by Linnea Hall
“Wait.” His plea made her heart flutter and her knees go weak. “It was you that came to see me in ICU.” It was a statement, not a question.
She swallowed against the lump in her throat. How could he possibly know that? He was in a coma when she saw him last. “Well, yes, but I’m sure that a lot of nurses came to see you when you were in ICU.”
“Yes, but you…” he paused, looking for the right word. “You felt different. I can feel you that way now.”
“You felt me?” She had turned back towards him, but his back was still to her, still looking out the window.
“Maybe felt isn’t the right word. Have you ever been sitting in a room with your back to the door, and all of a sudden you know that someone is right behind you, even though you didn’t hear them come in? It was like that, sort of. Well, that’s still not exactly it, but it’s the same now. You only came in one time. I could feel you watching me. Not like you were checking my injuries, but like you were looking at me.”
Jewell was taken aback by his words. How could he know what she was doing when she came to see him in ICU? How did he know it was her, and not someone else?
“In the emergency room too. I felt you, your eyes, looking at me. I know it was you. You sat with me, you were crying. Why?”
Jewell didn’t know how to answer that question. In fact, she was unsure of a lot of things right now. She felt like a deer caught in a car’s headlights, knowing that it needs to run to save itself, but not being able to move, staring at the car that would soon end its life.
He turned then, to look at her. His eyes were nothing like what she had expected. They weren’t blue at all, as she imagined they would be, but gray, almost black, like clouds just before a thunderstorm. And now those eyes were focused on her, trapping her in his intense stare. He didn’t say anything else; he simply waited, expecting her to respond to his question.
She couldn’t remember the question. She couldn’t remember her name, or what she was doing here. Her heart was racing so fast she was certain she was going to faint. Her knees started trembling, and her hand was pushing against the wall, bracing her, keeping her from falling. Then she realized she wasn’t breathing. She concentrated, and was able to draw a deep, gasping breath.
Swallowing hard, she took another deep breath before trying to speak. When she finally felt she could say something, she asked “Excuse me? What did you say?” But her voice was only a whisper, and she wasn’t sure that he heard what she had said from across the room.
“I said, why were you crying?”
“How…how do you know that? How can you know when you were…?” Her voice trailed off, unable to say dead, unable to convince herself that his death had really happened, that he had defied death and was now speaking to her.
“I don’t know,” he whispered, “it was like I was dreaming, but it was more…real. I knew even before I turned around what you would look like, because I saw you then, in the emergency room.” His voice was measured, even. She realized then that he was probably as confused as she was. “Would you like to sit with me? I don’t get many visitors. At least, none that don’t want to poke me with something.”
Jewell stepped away from the door, testing her legs. She wasn’t sure that they were solid enough to support her weight. When she was certain that she wouldn’t collapse if she let go of the wall, she walked carefully across the room toward the recliner on the other side of his bed. He watched her attentively as she moved around the room. When she reached the recliner, she put her hands on the arms of the chair and carefully eased herself down. She was relieved to be sitting, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to stand much longer.
“You still haven’t answered my question.” He grinned, his smile lopsided because of the injuries to his face.
“I’m sorry; I don’t remember what you asked.”
“Why were you crying?”
“Well, I guess because it’s sad when someone…” She was about to say “dies” but thought better of it “well, when someone gets injured because someone else was doing something stupid. My mother was killed by a drunk driver; I guess the situation just reminded me of her.”
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed as he looked away from her.
Was he expecting something else? What was the answer that he wanted to hear? That she was crying because she thought she had lost her soul mate? Because she wouldn’t meet someone she should have met? Because fate had ripped from her the one person who would complete her life? Was that what he was waiting for? Was that how he felt too? Could she find the courage to tell him that?
When he didn’t say anything for several minutes, she pushed herself up from the chair. “Well, I guess I had better go. My father will be expecting me. I’m…well, I’m glad to see that you are doing so well.”
“Thanks,” he muttered without turning to look at her as she left.
When he heard the door close behind Jewell, he rolled over to stare at the door hoping that she would come back to tell him the she felt about him the way he felt about her. It was crazy, but when he looked into her eyes, he felt like she was the only thing that mattered in his life. There was nothing else in the world, just her. When she was in the room, all of his pain disappeared; all of his thoughts were about hope and beauty and her.
She was the woman that he had been looking for his whole life without even knowing that he was looking. He had dated before, in high school, in college, but nothing could have prepared him for this. The electricity between them was palpable. He was certain that she must feel it too. For a moment, when she first walked in, he believed that she could feel it, like he did, the inexorable draw, pulling them together like two magnets.
But then, it was gone. The look in her eyes that made him think, maybe…just maybe; but when he asked her why, her answer was one of concern; simple, professional concern. Then he understood. She was a nurse, concerned for her patient, checking on his wellbeing, nothing more.
But he could not bring himself ignore that she did not feel about him the way that he felt about her. He would convince her. He would make her see the possibilities of what they could be, together. He tried to go to sleep. He was tired. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since his accident. Every couple of hours someone came in to give him a shot, or to check his injuries, or to measure his pulse, or to shine a light into his pupils to make sure that they were dilating correctly, to ensure he hadn’t suffered an injury to his brain.
