Perfectly Adequate(64)

The doctor said it will be another hour before family can see him, and even then, he probably won’t be conscious.

“I’m going home. I have school. I’m here if you need me. Just let me know. I can help with Roman or … whatever.” I nail my exit speech after practicing it during the last hour of surgery because I knew I wasn’t staying. In fact, I’m dying to get out of this waiting room.

“You should come back with us.” Lori gestures toward the ICU.

“I’m not family.”

“Dorothy …”

“I’ll check in tomorrow after school.”

Lori frowns. “Okay. We’ll make sure someone contacts you if anything changes.”

“Great. Thanks.”

I power walk straight out of the hospital.

“I noticed Dr. Hathaway was next to Eli’s dad, getting ready to go back with them to see Eli. Is she really still family?” Mom asks.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. He probably won’t wake up while they’re there. No need to stand in the corner of the room, watching a machine help him breathe.”

“Why was he planning on visiting you so late?” She follows me out the door.

“He wanted to talk. At first, he made it sound like he wanted to talk about my date with Dr. Warren. But I don’t know why that would be. I think it must have been something else because his messages seemed urgent.” I get in Mom’s Ford Escape.

“Wait … you went on a date with Dr. Warren?” She closes her door and starts the car.

“Yes.” I lean my head against the headrest. “I was going to tell you about it, but you were asleep, and then I just forgot about it, more like blocked it from my memory. He took me for fondue. I just couldn’t. It was so gross. I can’t believe those restaurants are even legal. It’s just a melting pot of nasty germs. A haven for chronic double-dippers. I’m not gonna lie, my stomach hasn’t been right ever since. I think I caught something. Tomorrow I’m going to request blood and stool tests. Legit, I ate one bite, the first one, but you know they don’t wash those pots between customers. They just pour in more milk and cheese, crank up the heat, and assume it will self-decontaminate from the heat. Wrong!”

“Wait … did you and Eli break up?”

Wow, she doesn’t seem to care about my fondue distress at all.

“No. I mean … I don’t know what we are or were. It’s not like we talked about it. We have sex. Good sex. But I’m not sure mutually sharing autonomic nervous system responses necessarily makes us a couple.”

“Autonomic what?”

“Orgasms. We have sex. I told you last Sunday that staying the night was a complete disaster. We’re not spooning and whispering I love you’s. It’s like hooking up, but with food, and sometimes a playdate with Roman. And he didn’t want me to tell Dr. Warren about us, and Warren had already asked me out and I’d accepted. So what choice did I have? I went on the awful fondue date, but I told him with plenty of notice that we would not have sex. I’m not interested in having sex with anyone but Eli right now.”

“Yes, Dorothy.” Mom laughs. “Sex with only one person. It’s called monogamy. You’re in a monogamous relationship with Eli. You’re a couple. You’re his girlfriend.”

I wrinkle my nose, not really believing her reasoning, even if it does kind of make sense when I repeat it in my head.

“Whatever.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO





Could It Be Love?

Elijah


Lights.

Way too bright.

Beeping.

Way too loud.

Pain.

Way too excruciating.

Fuck …

Everything hurts. Even my eyelids protest, especially my left eye. It takes me a little bit to realize I can’t open it.

My throat …

Something’s in my throat.

The sounds. My eye. My throat … I’m in the hospital. What happened?

The echo of voices thwarts my attempts to think back … to remember what happened.

Jesus … am I even alive? My head …

Yeah, I’m alive. Dead people don’t feel this kind of pain. Death doesn’t exactly sound terrible at the moment.

“Eli?”

Fucking hell! Ya mind not shining that light in my eye?

“Eli?” Mom.

My mom is here.

I force my right eye open a little more. The room dims a bit like someone dimmed the lights or shut the shades. The tube down my throat prevents me from thanking whomever did that, but I’m nonetheless thankful.

Mom … Her pensive face comes into focus.

“Eli. They’re going to remove your breathing tube.”

That’s great. Except I know from my medical training that removing tubes is not exactly the best experience for the patient. I like being the doctor. The patient? Not so much.

I follow the instructions as if I don’t know them plenty well.

Suction.

Deflate.

Remove.

I cough a few times before they put an oxygen mask over my mouth and nose.

Mom smiles as Dad comes into my line of sight. My one-eyed line of sight.

“Do you know what happened?” Mom asks as a medical team mills around my bed, checking vitals, monitors, reflexes.