Love Beyond Words (City Lights, #1)(66)

“What happened here?” Natalie screeched. “Why is he like this?” She raced into the bathroom and returned with a wet washcloth as David paced and stammered.

“He has the flu. I mean, that’s what I thought. But he won’t stop vomiting. And I haven’t given him any…I haven’t given him anything to eat or drink.”

Julian’s eyes looked through Natalie in a way that made her own stomach clench. She felt his pulse and cried out in alarm. Its irregular, weak flutter was terrifying.

“Oh my god, call an ambulance! Why haven’t you called an ambulance?” she shrieked.

“An ambulance? He really needs…?”

“Yeah, David, he really does!” Natalie reached for the phone by the bedside and tapped 9-1-1 with shaking hands. “I need an ambulance, please.” She gave her name and Julian’s address. “Oh please, hurry.”

She hung up and took Julian’s hand in hers.

“Agua…”

She whirled on David. “You know what that means, don’t you? When was the last time he had water? What is going on here, David?”

“Why are you so pissed at me? How should I know?” David shot back. His voice quavered. “He’s sick. I was taking care of him.”

“Yeah, you were taking care of him,” Natalie muttered sourly. She hurried to the bathroom and returned with a small glass of water. Her hands shaking, she held it for Julian to drink. Most of it spilled over his chin but she managed some into his mouth. It came back up immediately.

Natalie backed away slowly. “This isn’t the flu.” She wrung her trembling hands, paralyzed by fear and helplessness. “This is something else. Oh god…”

“I don’t know what to do for him,” David said and for once Natalie agreed.

The ambulance arrived in ten minutes though it felt like ten years. The EMTs were quick and efficient, exuding a cool competence that calmed Natalie. The words “severe dehydration” passed between them, and in moments they were wheeling him out of the apartment. Only one person was allowed to ride to the hospital with them. Natalie precluded David from even attempting to try with a dagger glare.

“Right, you should go,” he said, as if it were his idea. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Is he going to be all right?” Natalie asked one of the EMTs who rode in back with her. He fiddled with plastic bags of clear liquid and adjusting the air mask they had put over Julian’s slack mouth.

“Best to hear from a doctor, ma’am,” he said with practiced ease.

Natalie bit her lip. “I heard you say he was dehydrated? Is that very bad?”

“Can be,” the EMT said. He was young and good-looking, the kind of guy she imagined some women wouldn’t mind breaking an ankle for. He flashed a brilliant smile that meant nothing to her. “He’s stable now, we got fluids in him. Try not to worry.”

She took Julian’s limp hand in hers and clutched it protectively. As if that were possible.

#

At San Francisco General, Julian was extracted from Natalie’s grip and a polite but insistent nurse ushered her into a waiting area while he was wheeled away. As he vanished from sight, the strength left her. She sank into a stiff brown chair, put her head in her hands, and cried behind a curtain of her own hair.

David blew into the waiting room a few minutes later, arms flapping, hair flying.

“Where is he?”

“In with the doctors,” Natalie said dully. She sniffed.

“Good. Any news yet?”

“No.”

“Okay. Right.” He sat a few chairs away, leg jumping, and rifled through magazines or skimmed over pamphlets about how to better manage diabetes, and which kind of cholesterol was good and which was bad. He glanced up to see her staring at him.

“What?”

“What happened, David?”

“What do you mean? I told you. He had the flu. It got worse. I’m not a doctor, Natalie…”

“Why didn’t you call one? What were you waiting for?”

“I panicked!” David screeched, drawing a disapproving glare from the nurse behind the glass. “What do you think happened?” he hissed. “I asked him if he felt like he needed to go to a hospital but he said no…”

“Really? You speak Spanish all of a sudden? It wasn’t incoherent rambling after all?”

“No, no, before. Before he started talking like that. Last night he wasn’t this bad.”

“That’s when you should’ve got him some help.”

“He didn’t want help!” David cried. “You know how he is! He’s stubborn…and intimidating. He said he wanted to sleep and so I let him. Get off my back, Natalie. I’m scared shitless too.”

Natalie didn’t want to back off. If she did, the fear would swoop in and destroy her. Better to hold on to the anger and direct it at David instead of being untethered, drowning in grief. Not again! I can’t do this again…

When she realized her parents were gone she remembered searching for something; somewhere for her to go or do or think that wasn’t that awful pain, as if her soul had been trying to leap out of its body like a jumper from a burning building. And now a doctor was going to round the corner and she’d have to do it all over again. Only this time, there wasn’t another migration north, another city, another do-over. She didn’t have it in her. Her hands clenched until her nails cut her palms.