Alpha Hero - Hope Ford Page 0,44

walk out of the room but stops with his hand on the door. “You know, Zach, eventually you’re going to have to figure out that what happened to you and your dad, well, that’s not normal. You can’t let it keep holding you back.”

His words hit me like a ton of bricks. I fall to my ass on the bench by my locker. My hands go to my head and I sit there for I don’t know how long, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do now.

Shannon

“Hi. I’m looking for Dr. Brian Cooper. He was brought in by ambulance a little while ago.”

The woman behind the desk looks at me in my uniform. “He’s in surgery now. That woman is with him, though, if you need to speak to someone.” She points over to a pretty woman in the corner of the room. Her face is puffy like she’s been crying.

I mumble my thanks before I walk over to the other woman.

I sit down next to her. “Hi. I’m sorry to bother you. Are you here with Dr. Brian Cooper?”

She looks at me with surprise on her face. “Yes. I’m his… well, he’s my father’s best friend. But my dad passed away a few years ago and Brian’s all I have now.”

Her eyes well up with tears. I put my arm around her, trying to reassure her that everything will be okay.

“I always thought he was invincible,” she mutters.

“No one’s invincible against a drunk driver, it seems. But I was with him before he passed out. Are they saying anything?”

She shrugs her shoulder. “The surgeon says he’s going to be fine. He has some broken bones and they are setting those. He has a few internal injuries, but they’re just monitoring them now, they said.”

I squeeze her shoulder. She’s maybe a year or two younger than my twenty-two. But she seems to really care about Dr. Cooper. “So I’m Shannon by the way.”

She smiles at me. “I’m Kendall.”

I gasp and start to smile. “Oh, God.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the crumpled envelope. Holding it out in front of us, we both stare at the name Kendall on the front of it. “He gave this to me to give to you.”

She looks confused. “Who did? Brian?”

Nodding my head, I tell her about the accident and him coming in and out of consciousness. “He gave me this. Asked me to give it to you.”

She takes it from me and holds it in both of her hands. “I can leave and let you read it if you want to.”

She grabs on to my hand, stuffing the envelope into her purse. “No. I’ll read it later. Can you sit here with me, just until I know he’s okay?”

We sit there for hours and I get to know Kendall. She is finally smiling a little bit and I’m glad I can take her mind off things.

When the door opens and the surgeon comes out, he walks straight toward us. “He’s out of surgery. He’s going to have a lot of down time with recovery, but he’s going to be fine.”

Kendall stands up and tells him, “Thank you, thank you. Can I see him now?”

“They’re going to wheel him up from recovery soon, but before he was out he was asking for you. I’ll take you to his room so you can wait there.”

She looks over at me then, and I assure her, “Go, go. I’ll check in on you tomorrow.”

She hugs me then, really tight and then follows the surgeon down the hallway.

I lift my arm and look at my watch. I have an hour to go home and change clothes before I’m meeting Baker. Oh, why did I even agree to this? I look down at my uniform and decide to heck with it. I’m going to the bar and have a drink while I wait on him and then tell him thanks, but no thanks.

9

Zach

I walk into The Tavern fifteen minutes before six. I see her sitting at a table and walk over to her. I’m surprised to see her still in uniform. I figured I would show up here and she would be dressed to impress. The fact that she isn’t calms my nerves a little bit.

I sit down across from her and she looks at me with a surprised expression. “What are you doing here?”

I shrug my shoulders. “We need to talk.”

She throws her hands up, tossing the wrapper that she was tearing up in