  I have no idea how long we stood there, but I did know I would stand there for as long as he needed.

  “What…what are you doing here?”

  Brian and I pulled away from each other at the sound of a woman’s voice at my back.

  I turned my head and saw the parents of the boy standing just outside the room now. They were both staring at Brian, tears still filling the eyes of the father and the mother with fresh ones on her cheeks.

  Brian didn’t respond. I looked to him and he was staring back, his body rigid and yet shaking somehow.

  I grabbed his hand again and did the only thing I could think of.

  “He’s the one who’s been giving you all that money,” I told the parents, feeling Brian’s hand tense in mine. “For your son. It’s all been from him.”

  The father’s shoulders dropped. He stared in disbelief at Brian.

  The mother sucked in a breath, her eyes widening as they slid from my face and looked to the man standing next to me. Then her lip started quivering, new tears built behind her lashes, her head started shaking, and she came forward, crying agai
n as she threw her arms around Brian and gave him a hug.

  I felt Brian stop shaking and his body go perfectly still. He didn’t reciprocate the affection and he never let go of my hand.

  The hug lasted only a couple of seconds and she never said a word to him, then the mother stepped back, covered her mouth, and moved back into the room.

  The father came in front of Brian then and placed his hand on Brian’s shoulder. He looked him in the eyes and I knew the man was expressing his gratitude even though he didn’t speak the words.

  Maybe he couldn’t.

  But Brian heard them. I could feel the tension leaving his body.

  When the father stepped away, I looked up at Brian. His eyes had lost their focus and his breathing was shallow.

  He was processing what he’d just been given.

  It was a lot. I could tell.

  I was sure he never expected it.

  Brian gave that money knowing he’d never take credit for it.

  I stood there silent and allowed him to process, wiping tears away and slowly composing myself.

  Then Brian blinked several times through a deep breath, brought our hands that were still together in front of him, and wrapped his other hand around the back of mine.

  He stared at our joining.

  Someone paged X-ray on the intercom overhead. I told myself I’d respond to that in a minute.

  I just needed another minute.

  Just one.

  “I’m so sorry, Brian,” I told him, finally speaking again, not remembering if I had said that already when I was comforting him minutes ago.

  I whispered a lot. I know I whispered I loved him. I couldn’t help it.

  His eyes lifted to my face, and I saw how bright they appeared now, still shadowed with sadness but not as much as they were when I first rounded the corner and saw him standing here. He looked different, relieved maybe, but it was almost as if he was hiding that behind a different shade of pain now.

  Pain for the parents who had just lost their child. The kind of pain anyone would feel and sympathize with. And pain because he was looking at me and he didn’t know what that meant, where we stood, or how I was feeling, and he worried the worst while thinking it was useless to hope for the best.

  “I—”

  “I fixed it,” Brian interrupted my sad attempt at small talk, because I honestly didn’t know what to say to him and knew if I didn’t say something and kept watching him hold me and look at me like that, I’d end up kissing him.

  I blinked up at Brian, absorbing his words.

  “What?” I asked, stepping closer.

  He sniffed, and the corner of his mouth tilted up the tiniest bit.

  “Those videos are gone, Wild,” he shared. His voice was confident. “All of them. Got everything taken down from that site. There’s nothing left of me on there, and there’s no trace of it anywhere else. It’s gone.”

  I heard what he was saying. I understood what he was saying.

  I just didn’t believe it.

  “How? How did you do that?”

  He shook his head and held my hand tighter with both of his, telling me, “Doesn’t matter. It’s done.”

  “But what about if someone saved those videos on their own computer or something? They could share them all over the Internet.”

  That had become a worry of mine that I’d discovered while lying in bed that first night without Brian.

  It stressed me out so badly, I didn’t fall asleep until the sun came up.

  “Not an option,” he answered firmly. “That dickhead running the site wouldn’t allow anyone seeing his shit and not paying for it. You couldn’t save images or videos on your own devices. He made sure of that.”

  “Oh,” I replied, pulling my lips between my teeth and looking away.

  My heart started beating faster.

  He fixed it, just like he said he would.

  “Wild.”

  My eyes slid back to Brian’s.

  He opened his mouth, and I knew what he was going to ask me, and for some reason I couldn’t explain, I panicked.

  I covered his mouth with my other hand and prevented him from speaking.

  “I can’t, Brian,” I blurted out, suddenly feeling overwhelmed, watching his brows pull together, his eyes go sad, and feeling his breath burst against my palm. “I can’t. I’m…I just need to think a little more, okay? This has been really hard and I just, I don’t know if I’m ready.” I slid my hand away and stepped back, pulling my other out of his hold. “I’m sorry.”

  Then, so I wouldn’t see that look on his face any longer, that look that was killing me and making it hard to breathe, I turned and ran out of the ICU, leaving the portable machine behind.