He hadn’t, he was sure of it. In fact, he felt fine. The self-administered morphine that hung from a bag next to his bed and attached to a tube in his arm, remained untouched. He hurt, but not enough to suffer the disorientation brought on by the drug. He asked the nurse for an aspirin now and again drawing confused looks and sometimes a reminder about the morphine.
The nurses always seemed surprised he wasn’t in more pain but he wasn’t. When he was five he climbed a tree in front of his house that was tall, but spindly. It was very young, and not strong enough to support the weight of a young boy. When one of the branches broke he plummeted towards the ground landing with his arm twisted under his body. His arm broke in three places. The doctor told his uncle that Collin would likely be in a cast for at least six weeks, more likely eight. His uncle, who was a doctor, had removed the cast only two weeks after it had been put on. Collin’s arm was fine. His uncle didn’t seem pleased. In fact, he almost seemed despondent that Collin had healed so quickly. Collin was thrilled to be climbing trees again so soon after his disastrous mishap. So the fact that Collin now felt fine, with the exception of some lingering pain where the injuries were particularly bad, did not surprise Collin.
Now, lying in a hospital bed after a near fatal crash, he was grateful for his quick healing. His body ached. Sometimes, when he was sleeping, he would turn onto his right side and the pain from his injuries would jolt him awake, pain stabbing through his entire body. When he was awake however, he was able to maneuver so as to minimize the pain. It had be
en almost five days since the accident. He knew that he shouldn’t feel this good, not that he really felt all that good, but he was glad that he did.
But now, there was a new pain. Something in his chest, stabbing, throbbing, and sending a conspicuous ache throughout his body from his head to his toes that he was unable to ignore. He glanced at the morphine. He knew the morphine was there to help curtail the physical pain of his injuries, but he knew that the euphoric effects produced by the drug may help to ease the psychological pain he was feeling now. He pressed the button on the morphine drip; the audible beep of the machine indicating that the measured dose was being administered. He felt the medicine start to take effect as it moved through his body. At first, there was just a slight dizziness, but as he maxed out his dose, he felt oblivion creeping in to cloak his mind and relieve him from his heartache.
CHAPTER 8
When Jewell started to leave the house two hours before her shift started at the hospital, her father was curious.
“Isn’t it a little early to be leaving for work? I haven’t heard anything about traffic on the causeway, what’s the rush?
“There’s something I need to do dad, at the hospital, before my shift. I need to look in on a patient.” That was the truth, but not all of it. She found that she had been leaving out a lot of information in her explanations of late.
Her dad, always curious about her job and how she spent her days, pressed for details. “I didn’t realize they expected you to do that. Shouldn’t they let you do that during your shift, rather than making you come to work early? Your shift is already twelve hours. This morning, you stayed almost an hour late, and today you’re headed in almost two hours early. Doesn’t seem quite fair, the way I see it.”
Jewell could tell by the tone in his voice that he thought she was up to something. She had never been able to hide anything from him. He tried so hard to treat her like an adult, but he still thought of her as twelve years old. She knew that he would never ask her directly about what she was doing, but his tone, his curiosity, were not any less direct than if he had come straight out and asked her what she was up to.
“I’ve just sort of been following that MVA that came in a couple of days ago. Checking on his progress to make sure he’s doing okay.” There it was again, half of the truth. She had always been able to tell her father everything, why couldn’t she open up to him now?
“Really?” He dragged the word out just a little too long, his tone a bit more than curious. Even though Jewell had never heard this tone in her father’s voice before, she knew exactly what he was asking. “You haven’t been this interested in any of the other patients you’ve treated in the ER. What makes this one so special that he has you running off to work two hours early and coming home an hour late?” Her father’s voice was almost teasing.
“Ugh! Dad!” She was a bit embarrassed that she had been caught. “His case is just really interesting. It’s not often someone dies and comes back to life again. It’s just professional curiosity, I swear!”
“Is he cute?”
“Oh my God, dad! What is wrong with you? Stop, please?” She could feel the blush heating her face, telling her father everything that he wanted to know, betraying her secrets.
Her father crossed his arms over his chest and smiled. “Have a nice time at work.”
“Whatever.” She stomped out the door, slamming it loudly as she left, acting like the teenager her father thought of her as, rather than the adult she was.
She didn’t go straight to his room when she arrived at the hospital. She went to the locker room first, and put her tote into her locker. She dallied a bit, trying to calm her excitement. First she dug around in her bag for a hairbrush. She walked over to the mirror and brushed her hair until the static caused it to stick out on the sides. She went to the sink for some water to brush out the static. Then she parted her hair on the right side. She usually wore the part in the middle, because that’s where it naturally fell, but she thought that made her head look pointy. The part on the right didn’t look very good, it accentuated a cowlick she had on that side of her head. She tried parting it on the left side. That looked better, but she couldn’t keep the hair from falling into her eyes. She ran her fingers back through her hair and let the part fall naturally in the middle again. Maybe if she teased the back a bit. She rummaged in her bag for a comb and wandered back to the mirror. She pulled up a section of hair and started back-combing to give it a little lift. By the time she was finished, it looked like a colony of rats had decided to take up residence on the top of her head. She combed it back down, working out the tangles she had created with her failed attempt at hair styling. It was then that Ashley walked in.
