34. I’m His Person
I'm His Person
MAX
The ambulance ride is a blur of lights and radio static and a paramedic asking me questions I somehow remember the answers to.
Leo's birthday. Does he have insurance? Why the heck does that matter right now? His allergies, plural, because of course I know them all, I've known them for three years, I didn't think to check the stupid grab bag we got before he…
"You're doing great," the paramedic says, and I don't know if she's talking to Leo or to me.
Leo's eyes are closed. There's an oxygen mask over his face. His bunny ears are crushed against the stretcher, bent at a weird angle, and I want to fix them, but I'm afraid to touch him.
I think I'll hold his hand. That seems safe.
When we arrive, the ER is chaos. Controlled chaos, apparently, because everyone seems to know exactly what they're doing even though it looks like pure pandemonium to me.
Leo gets wheeled through double doors, and I try to follow, and someone in scrubs points me toward a waiting area, and I say "No" with enough force that they actually stop.
"I have all his information. Insurance. Medical history. Emergency contact. I'm his—" What? What am I? "—person. I'm his person."
The scrubs person looks at me, really looks, taking in the blue corset, the short skirt, and probably the mascara smudged under my eyes, and their expression softens. "Follow me."
They put Leo in a curtained area at the back of the ER, with the fluorescent lights dimmed and the monitors beeping softly.
A doctor appears almost immediately, which is surprising.
He's tall, with dark hair and mismatched eyes that I clock instantly because my brain never stops noticing details, even when I'm terrified.
"I'm Dr. K," he says, not to Leo, but to me, over Leo's stretcher. "You came in with him?"
"Yes. Max. I'm Max. He's Leo. Leo Bennett.
He ate shrimp crackers, and he's allergic…
severely allergic, anaphylaxis, his throat closes…
" I take a breath, ragged and fast. "And I had his EpiPen because I was carrying the main bag today, and he had the snacks, and he didn't know, or he forgot to check, and I stabbed him with it in his thigh because that's where you're supposed to do it. I think. I looked it up once…"
I manage another breath, but it’s almost a sob.
"I don't know if I did it right. I don't know if I used enough pressure.
The instructions say to hold it for ten seconds, but I don't know if I counted right because I was panicking and…
" I stop and swallow. "Is he going to be okay?
Someone tell me if he's going to be okay. "
"You did great." Dr. K's voice is warm. Steady. "The epinephrine worked. His airway's opening back up."
A nurse appears at his elbow, checks something on a chart, and says, "Dr. O'Brien, the labs are back on bed four."
Dr. O'Brien? I file that away for later because I don't have the brain space to care about anything except Leo's chest rising and falling under the thin hospital blanket.
Dr. K… Dr. O'Brien? Whatever his name, he shines a light in Leo’s eyes, checks his breathing, and does a bunch of doctor things I don't understand.
Leo is barely conscious, blinking slowly, looking confused.
"Hey, hey… eyes on me," Dr. K says gently. "There you go. You're doing great. Epinephrine's working; your airway's opening back up. A couple hours of observation and you'll be back to… What are you supposed to be, a sexy bunny? Bold choice for a con. I respect it."
I think he's flirting with Leo. He wouldn't do that, right? Leo almost died. That would be wildly inappropriate. But also… Leo does look good in the bunny ears. Even crushed. Even in a hospital bed. Focus, Max.
A nurse with a pinched-in face appears at the curtain. She takes one look at me, the skirt, the corset, the gloves I'm still wearing for some reason, and her lips thin. "Family only in the treatment area."
"He's not in the way," Dr. K says without looking up from Leo's chart. "And Mr. Bennett isn't in immediate danger. His emergency contact can stay."
"Hospital policy—"
"My call." Dr. K's voice is still friendly, but there's steel underneath it that says this isn't a discussion. "He stays."
The nurse's nostrils flare. She turns to me with a stack of forms and a pen that she basically throws at my chest. "Fill these out. Completely. If the insurance information is wrong, they won't process."
"Okay," I say, because I'm too tired to fight. "Thank you."
She doesn't say "you're welcome." She leaves, and I imagine all the things I could have said.
