Seven Days (26 page)

“Gotta hot date, Mr, K,” one of the little jock assholes that made ridiculous comments about cellular division and reproduction. It was like he thought he was the first guy to ever come up with it. I may be a decade or so older than the kids in my class, but those comments were tired when I was in school.

“Just waiting on an important call, Jesse,” I leveled with him. “Besides, I think you’ve already been on lunch for the last fifteen minutes,” I joked.

“You got that’s right!” he called back as I finally unlocked my phone and retrieved my message. Just like that, I felt my heart start beating for the first time in over a week. It was probably the first time since I watched Carrie drive away from me.

“You okay, Mr. K? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the mousey girl in the front row asked. Her name was Cassidy or Charity, something like that.

“N—no,” I shook my head before taking a seat on the stool beside my lab station. “I’m good,” I smiled, and meant it. I was fucking fantastic.

She was awake.

Now, how the fuck was I supposed to make it through the next three hours without ditching my own class like my students wanted to?

The next few hours passed in the blink of an eye. The pain came and went with the help of my trusty little button. Though, every time I pushed it, I ended up taking an unplanned nap. As much as the pain was unbearable, I hated how good the medication made me feel even more. The whole thing felt dangerous, like I was playing with fire, so I tried to wait longer and longer before pushing the button again. I hoped that, eventually, I’d get used to the persistent hum of the pain and I wouldn’t need the drugs at all.

After numerous tests and questions, the doctors determined that I was officially out of the woods. I, however, still had no idea what had happened aside from the fact that I was shot. The hole in my abdomen told me that, even if I didn’t remember the searing pain I’d been in when I was last conscious. Who had shot me? Had it been Dallas? Ben? One of the police officers, thinking I was trying to come after them? I remembered Dallas saying I was free from Ben, what had he meant by that? The only thing that was crystal in my mind was everything that happened right up until I saw my sister broken and limp on her bedroom floor.

Tildy and Marco had stopped by briefly after I’d been moved to a regular room. Apparently, the hospital needed three full carts to carry all of my flowers and gifts, so I felt like the grand marshal of the fucking Rose Bowl parade as my bed was rolled down the hallway. I gave Trudy my best pageant wave as we passed her in the hallway. With all of the IV lines and monitor leads, not to mention the incredible pain, it looked more like a toddler waving good-bye to his or her grandparent for the first time.

Once I was settled into my new room, complete with far less beeping machines, I tried not to dwell on the fact that Ryan still hadn’t shown up and I’d been awake for more than two hours now. I’d even eaten lunch. Well, if you could call a cup of chicken broth, a glass of water, a small apple juice, and a container of lemon ice lunch. Apparently, I’d spent some time with a feeding tube, so I needed to reintroduce food to my body slowly. I hadn’t realized they would start a tube so quickly. The thought that, if the pain was any indication, it hadn’t been very long since I’d been shot, brought me back to what day it was.

“I’m sorry that you aren’t having a very good birthday,” I apologized to my sister, prompting her to look up from her book. I had to admit, she looked way better than she had last night, even with the stitches and the cast. Both of her brown eyes were open and looking at me, only a hint of the bruise that looked so wicked the last time I saw her. This was the first time I’d been able to get a moment to inspect her.

The cast hidden by her sling looked like it had been decorated by hours’ worth of boredom at my bedside, the cut on her cheek was scabbed over and her own auburn hair was pulled into a messy ponytail. It really looked like she could stand to take a shower, although I was pretty sure my hair was probably just as greasy. A hand shaped bruise on her upper arm was just barely visible under the fabric of her gray t-shirt, and was nearly yellow with age. I felt like I was missing something. How had she healed so quickly?

“But, Carrie,” she started, puzzled. “My birthday was— you know what? You waking up, that’s the best present I could have ever gotten,” she finished with a tight smile. She was definitely hiding something. Did it have to do with why Ryan wasn’t there?

