25. No, because she actually almost scared me to death
25
NO, BECAUSE SHE ACTUALLY ALMOST SCARED ME TO DEATH
“F air warning, my apartment’s a mess,” I tell him once we finally make it to my place.
He laughs softly in my ear, his hands on my waist, chest against my back. “It’s always a mess, Bridge.”
“Why don’t we ever go to your place?” I ask Will as I struggle to open my front door. I can barely get the words out, much less go through the whole process needed to get inside my apartment, as his lips trail up and down my neck. I can feel his impatience on my lower back, hard and eager, so I push my ass out into him.
He groans and whispers my name, causing a burst of electricity to run through me. When he bites the spot between my neck and shoulder, I shiver and he laughs.
Whatever it was he was going to say before we were interrupted by the cab driver must be far from his mind, because his hands have not stopped touching me since getting out of the car.
“You have Ginger, remember? We can’t just abandon her,” he reminds me.
I smile at his use of the word we until I realize something.
Ginger .
My heart sinks to my stomach because she’s not insistently meowing on the other side of the door when I slide in the keys, scratching and howling for me to come in and feed her. In fact, it is eerily quiet in the apartment.
“Oh my god.” I shake Will off and focus on getting the door open, kicking it and jiggling it just like I’m supposed to.
“Wait, what’s happening?” he asks, but I’m barely processing his words because once I walk into the apartment, I catch Ginger snoozing on her chair. But she doesn’t lift her head to look at me, doesn’t open her eyes—doesn’t even move.
“Oh my god” I cry again, feeling the start of tears trail down my cheeks. I kneel in front of her and gently pet her head, which earns me a quiet meow—barely even there—and one open eye.
“Is she okay?” Will kneels beside me, petting her back. There’s a sense of urgency in his voice I would find adorable if I weren’t in a state of panic.
“I need to get her to the emergency room. She’s been sick, but I thought it was just a virus or something. But she looks worse. This is bad.”
I get up and kick off my heels, pulling on a pair of flats as I frantically search for her carrier in the back of my closet.
“Which animal hospital do you want to take her to?” Will’s phone is out, his face pulled into a concentrated frown. He looks so serious right now. So authoritative.
Protector.
Partner.
Safe place.
“I can get us an uber.”
“What? No. It’s almost midnight, Will. This could take hours.”
“I’m not letting you take Ginger to the emergency room this late at night by yourself.”
“I can take care of myself.” I would sound more convincing if my voice wasn’t trembling through tears, my face probably already red and blotchy.
I’m a mess.
He cups my face with one hand, and takes the carrier from me with the other. “I know you can, Bridge. That doesn’t mean shit, though. I want to come. For you and for Ginger. I care about her too.” Hearing those words is what finally breaks me down—I let myself burst into tears. Will immediately drops the carrier and takes me in his arms.
“I’m scared. I love her so much. Aside from you, she’s my best friend in the whole world.” I sob once against his tux.
“I know, Bridge. That’s why we need to get going so we can help her get better.”
* * *
“What is taking so long? They took her back to triage, like, half an hour ago!” I whisper-yell at Will from the waiting room as I pace back and forth. It’s past midnight, and I’m feeling more exhausted than I think I ever have in my entire life.
“Calm down, Bridge. They know what they’re doing. I googled this place, and they’re the highest-rated emergency animal hospital in New York.” Will’s still wearing his tux, though his bow tie is in his pant pocket and the top two buttons are undone.
I take a deep breath and sit beside him on the uncomfortable waiting room chairs. Closing my eyes, I lean my head on his shoulder, cuddling deeper into his side when he wraps an arm around me.
Just as I begin to settle, as my breathing begins to slow, I hear a man’s voice: “Ginger Quinn’s parents?”
I rise to my feet so fast, I stumble a little. As usual, Will is there to catch me. He slips his fingers between mine and leads me to the front desk where a James Bailey lookalike in scrubs with a clipboard waits for us.
“Are you Mr and Mrs Quinn?” He asks, a sympathetic smile on his face.
I blush a deep crimson. “N-No.”
Will looks mighty uncomfortable
as he explains: “We’re not together. It’s her cat.”
Ouch. Just what I needed right now.
“Right.” The vet turns to face me and sticks his hand out. “I’m Dr. Sloane. I’m your cat’s vet. We’ve already checked her out in the back, and I know you spoke to our triage nurse already, but would you mind stepping inside this room with me for a chat?”
I swallow and nod, following the doctor into a small room off the side of the front desk with Will in tow. Once inside, I explain how she’s been lethargic, how she hasn’t wanted to eat or drink much in the past 24 hours.
“Not even those gross cat GoGurts that they make that she’s so obsessed with.”
Will gasps at my side, because he’s gotten to know Ginger well by now and knows just how much she loves them.
“Have you noticed her go into the kitty litter often but not produce any urine or poop?”
“No. I work all day and haven’t been home to notice so—” The words get caught in my throat as I realize what a horrible mother I am, leaving my cat behind without supervision. “God, I fucked up.” I put my head in my hands and try to calm down. I feel a hand on my shoulder, but I don’t need to have my eyes open to realize it isn’t Will.
I slowly raise my head to look at the vet, whose eyes have grown soft. “It’s going to be okay, I promise.”
I turn to look at Will for some reassurance from him as well, but find him a bit too preoccupied. Distracted by the hand currently on my shoulder. It’s as if he were doing everything possible to invoke any kind of superpower that could incinerate Dr. Sloane’s hand off my body without hurting me.