Oh, I'm sorry, is my presence inconvenient?
Should I have let my best friend die alone so your paperwork would be easier?
Maybe if you spent less time worrying about forms and more time actually caring about patients—
"Don't mind her," Dr. K says quietly. He's smiling at me, warm and reassuring. "Leo's looking good. Really. The reaction's under control, his vitals are stable. He needs to sleep off his reaction, and the antihistamines we are giving him now will make him sleep for a while too."
"Okay," I say again. It comes out wobbly. Dr. K squeezes my shoulder once, briefly, professionally, kindly, and disappears through the curtain. When he leaves, I sit and fill out forms. I fill out so many forms.
Leo sleeps through all of it, which is probably for the best because I keep looking up at him every thirty seconds like he might disappear if I don't. The angry red rash that was crawling down his chin and neck thirty minutes ago has faded to pink.
I've been watching it shrink like my life depends on it.
His life. It is his life that depends on it.
A completely inappropriate laugh sneaks out of me. My brain is doing that thing where it finds something funny because the alternative is screaming.
At some point, I catch my reflection in the dark monitor beside his bed. I look wrecked. Blue hair sticking up in every direction from running my hands through it, mascara smudged, costume rumpled. I look like Sayaka after the fall.
I can't believe Leo almost died because of a stupid bag of shrimp crackers. I can't believe I almost lost him before I could tell him… I love you. I'm in love with you. I want to be with you for real.
The words are right there. Have been for days.
But not here, not like this, not while he's hooked up to monitors and I'm sitting in a plastic chair filling out insurance forms. Leo deserves better than a confession that sounds like I only realized it because I got scared.
And I'm terrified that if I say it wrong, if I catch him when he's vulnerable and grateful and being Leo about it, he'll say yes because he wants me to be happy.
Not because he actually feels the same way.
I need to do this right. I need him to choose me because he wants to.
Not because I cornered him in a hospital room, so I keep filling out forms. The pinched-faced nurse comes back to collect the paperwork.
She looks at Leo, then at me, then at our hands, because somewhere in the last hour, I started holding Leo's hand again, and I don't remember deciding to do that.
Her professional mask slips for a second, but I saw it. The way her eyes narrowed at our joined hands. The way her mouth twisted when she looked at my skirt. It's not quite a sneer, but it's close. "Visiting hours end at nine," she says. "For friends."
The way she says "friends" makes it clear she doesn't think that's what we are.
I want to say something. I want to tell her that Leo is my person, that I've known him for three years, that I was the one who stabbed him with the EpiPen while she was probably glaring at some other poor family member, that I don't care what she thinks about my skirt or my mascara or the way I'm holding his hand—
"Thanks," I say instead. "I'll keep that in mind." She leaves, and I squeeze Leo's hand a little tighter.
The curtain rustles, and a nurse in bright pink scrubs appears, looking down at a chart. "Is Ms. Bennett back here? I'm looking for—" She pulls the curtain back fully and stops. Blinks. Looks at Leo. Looks at me. Looks back at Leo.
"That's… not a Ms. Lily Bennett about to give birth."
"No," I say. "This is Mr. Leo Bennett. Anaphylaxis… Shrimp crackers."
"Ah." She nods like this makes perfect sense. "Wrong, Bennett. There are three Bennetts in this ER right now. Two of them are L. Bennet's, which feels statistically unlikely, but here we are."
Dr. K appears behind her, reaching for Leo's chart. She immediately turns to him. "Figures," she says, loud enough that I can definitely hear. "The cutest man on the planet—" she looks at me and winks "—is your patient's friend."
I open my mouth to disagree with her. No, I’m not just his friend. But I stop and just stare at her.
Dr. K's eyes slide to me. He does a quick, obvious once-over, not creepy, just playful, and grins. "I noticed."
"Of course you did."
"I have eyes, Maya."
"You have wandering eyes." Her eyebrows are wiggling up and down now.
"That's not a real diagnosis." He doesn't look up from the chart he’s checking.
"I'm telling your mother."