“I just wish you hadn’t been in that situation in the first place, honey,” I felt myself tearing up. The pain in my stomach was starting to flare again, but I was trying hard not to dose myself until I absolutely had to. Trudy had warned me not to be a hero before I left her care, that as long as I used it for pain control, only, addiction wasn’t a factor, but I didn’t believe her. Closing my eyes, I felt a stray tear fall as I tried to hold back the pain just a little bit longer. I wasn’t ready to fall asleep again. I had too many questions.

“It’s not your fault,” she denied, dog earring the page she was on in her novel.

“How can you say that?” I shrieked, “How can you not blame me for all of this?”

“I think it’s time to turn down the dosage on the pain meds,” she joked, grabbing for my hand. “Look, honey,” she looked to the side as if trying to gather courage, “there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, trying to straighten in the bed, but the pain shooting from my stomach kept me from moving too far. The all clear I’d been given earlier meant that my catheter had been removed, so I had to conserve all of my pain energy for times I had to ‘ambulate’ as my nurse called it. Really, it was just that I had to reserve my energy for when I had to pee.

“I have to tell you about what happened,” she sighed. “You’ve been out longer than you think.”

“Okay,” I nodded, solemnly, trying to digest what she was saying. “So, it’s not your birthday anymore? That’s okay. It’s your eighteenth! We should’ve celebrated all week.”

“Well, um,” she hedged.

“Good evening, Carrie,” my new nurse, Sasha, greeted with a huge smile as she pulled in the machine that would take my vitals, again. Every hour on the hour, she pulled that insufferable cart behind her with a cheerful greeting and a muttered apology. “It looks like it’s just about time for your husband to get here. Trudy briefed me on your visitors in her notes,” she announced, confusing me even further.

“My—”

“Honey! I would’ve been here sooner, but I had to find the new room,” Ryan announced as he burst into the room and collapsed beside my bed, stealing my hands from Britton and searching my face with those achingly beautiful amber eyes I’d missed more than I was willing to admit. “Oh, thank God. Do you know how hard it was to make it through the day knowing you were awake and I couldn’t be here?” he whispered, leaning forward to pepper the entire surface of my face with kisses. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“It’s only been a few days, Ryan,” I laughed, watching his display filled my heart with love I hadn’t realized was possible, even as turmoil clouded his eyes over my words.

“A few— you didn’t tell her?” he turned to Britton, who was looking incredibly guilty in her stiff hospital chair.

“I was just going to,” she frowned, tears in her eyes. “It’s been harder to verbalize than you think.”

“Well, I hate to break up this love fest, but I really need you both to clear the bed area so I can get Mrs. Kelly’s vitals,” Sasha demanded, once again bewildering me. Reluctantly, Ryan released my hands and took a step back from the bed, pulling Britton’s chair clear of Sasha’s path, too.

“Mrs. Kelly?” I asked, quirking my eyebrow, even though it hurt. That wasn’t a surprise though, everything hurt. Fuck, I groaned and finally hit the button controlling the meds for my pain. Once again, I was flooded with relief as wonderful numbness swept through my body. I knew it would only be a few minutes before sleep tried to carry me under again.

“Are you having amnesia, honey? Do you not remember our glorious riverside ceremony in Laughlin?” Ryan asked with a devious smile on his face. Something about this lie had my heart leaping, wondering what it would feel like if the words were true.

“Of course,
honey
, how could I forget? Getting married in the blue haired gambling capital of Nevada was always a dream of mine,” I said, my voice as monotone as I could get it under the revelation that he and Britton had been lying about my marital status so that he could see me. That had to be the only explanation. “The way the sun shone on the bedazzled tie you wore is something that will stay with me forever.”

“Let’s not forget your mullet style harlot red wedding dress,” he pointed out. “I can’t wait to get the pictures back,” he sighed, as my sister worked to suppress her laughter at the visual. “The one of you throwing the bouquet from the Jet Ski will be a keeper!”

