Reaching Hearts - Faleena Hopkins Page 0,13
container, pieces of dark green lettuce stuck on her fork. She says something to them that’s too far away to hear, and just as she begins to turn her head, I duck back inside, my heart slamming.
C’mon Annie. Be cool. Be smart. Be a stealth ninja.
Frankly, my being here is the one good sign I’ve seen toward me and Brendan since he walked into my bar. I wasn’t going to come here, and yet –here I am. Maybe my guardian angel knocked me out cold and forced them to call an ambulance to get my ass to see him. But I know he has a girlfriend. I just want to see his face. See if he’s okay. Side-eyeballing the empty bed, I consider getting back in it and leaving well enough alone. But that’s just not possible.
I tighten my grip on the IV pole, tube and needle still in my arm, the plug-cord around it to make me mobile. Waiting a few more seconds, my pulse is going nuts. I peek back out and don’t see Maria. Whipping my head to the right and the left, there’s no sign of her. I sneak out a step to see my room number: 315. I’m on the same floor as him. This is supposed to be happening. It has to be.
Stepping out on the balls of my feet so as not to make a sound, I walk out a bit, always looking around me. A voice up the corridor ahead makes me duck inside Room 317.
“Hello?” a raspy voice says behind me.
Turning my head fast, I lay eyes on a much older woman lying with tubes everywhere. She’s squinting at me with a curious expression creased into the deep lines of her face under a shock of short white hair.
I wave with my free hand. “Oh, hi. I’m just taking a walk. How’re you?”
“I’ve been better.” There’s humor in her voice and her eyes twinkle.
“What’re you in for?” I ask, like we’re doing time for a crime.
“Gall bladder.” She straightens her blanket a bit and I look up to see she’s got the news on. As usual, it’s horrible. Why do people watch that crap?
“How’s the gall bladder?” She shrugs and I face my body more toward her, the door behind me. “Let me ask you a question.”
“Yes?”
“You’ve got life experience. If you had to, say, choose between two men. One was in Italy and one was here but has a girlfriend, but he’s been dreaming about you and talking in his sleep saying your name. What would you do?”
Squinting more and more in concentration as she listens, she thinks on it and leans back when she’s done. “You have two men who want you?”
“Now that you put it like that… maybe?”
Both her spotted hands slap the blanket. “Take ‘em both! Trust me, when you get to be my age, that’s the stuff you’ll wish you’d have done.”
“Good point. Thank you.” Sticking my head slowly out the door, the coast is clear. “I have to run. Thanks for the advice. Oh, and here’s some from me – turn that off. It can’t be good for you.”
She glances to the news. “Then how will I know what’s going on?”
My mind is already on making an exit. “Read it on the Internet and scan past the bad stuff. They’re just showing fear-based stuff on T.V. to keep their audience.”
I tiptoe out, with a wave thrown behind me as I go.
Chapter Nine
Brendan
Room 323.
“Rebecca, have you had breakfast?”
She looks up from her phone. “What?”
“Breakfast. Have you eaten.”
Blinking a few times, she searches. “No. I guess not.”
I take her phone from her hands. “Remember when you did this to me?”
She smiles, recognition lighting up her brown eyes. “We were at the movie theater and you wouldn’t stop working.”
“About two years ago, I guess, wasn’t it?” My hand falls to my lap, fingers wrapped around the phone. It was like I wasn’t here when she was on it.
“Yes, almost that. What movie were we seeing?” She leans in with that look you get when you’re searching for something just out of reach.
Moving the pillow back up to a comfortable position, I say, “I don’t remember. Why don’t you go get breakfast and answer your emails there and come back in a bit. I need to sleep.”
Embarrassed, she takes her phone from me, landing a quick kiss on my lips before she stands. “Of course. I’m sorry. You sleep. I’ll be back.”
Before she gets to the door, I call