  Brian called out for me but I kept running.

  I rode the elevators to the bottom floor and hurried back to my department, shutting myself in the room I was slowly going crazy in and busying myself with the work waiting for me.

  Work I was grateful for. I needed that distraction now more than ever.

  Hours ticked by, and even though my focus was on my job because it had to be, my mind still wandered. And the more it wandered, the more I thought about Brian, and the more I thought about Brian, the more I thought about everything, him fixing us and the reaction I had to it, bringing me to the conclusion I didn’t want to make while being stuck at work.

  I’d made a mistake.

  What I’d said to Brian wasn’t entirely true.

  Yes, it was really hard finding out what Brian had been doing and learning what all he’d kept from me.

  It broke my heart.

  Yes, I didn’t know if I was ready to go back to the life I was sharing with Brian, if I could allow myself to feel that kind of love again when I knew what losing it felt like.

  Love was a risk. It was wild and unpredictable. You could either hold on for the ride, not knowing how it would end, or you could let go and never know the amazing you could’ve had.

  And yes, I was sorry. I was sorry for what happened to us. I was sorry for everything Brian had to face without me.

  But what wasn’t true was that I didn’t need to think. I didn’t need to convince myself who I wanted to hand my heart over to so they could heal it. I didn’t need to weigh the pros and cons of sharing my life with someone who had it in him to make me happy again, the happiest, and I didn’t need to wonder if choosing Brian was the right choice, because I knew the answer.

  He was never a choice. He was my fate. My boy. Everything he ever promised me he made sure to see through.

  He fixed it, just like he said he would.

  And running from him was a mistake I needed to make right on.

  I was holding on for this ride. I’d never let go of it.

  I loved him. I’d die loving him.

  Heart racing and ready, I counted down the remaining seconds of my shift while staring at the time clock, on the verge of screaming, it was taking so long. After punching out and grabbing my things, I ran through the hospital and out to my car, tossed my book bag on the passenger seat, started it up, and peeled out.

  I drove moderately fast to get to the house, figuring if I was to get pulled over, I’d just explain my situation to the police, hoping they were understanding of a woman needing to right her wrongs and get the love of her life back.

  If they weren’t and issued me a ticket, so be it. I wasn’t slowing down.

  Throwing the car into Park and cutting the engine, I ran up the driveway, jumped up onto the porch, stood in front of the door while taking in several calming breaths, getting my nerves in check, and then knocked.

  I felt it was the appropriate thing to do, all things considered.

  The door swung open before I had time to lower my hand, and before Brian could question what I was doing there or ask why I was knocking again, since he looked geared up to do just that, I opened my mouth and beat him to speaking.

  “Hey, Trouble.”

  He blinked, looking shocked at m
y greeting, which I understood.

  I was falling back into old habits. It was as if nothing had changed between us.

  “Hey, Wild,” he replied, falling with me.

  The flip and twist happened.

  God, that felt good.

  I cleared my throat, tipped my chin up, and requested, “Can I come in?”

  Brian’s mouth twitched. Fighting a smile, he stepped back and held the door open.

  “Thank you,” I said, moving inside. I looked around, noticing the TV was on and expecting more noise.

  “He’s outside,” Brian said behind me, reading my mind. He shut the door and crossed the room, grabbing the remote off the couch and turning down the volume.

  “How is he?” I asked.

  “Good. Misses you.” Brian dropped the remote and took a step closer. “I miss you.”

  I watched him keep coming, slowly eliminating the distance between us.

  Holding up my hand, I told him, “I’ve been doing some thinking, and before you come any closer or say anything else that’ll make me want to kiss you instead of saying what I need to say, I’d like to share my thoughts while keeping some space.”

  Brian stopped moving toward me.

  “You wanna kiss me?” he asked.

  “Yes, but I know once we start kissing, I won’t wanna stop.”

  He didn’t fight that smile anymore. He gave it to me, big and bright.

  And it was beautiful.

  “That’s not a bad thing, babe,” he said, tucking his hands inside his pockets. “Feel the same way, and now that I know you want that kiss as bad as I do, I suggest you get to talking. It’s been too long since I had your mouth and I’m feeling pretty impatient right now.”

  I sucked in a breath. He was feeling impatient.

  As instructed, I didn’t waste any time.

  “I made a mistake,” I whispered.

  Brian lost the smile. His eyes softened.

  “I don’t need time to think,” I continued with tears building behind my lashes. “I don’t. I don’t know why I said that. I think I was just overwhelmed by everything, and hearing you tell me you fixed it…I wanted that so bad, Brian. I did, but I didn’t think it was possible. You promised me you would and I was so scared you’d fail. I was scared we’d never have us again. I didn’t want that. I would never want that. I love you. I love you so much.”