“I can’t believe you went and got married without me,” Britton cried out, theatrically, clutching her hands over her chest. “I would never do that to you!” she pointed at me, like she’d been waiting for me to wake up for just this moment.

“Calm down, honey,” Sasha soothed as she watched the numbers climb on my blood pressure read out. The tightening of the cuff making me wince, in spite of the dilaudid. “Wait until she’s home before you lay into her over this,” she warned, going back to her routine. The room finally went quiet and Britton had a guilty look on her face when Sasha finally stepped back from my bed and turned toward my visitors, “Okay, she’s all yours,” my nurse announced as she left the room again, taking the dinner theatre drama with her. As soon as the door clicked shut, I turned back to the two people that held all the answers.

“Okay, fucking spill, guys,” I demanded. “We’re married? Is that what Britton was supposed to have told me?”

“That was just so that I could sleep beside you in the ICU while your sister was in her own room,” Ryan explained.

“While my sister was…” I repeated. “How long were you in your own room, Britton?” I asked. My brain was hurting even with the amount of dilaudid coursing through my body.

“Three days,” she whispered, bowing her head. “I had a wicked concussion, plus a couple of broken ribs, so I had to be cleared before I could check out.”

“And I’ve been out for…,” I prompted.

“Eleven,” Ryan supplied, knocking the wind out of me once more.

“Eleven fucking days?” I blinked. “How?”

“Well, at first, we were lucky you even made it to the hospital,” he explained. “When the paramedics finally showed up, your pulse was so Goddamn thready and you’d lost so much blood, I wasn’t sure. It took a whole day to get you stable enough for surgery,” he relayed. “I wasn’t going to leave your side that night, even when they loaded you into the ambulance. I needed to be there. Plus, no one was awake to deny my position as your husband, so the lie just rolled off my tongue. I just hoped that Britton wouldn’t sell me out when she woke up.”

“I was glad you were there for her when I couldn’t be,” Britton smiled at him.

“Can we keep going and spare the love fest for a moment?” I graveled out, knowing that my eyes were starting to feel heavy. I needed to know how I’d ended up sleeping for eleven straight days before I succumbed once again.

“You almost died on the table, twice, Carrie, but they got you through. The doctor thought it would be in your best interest to keep you in a medically induced coma to let your wound heal for a while. They tried to pull you out before, but your vitals went a little crazy and you ended up back on a ventilator for a couple of days,” he closed his eyes as if he were in pain just thinking about it. “They ran some more tests last night and finally decided to try again and now here you are,” he concluded. “He said that if you’d been awake and tried to deal with everything that happened prior to being shot, your body wouldn’t have been able to handle it.”

“Oh,” was all I could say as my eyes started to stay closed longer.

“Are you sleepy, sweetheart?” Ryan asked, sweetly, pressing a kiss into my knuckles. “Britton and I are going to go down and pick up some dinner while you rest, okay? We’ll talk more when you wake up again.”

“Okay,” I mumbled.

“But Ryan, I still haven’t told her—” was the last thing I heard before I drifted off again. I wanted to know what she was still hiding and I needed a moment alone with Ryan to talk to him about everything he’d seen and probably hadn’t made any sense of. Yet still, he’d claimed me as his wife and the time he’d spent at my bedside while I fought for my life was longer than the time we’d spent together.

**

Another nurse woke me a few hours later as she maneuvered around my bed for another set of vitals. I didn’t know why the doctors needed to check on me every few seconds, but it was starting to get annoying. A small sliver of light shone into my room from the crack in the door leading to the bathroom, and darkness was evident beyond the blinds over the window beside me.

“Do you need to use the restroom while I’m here?” the nurse whispered, drawing my attention to the fact that there were two other bodies vying for space in my room.

“Yes,” I nodded, trying to lift myself up as the pressing need coming from my bladder roared to life from her suggestion.

“I’ll take her,” the groggy, but deep voice coming from the chair beside my bed said.