He laughs and scribbles something. "Our mother usually agrees with me." I look back at Leo, who is sleeping peacefully while his doctor and nurse have a personality battle at his bedside, and feel some of the tension inside me relax.
He's going to be fine. These are his kind of people,
They go back and forth like this for another minute, and I…
watch. It's obviously a bit. A routine. I get the feeling their schtick is something they do to make scared people in hospitals feel less scared.
And honestly? It's working. My shoulders have dropped from my ears for the first time in two hours.
The nurse, Maya, turns back before she leaves. "Love the outfit, by the way. Very Madoka Magica. You pull it off."
"Thanks." I'm a little startled. "Leo made it."
"Seriously?" She looks back at Leo like she's reassessing him. "Okay. Talent and taste." She shoots Dr. K a look on her way out. "Don't scare this one."
She disappears through the curtain. Dr. K watches her go and shakes his head once, slowly, like he's been doing it for years. "Sisters," he says. "What are you gonna do?"
"I only have a brother. He's six years older and runs a farm in Wisconsin, so I think I get the 'sibling who won't leave you alone' thing. Sort of."
Dr. K laughs, and I feel a tiny bit proud of myself despite everything. "A farm. That's amazing. Very different from an ER."
"You'd be surprised. Cows can be just as dramatic as humans." He laughs again, and I feel myself almost smile as he glances back at the chart. "So, Dr. K or Dr. O'Brien? Maya said O'Brien earlier, but you introduced yourself as Dr.K.”
“I’m both, technically. Dr. Kieran O'Brien.
But there are two Dr. O'Briens in this hospital, and she got here first, so I'm Dr. K until she retires or I find somewhere else to be.
" He shrugs. "She has seniority. Natural order of things.
And honestly, my friends call me Dr. K anyway. Feels less stuffy."
Friends. He said it so easily, like we're already that, because I've been sitting in his ER for hours watching my best friend breathe.
Leo makes a sound. It's small, barely a noise at all, but my head snaps toward him so fast I almost give myself whiplash. Dr. K notices too, moving to Leo's bedside with smooth efficiency, checking the monitors and shining a penlight into Leo's eyes.
"There he is," Dr. K says warmly. "Welcome back, Mr. Bennett. You gave everyone quite a scare."
Leo blinks slowly, eyes hazy and unfocused.
He looks at the ceiling. At the monitors.
At Dr. K's face without any real recognition.
"Responses are good," Dr. K murmurs, more to himself than to me.
He clicks off the penlight and straightens up, moving around the bed to my side.
His hand lands warm and solid on my shoulder.
"See? Told you he'd be fine. You can breathe now. "
I let out a shaky exhale I didn't realize I was holding.
And that's when Leo's eyes focus. Really focus.
First on my face, then on Dr. K, standing close to me, then on the hand resting on my shoulder.
A reassuring gesture, nothing more, the same way he squeezed my shoulder earlier when I was panicking.
Leo's expression goes from "barely conscious" to "considering homicide" in about two seconds flat. It's the most alert he's looked since the convention center. And he is glaring at Dr. K like he's considering murder despite being horizontal, attached to an IV, and wearing a hospital gown.
"Whoa, okay." Dr. K immediately removes his hand, both palms up in surrender.
He's smiling, though, not at all offended.
"Message received. He's got a guard dog.
Respect." Leo's glare doesn't waver. Dr. K glances between us, something clicking behind his mismatched eyes.
"I'll give you two a minute," he says, and slips through the curtain with the practiced ease of someone who knows when to make an exit.
The silence he leaves behind feels enormous. Leo is looking at me now. Just… looking. His eyes drop to our hands, still joined, my fingers wrapped around his, and his face shifts. Softens. He smiles. It's small and tired and a little loopy from whatever they gave him, but it's real.
I should say something. I should say so many things. I've had hours to think about what I'd say when he woke up, and I haven't come up with a single coherent sentence.
"Hi," I say. Hi. Brilliant, Max. Really nailed it.
Leo's smile gets a little wider. His fingers squeeze mine, weak but deliberate. "Hi," he rasps. His voice sounds terrible. Scratchy and raw. The most beautiful sound I've ever heard.
I can't let go of his hand.