Touch And Go - Aiden Bates Page 0,11

threw out orders for X-rays and notes on his chart then walked out of the room. I needed to pull it together. Seeing him had shaken me, literally, and my hands trembled. I couldn’t risk anyone questioning me until I had answers for myself. The weight of my shift suddenly crushed me, and my legs went weak with fatigue. I threw my gloves in the trash and started toward the staff room but ended up slumped in a chair in the recovery ward. Something about Sebastian pulled me. I wanted to see his X-rays, the blood work-up, the monitor readouts. It had been touch and go in there, but the guy was breathing again. For now.

I planned to stay for no more than twenty minutes, just to make sure he was going to make it. My patient. My responsibility. So, half an hour wouldn’t kill me…

4

Sebastian

Nauseous. Thirsty. Awake. I pried one eye open and quickly scrunched it shut again when blinding light smacked my retina. I didn’t move but listened to the sounds around me. The beep-beep-blip of a heart rate monitor, the shuffle of soft-soled shoes on tile, the scrape of metal on metal curtain loops and rods. The smell of ammonia and bleach, and overboiled vegetables. A hospital.

I opened my eyes, and it all came rushing back. Ben’s laptop, the missing funds he’d scooped up from his clients, the argument, the confrontation… I remembered him stalking toward me, and then…nothing. I blinked at the bright light and glided my hands over my arms, feeling for protruding bones or bumps and lumps under my skin, for pain I didn’t feel right then. Was I hurt? What about Ben? Was he okay? I suffered the inertia of falling without moving, dizziness or some other phenomenon. Dehydration, maybe.

I grunted and pushed into the bed with my good hand to try and sit up, but pressure on my arm stopped me. My breath caught. Dr. Dish. Holding me. He’d patched me up once. When? How long had I been out?

“What happened?” My voice was beyond husky. Closer to gravelly. Deathly, one could say.

“Close call. But you’re alive. Still need some rest though.” He lifted the world’s tiniest cup of water. “Thirsty?”

I cleared my throat and nodded. He unwrapped the straw and passed me the drink to my good hand, but I wasn’t ready for the weight of the tiny cup, and spilled half of the water onto the bed. My other arm rested in a new sling, my wrist wrapped in a fresh bandage.

“Do you know where you are?”

Dr. Dish sat back in the chair beside the bed, and I stole a glance as he poured me a fresh cup of water from a pitcher on a small table. He looked damn good in his gray button-down shirt, not that his scrubs weren’t nice, but what he did for street clothes was…shameful. I caught a glimpse of a tattoo under his short sleeves—a sideways figure eight on his bicep.

“Hospital.” I dragged my eyes back to his to show him I was lucid and not just staring

“Do you know what day of the week it is?” He passed me the cup, and this time I was ready to use all my strength to hold it up.

“Uh…” My head was foggy. “Tuesday?” It was when last I saw Ben and we had the argument. But I’d been asleep, so it could’ve been Wednesday. Or later, for all I knew.

“Yeah, it is. How are you feeling? Do you have any nausea? Headache?” His voice was deep and soft, and I liked the way he looked at me, slow, thorough, like he was taking me all in.

I thought for a moment. I let the pain I’d been denying have its moment which immediately led to a churning in my stomach. “Bad. Both.”

He nodded, but he didn’t move to get me any medication. Instead, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands folded in front of him.

“What happened?” Good question. Maybe a detail would slip through and I’d remember how I got here, but the more I tried to remember, the less I could focus.

“I don’t know. What do you know about it?” Maybe something in what he could tell me would jog a memory free.

“You were brought into the ER.” He sat up, and his full mouth thinned into a straight line, a little less soft, and his eyes were steely. He didn’t look unkind, but more all-business.

I braced myself for whatever gnarly details he had