“Hey ugly. Whatcha up to?” She grinned as she started unpacking a curling iron, along with various cosmetics.
“What are you doing here?” Jewell asked, incredulous. She looked at the clock; it was still an hour and forty-five minutes until their shift started.
“Your dad called. He said he thought you might need a little help and asked me if I would mind coming in early to give you a hand.”
“Oh, for the love of…” Her voice trailed off. It was impossible to hate her dad, but sometimes she wished he was just a little more obtuse.
As Ashley plugged in the curling iron and started laying out the cosmetics, Jewell asked herself what she was doing here. It was obvious that her feelings for Collin must be the result of the nurse – patient relationship. Or maybe it was that longing for something that you can’t have. He was really handsome, but obviously he wouldn’t have any interest in someone like her; for heaven’s sake, she still lived with her father! She knew that guys just weren’t interested in her. Even the boys that she had grown up with, the ones that didn’t tease her, the ones that actually defended her, treated her more like a sister. They never liked her that way.
When Ashley had finished setting up her make-shift beauty salon, she dragged a chair over and placed it with the back to the mirror. “You can’t see until I’m finished.”
It didn’t take Ashley long to finish her makeover. Curling Jewell’s hair took the longest, but as Ashley dusted the mineral powder base on Jewell’s skin, she commented about how pretty Jewell could be if she just made a little effort. She dusted on the blush, and used a gray eye shadow “To bring out the blue in your eyes, and give you a sultry look,” she had said.
“Okay…look!” Ashley told Jewell turning her chair toward the mirror. What Jewell saw was astonishing. It wasn’t that she had magically transformed into a super model, but she really didn’t look quite so plain. It was an interesting revelation. When she turned around, Ashley held up a blouse apparently expecting Jewell to change out of her Tinker Bell t-shirt before heading upstairs. When Ashley finally pronounced her acceptable, Jewell headed for the elevators.
Jewell didn’t want to take the stairs today. In fact, she almost hoped that the elevators had stopped working to give her an excuse not to go see him. But it seemed like it had been only seconds when she heard the elevator ding, and saw the doors open beckoning her inside. She pushed the button for the sixth floor and watched the doors close, trapping her into her decision. As the elevator moved slowly past each floor, all she could do was wait, and think. Maybe the electricity would go out while she was in the elevator. Maybe she would be trapped inside for hours, unable to escape. She wasn’t sure which idea frightened her more; the idea of being trapped in the elevator, or the idea of facing Collin only to find that he was truly uninterested.
When the elevator doors opened, she left the elevator and walked slowly to his room almost without conscious effort. Again, she stood in front of the door, too frightened to go in, too frightened to run away. She took a deep breath and pushed the door open. He was sleeping, with his back to her again, on his left side. It made sense that he was always facing away from the door when she entered, it was probably more comfortable to lie on the side that had suffered less injury.
As Jewell stoo
d in the doorway, Collin was dreaming. In his dream, Collin was suddenly standing at the house in South Carolina where he lived when he first arrived in the states a couple of years ago; the fragrant flowering vines winding along the long fence enclosing the property. The smell was intoxicating, enchantingly sweet, inviting. The smell was fresh, almost fruity in its fragrance with a subtle hint of spice. It was alluringly feminine, enticingly romantic. That was when he saw her, standing by the gate, waiting for him. But as with many dreams, the closer he came to her, the further away she seemed, forever out of reach. As he thought about the bouquet, trying to remember the name of the flower so abundant at that home, the delicate scent of the small flowers slowly drew him from his dream. That was when he realized that the smell was in his room. He slowly rolled to his back, careful of his injuries, to see where the aroma was coming from.
Collin watched her standing in the door. Honeysuckle, that was the name of the vine, the smell in his room; it fit her, he thought. When he saw her this morning, she smelled of antiseptic soap and alcohol. As he thought about it, he realized that he had smelled the honeysuckle this morning, but not as strongly. This scent, this fragrance was her. This was how she was supposed to smell; of freshness and beauty, not sterility and medicine. He looked into her eyes. She was anxious, unsure of what he felt. He tried to smile, to reassure her, but knew when he felt the lopsided turn of his lips that his effort would be futile.
“You look better today than you did yesterday.” He grimaced. The medicine was definitely not helping his ability to charm her with his smooth vocabulary. “I mean, you’re not in your scrubs. Your hair looks nice when it’s down. Aren’t you working?”
“Well, no. I got to work a little early so I thought I’d come by and see how you were feeling.” She didn’t move further into the room, she felt awkward and uncomfortable; still unsure of his feelings.