I took off my glasses and pinched the bridge of my nose, setting the book down on the table by Brandon’s hospital bed. “Sorry, I gotta take a break. Shantaram is long, man.”
It would take me a month to read it to him, but it was the book he’d started at the station before the accident, and I knew he’d want to hear it.
It only took me a minute before my thoughts slid back to Kristen. My mind always slid back to Kristen.
At least at work I had distractions. I picked up extra shifts when I could so I wouldn’t be at home, staring at the walls of my studio, thinking about her or worrying about Brandon. I went to the gym on my days off after visiting the hospital. I went all day sometimes. I’d unpacked my apartment, bought a couch and a TV. Tried to stay busy.
But inevitably, no matter what I was doing, I was thinking about her.
And now, without the book to read, sitting there with Brandon in the middle of the night, I had nothing to do but think.
I checked my watch: 2:12 a.m. I pictured Kristen, sleeping on her side under her flower bedspread. Her hand tucked under her favorite pillow—the one with the beige flannel pillowcase. Stuntman Mike curled up on top of the blanket in the tangle of her legs. The clock on her nightstand giving me just enough light to see her long lashes across her smooth cheeks.
I mentally pulled the blanket up to her chin and kissed her forehead and saw her eyes flutter open as she smiled at me.
Fuck, I missed her.
“I wish you could talk to me,” I said to Brandon. “Tell me what to do. I need you to wake up and straighten me out. Or even better, wake up and straighten her out.”
I dragged a hand down my face. When I saw her today, it just confirmed what I already knew. I wasn’t ever going to get over her. I wasn’t ever going to not miss her.
She was punishing me for a crime I didn’t even know I’d committed. For things I had said and things I wanted before I knew what they’d mean later. Every comment had been a nail in the board across the door she’d closed on me.
“I don’t even know how to begin to convince her,” I said. “She won’t even speak to me.” I snorted. “Leave it to me to be in love with the world’s most stubborn woman.”
I tried to think about what Brandon’s response to this would be. He was always so level-headed. He would know what to do.
The more I tried to sway her, the further she distanced herself. The more I told her I loved her, the more she shut down. And I didn’t know how to stop it.
I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees, and I peered around the cold, sterile room. Beige walls. Gray machines around the bed. Some I recognized, some I didn’t. The only sounds at the late hour were the faint jingle of a phone ringing in the nurses’ station, the ping of an elevator, the faraway sound of the wheels of a cart, and the gentle beep of Brandon’s vital signs monitor.
They wouldn’t allow any flowers or personal items in the ICU, but Sloan had snuck in an engagement photo. It sat on the table next to the bed. Her and Brandon on the beach, the surf crashing around their feet, her tattooed arm over his shoulder, them looking at each other. Both of them laughing.
I looked back at him and sighed. “You’re going to have some gnarly scars, buddy.” They’d started the skin grafts for the road rash on his arm. “But you’ll get to do everything you planned to do with your life. One of us is going to get the girl. I’ll help you any way I can. Even if I have to wheel your ass to the altar.”
I could picture his smile. With any luck I’d see it in a few hours. A knock on the door frame turned me around in my chair.
“Hey, cutie.” Valerie came into the room for her vitals check. She turned the lights up, and I stood and stretched.
As if sleeping in a chair wasn’t hard enough, the activity every two hours was the final kicker. I wouldn’t call anything I did on these overnight shifts sleeping. Maybe napping, but not sleeping. Every two hours Brandon was moved. They checked his airways, changed out bags, looked at his vitals. I don’t know how Sloan was handling doing this almost nightly for the last three weeks.
Sloan was a good woman. I’d always liked her, but now she’d earned my respect, and I was grateful Brandon and Kristen had her.
“Did you decide what day you want to bring the kids to the station?” I asked Valerie, yawning.
She cycled the blood pressure cuff on Brandon’s arm and smiled. “I’m thinking Tuesday. You on shift Tuesday?”
“Yup.”
She wrote down some notes on Brandon’s chart and then gave me a raised eyebrow. “Any updates with your lady friend?”
I laughed a little. “No.”
The whole nursing staff knew about my depressing love life. I’d gotten hit on a few too many times by some of the younger nurses. I couldn’t claim to have a girlfriend, and I wasn’t married, so it was either “I’m gay” or “I’m in love with that girl over there.”
I’d gone with the latter, and now I wished I’d said I was gay.
They didn’t know why Kristen wouldn’t date me, just that she wouldn’t. It had turned into the favorite topic of the ICU. A real-life episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I rarely got through a Brandon visit without it coming up.
The drama escalated when Kristen had been hit on by the nurses’ favorite single orthopedic surgeon. According to the nurses’ gossip circuit, Kristen told him to go fuck himself.
And apparently she’d actually said, “Go fuck yourself.” After that everyone was sure she was holding out for me. Only I knew better.
Valerie checked Brandon’s temperature. “You know, I told that girl myself she’s nuts. You know what she said to me?”
I arched an eyebrow. “What?”
“She said, ‘Just because a man gives you the best sex of your life doesn’t
mean you need to date his ass.’ Lawd, I just about died,” she snickered.
I snorted. Yup, that sounded like Kristen. Well, at least I’d done something right.
Valerie chuckled to herself while she checked Brandon’s pulse. “He’s coming out tomorrow. I bet you’re all getting pretty excited.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “This has been a really tough few weeks.” “He’s gonna do great.”
She changed out the bag on his IV drip. Then she pulled out a small light from her breast pocket, clicked it on, and opened his right eye. “You know, a lot of the nurses are gonna miss the steady stream of cute firemen coming through he—”
She paused.
She opened his other eye and shone the light into his pupil. She cleared her throat as she clicked the light off and slipped it back in her pocket. “We sure are going to miss you guys.” She picked up his chart.
She didn’t look at me. Her tone changed. Her body changed. I’d done that change myself on the scene of a call.
Something is wrong.
“What is it?”
She didn’t answer me.
I pulled out my cell phone and turned on the flashlight. I leaned over Brandon and opened his eye while Valerie watched me wordlessly.
My breath caught in my throat. “No. No! ”
I looked at the other eye, and my hands started to shake. I stumbled back from the bed and knocked into my chair, dropping my cell phone to the floor with a clatter.
Valerie looked at me, and we exchanged a moment of understanding. His pupils were blown.
They were large black marbles in his eyes.
