They push Grace through the doors of the trauma room just as she stops seizing for a second time. “Alright, seizure stopped,” Drew announces, noting the time. “Let’s make sure it’s her last. Is there anyone we should call?”
“I’ll do it,” I tell them. “I’m her attending.”
And her roommate and her best friend’s brother and her lover, but no one really knows that last part. Few know she’s living with me, though Drew and Margot do. I run my fingers through her hair, staring down at her sweet face, pale as a sheet, her lips caked in blood and saliva. Her eyes now closed, her body limp and lifeless.
Not even caring about who’s in the room or people talking, I lean down and press my lips to her forehead. It’s in this moment that I realize the true destructive power of love. The crushing, brutalizing agony of loving someone more than you love yourself. The fear and ache and torment that you’ll lose them far before you’re ready to. I’d give my life for this woman and here she lies, unconscious and bleeding, and I can’t save her from this.
It’s an affliction, a disorder, a condition of the human body. One she’s lived with nearly her entire life. One that acts like an earthquake. Unpredictable. Devastating. Soul-rattling for those who survive it with her.
It just goes to show you how no one is ever safe. How love isn’t enough protection when we need it to be.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into her sweaty flesh. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
I kiss her, press my forehead to hers, and then leave the trauma room, ambling out into the hallway just beyond, letting them continue to work to make sure my girl is okay. On shaky legs with trembling hands—my hands never fucking tremble—I first call upstairs and tell them we need the floor covered by any resident, attending, fellow, or even med student. Then I call Oliver because I don’t know her parents’ number and they’re in Australia.
“Hey,” he answers, picking up on the second ring. My body vibrates with relief at the sound of my brother’s voice. Not just for Grace. But for me too and suddenly I hate that I’ve been holding back telling him how I feel about her. I fall against the wall, pressing my entire weight into it.
“I’m in the ED with Grace. She had two seizures back-to-back. They seem to have her stabilized now, but I—” I choke, emotion taking over in ways it never has before with me. Not even when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Not even when it came back. “Fuck, Oliver. I don’t know how to reach her parents. I don’t know who to call. I just know I won’t make it if she’s not okay.”
He clears his throat. Then he’s silent. Finally, he says, “We’re on our way.” And he hangs up. I tipped my hand. I let it out there for him because he needs to know.
But Grace doesn’t want to be in a relationship with me. She told me as much last night. She also asked that I keep this thing between us a secret.
Do I care? I’m not so sure anymore. Today was a game-changer for me.
My love for her is overpowering but I wouldn’t risk changing it for the easy route.
Tucking my phone back into my pocket, I march back into the trauma room. Grace’s position hasn’t moved, but her eyes are now open.
“She’s postictal,” Margot informs me, checking Grace’s lines. “She opened her eyes about a minute ago, which is a fantastic sign. She’s still non-responsive, and TMI the reason I changed her to a gown is because she peed her scrub pants and underwear, but that’s sorta how it goes with seizures. She’ll likely be out of it for a while and we’re going to keep her on the Dilantin and Diazepam drips, but I expect she’ll be up and bitching you out in no time.”
I blink, blowing out a breath. “How long will she have to stay in here?”
Margot shakes her head. Her dark curls all over the place as they spring out of her bun. “I have a room for her down the hall. Drew wants to keep her here in the ED for a while, just in case. I don’t think he trusts the floor to do its due diligence with her. That or he’s afraid of dealing with Oliver and Rina. And you, it seems.” She winks at me. “Want to help me move her?”
I shift to the left side of the bed, staring down at Grace. The bed unlocks with a loud click and then Margot is walking, pushing the large gurney with her. I help, adjusting some of the weight for myself.
“How long have you been a thing?”
I smirk. “Not that long.”
“But you love her.”
My smirk grows at the self-assured way Margot said that.
“I have for a while, yeah.”
“I didn’t trust a lot or well until Drew came along. Sometimes it just takes the right person to realign your thinking. Think about Rina with Brecken. She and I were hard set on the anti-love train. Clearly that didn’t work out so well for us.”
We walk down the hall, passing room after room until we reach the end. It’s quiet back here, almost secluded for such a busy part of the hospital. We enter the room and lock the gurney into place. In a flash, Margot is gone only to return just as quickly with a warm blanket that she places over Grace.
“I don’t think Grace sees it quite that way between us yet.”
Margot stares at me, a contemplative tilt to her head. “I saw the way you looked at her from almost day one. You fell, and you fell hard. It’s why I’ve been pushing her to hook up with you, which it seems like she has. She might just need some extra time to catch up to where you’ve already been. For her, this is new. For you, it’s not. Remember that. Take good care of her, Doctor. Page me if she doesn’t come around within the next thirty minutes.”
And with that Margot leaves, going to take care of her other patients. I lower the bedside rail on the side facing me, drop into a chair, and scoot it until I’m pressed against the gurney. My head finds the miserably hard mattress beside where her head is resting, my hand in her hair as I cup the back of her head.
In addition to changing Grace into a gown and cleaning her up, she also dressed the wound on her head that she got from smacking it on the gurney. I kiss it gently; grateful it didn’t require stitches. Then I close my eyes.
I stay like this for I don’t even know how long. Silent. Grace still. My only reassurance coming from the monitor sprouting her vitals and the steady rhythm of her breathing.
That is until Oliver walks in.
27
My head pops up at the sound of footsteps entering the room, and I immediately lock eyes with my brother. He’s staring at me, almost in disbelief whereas Amelia and Rina, who are by his side, don’t look surprised at all. Despite the inauspicious reasons for them being dragged here on a Sunday, the ladies are grinning with a self-satisfied gleam to their eyes that suggests they were on to me for as long as Margot evidently was.
“So, we’re going to get coffee,” Rina announces, tugging on Amelia’s arm.
“Right. Coffee,” Amelia agrees. “And cookies. Grace loves the cookies from the cafeteria. She’ll definitely want those when she’s feeling better.”
And then my sister and one day soon to be my sister-in-law leave me here with my brother who does not look happy.
He grabs a chair from the corner, dragging it along until he’s on the other side of Grace’s gurney, his gaze never wavering from mine. “I texted her parents,” he starts, the edge to his voice unmistakable. “It’s the middle of the night in Australia and they’re not the closest with her anyway. Actually, they’re straight-up assholes who don’t give a shit about her, so I doubt they’ll even reply.”