Honestly, if I weren’t so upset, I’d probably find it hot.
“So there’s nothing wrong with Ginger? She’s going to be okay?” The hope in my voice is dangerous, I realize, when the doctor’s smile slips.
“She will be. But she has a urinary blockage. A pretty bad one and quite rare in female cats. But then again, I get the feeling your cat is unique.” He tries for a smile, and I want to make a comment about her being part of the small percentage of female cats who are ginger, but can’t bring myself to.
“If we don’t operate now to drain the bladder and do a urine sample to find out what’s going on, something bad could happen.”
I gasp, my heart in a sprint. “Okay. Yeah. Yes . Whatever you need to do, we’ll do it.”
“Good. I just need to warn you before we proceed with anything of how much everything will cost. But you have pet insurance, correct?”
For the second time today, my heart sinks with fear.
“I—I only just got health insurance for myself a few months ago…” I admit, starting to cry again. “And that was through my job.”
His face twists in worry, and he drops his hand from my shoulder, which is fine by me because it frees me to lean into Will’s chest. He wraps an arm around my waist, and asks the doctor for an estimate.
“All in all, it could be anywhere between eight- to twelve-thousand dollars.”
“ American dollars? Human dollars?” I practically wail.
“This is just an estimate, though. It could be less.”
“It could also be more?”
He swallows and nods. I try not to cry even harder. I don’t have the money, but Ginger is the most important thing in my life right now, and I’ll do anything for her. Even if I have to sell a kidney.
Will tightens his grip on me before he begins rubbing soothing circles on my back. “Do you offer payment plans or…?” he asks. And thank god for him, for his ability to keep a cool head.
“Yes, we absolutely do. You’d have to speak to our finance department once we have a final number and pay a minimum deposit of two-hundred dollars now, but yes. I’ll need you to sign this form as an acknowledgment of the possible expenses.” He taps on the clipboard before passing it to me.
I exhale, a bit more appeased, and take it from his hands. My credit will make whatever payment plan they offer impossible (thanks again, Roger, you self-serving prick), but there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Ginger. She’s the only family I have left.
“Done,” I say when I wrap up my signature and hand him the clipboard back.
“Great. I’ll go back and hand this over to reception and then we’ll get to working on Ginger. In the meantime, I’d suggest you go back home and get some rest. We’ll call you when we have an update.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
With a kind smile, he shakes both our hands and walks back through the double doors he came from.
In silence, I tap my debit card to the reader, praying it goes through. Once the two-hundred dollars are paid, we’re dismissed. Will calls us a cab and we ride back to my place where I fall asleep in his arms while crying softly into his shirt.
When I wake the next morning, it’s because my phone won’t stop ringing. For a split second, I consider throwing it out the window. But when I’m flooded with memories of last night, I fumble around my bedsheets for my cell, noticing that Will is nowhere to be found.
“Hello?” I ask a little breathlessly.
“Is this Bridget Quinn?”
“Hi. Yes, this is she.”
“Bridget, hi. This is Dr. Sloane. Declan Sloane.”
My heart erupts in a sprint as I clutch the phone to my ear, bracing myself to hear whatever comes next. I’m over pleasantries, but I realize my cat’s life rests in this man’s hands, so there’s nothing I can do but bear it. “Hi, Dr. Sloane. Do you have an update on Ginger?”
“Yes. I’m calling to let you know everything went fine. We emptied her bladder and did a study. Turns out that she had some crystals in her urine, and they were causing the blockage and pain. She had a high fever, but we were able to get it down, and she’s stable now. Did you happen to change her diet recently? Because that might be a factor as to why this happened.”
I sniff, realizing only now that I’d started crying again. “Not really. I don’t know. I mean, I did start giving her these new dry treats, but they’re super popular. I didn’t find anything on the internet that could lead me to believe they were bad for her. God , I’m a terrible mother.”
He laughs softly over the other end of the line. “You’re not. These things happen. And she’s going to be fine, so no worries with that.”
I exhale, the weight of the world suddenly off my shoulders. “I’m so relieved to hear that, you have no idea.”
“I’m happy I was able to help. Really. Ginger is a beautiful cat. As beautiful as her owner.”
Uhhhh… What?
I choose to ignore his comment. After all, my cat is still in his custody. “Now that we’ve got the good news out of the way, could you tell me the bad news?”
“The bad news?”
“The final number? On the bill?”
“Oh, uh—” He coughs. “I was able to waive most of it, and we were off by a lot from the initial estimate. So you really only have to pay about one-seventy more, I think.”
I pause. “What?” Is my luck finally turning? After spending all night crying into Will’s chest wondering how I was going to afford it, how much I hated my ex for ruining my credit, and how impossible it was going to get a reasonable interest rate from their finance department, I wake up the next morning and the problem vanishes?
There’s a silence over the other end of the line as if he’s considering saying something.
“What? What is it? You’re making me nervous, doc.”
“Please. Call me Declan.”
“Uh. Declan.”
“I just… am going to be extremely unprofessional here, but… Are you seeing someone, Miss Quinn? Bridget?”
I nearly drop my phone. Did he seriously just?—?
“Um.”
“Because if you aren’t…” Is this really happening? “I would love to take you to coffee.” His voice is tentative; cautious. Like he knows this is as insane as I think it is. We’ve only spoken about my sick cat, and based off of that he wants to go out on a date?
“I… would need to think about it.” But it’s a no.