52. Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Two
Beau Drewitt
Record Time Arrival
Iswing my leg over the motorcycle and my hands shake so badly I have to grip the bars to steady myself.
The engine roars to life beneath me, loud, matching the unsettling feeling in my chest. I rake my fingers through my hair, brushing it back hard before forcing the helmet down, the click of the strap sounding final.
I hate myself. I fucking hate myself. I hate myself for how I talked myself down, how we didn’t think bigger and further, and worse, how I stopped pushing and just trusted that Elowen was fine and out there somewhere.
She’s on the opposite side. My sweet girl is dying.
I should have pushed. I should have called every hospital within a hundred miles, five hundred miles.
I should’ve called every fucking hospital in the country.
I should have known she wouldn’t just disappear without cause. She might’ve not run back to my arms, but she wouldn’t just disappear without a trace. The tire marks make sense. Her last scent was there because she probably laid right fucking there on that very strip of road.
The road opens in front of me and I take it too fast, the city blurring as I push the bike harder than I ever should.
The wind tears at me, cold and violent, and a distant part of my mind notes how delirious I am over her.
I can’t even think straight. I don’t slow down.
If worry is the price of loving her, I want to be in debt for the rest of my life.
The drive to the hospital is cut in half on the bike.
I slide off my helmet and lay it on the seat.
I could care less if someone takes it, I need to be inside this place.
Now. The hospital, Elisha Memorial, is a bright light that hurts.
I walk through automatic doors that open as if afraid to refuse me.
The security guard raises his left hand, signaling for me to come on in.
I let my gaze sit on him for one quiet second to avoid an untimely altercation.
The last thing I need is for him to try to kick me out.
Where is she? Where the fuck is the love of my life? My eyes dart around my surroundings, attempting to make sense of all the signs. I finally spot another station with a lady behind the desk wearing a lanyard decorated with sunflowers. The air around her smells like black coffee and peppermint.
“What can I do for you?” She asks with an attitude.
“I’m here to see Elowen Briar,” I say. The sound of it steadying me.
Her screen flickers as she types, clicking over and over.
She frowns as she writes on a badge for me.
“No visitors allowed in the room. Sit in the waiting room until the doctor retrieves you. Floor number and room on the badge. Masks and hand sanitizer stations before every elevator. Thank you.” She quickly rattles her mantra off to me.
“Thank you,” I say. I take the visitor sticker and place it on my jacket. I will not be waiting though. I will be going into her room.
I can feel Elowen in the building the way a tuning fork sings when a note near it sounds.
A thread that vibrates from somewhere ahead and slightly right.
I begin to follow it. The corridor smells like bleach and old hope that had died long ago.
Monitors speak in a clipped language around me.
I listen for the stutter-like beat of her heart.
Any confirmation of her pulse to keep me calm until she’s in my arms again.
I find her behind a curtain and a partially closed door.
A nurse stands near the foot of the bed and makes notes with a purple pen. I wait until she looks up.
“May I?” I ask.
She glances at my sticker. She weighs kindness against policy and discovers a loophole shaped like my face.
She nods once. “A few minutes,” she says.
“No touching anything.” I step to the side of the bed.
Elowen looks like a ghost caught between rooms. She would hate that comparison.
She’s never been the fragile type. Even now she felt like my own personal gravity.
They have pulled her hair back in a tiny clip on top.
Her pixie cut has grown out since the first time we met.
It’s just long enough now to clip it back.
One of her cheeks holds a bruise while the other houses a thin cut.
Her sweet face must’ve caught a piece of glass.
The skin near her collarbone had been sutured back shut.
A cannula runs under nose to help her breathe.
I put my hand close to hers, but I don’t touch it.
I let the stillness in me become a structure she can lean on if she wants in her rest. It’s the only thing I have ever been certain I can offer.
It can never be warmth, but a promise that nothing in me will ever flinch.
I love her. There’s nothing else to it. I’m certain she is the one for me.
“Knock, knock. Coming in, Ms. Briar,” a voice says behind me.
A doctor moves into the room with a small team like planets orbiting the sun.
He appears compact and methodical. His scrubs are tucked in rather than the normal untucked.
He sets a chart at the foot of the hospital bed and his eyes flick to me, but then settles on his work.
He speaks to the nurse, then to the respiratory tech.
The older gentleman uses words like stable, observation, and paralytic.
He never says the word miracle, though. Nor does he ever say the word disaster either.
He lives in the middle like good physicians should.
I wait until he pauses his speech. “Is she doing okay?” I ask with all the courage I can muster, keeping my voice soft to keep from bending anything that doesn’t belong to me.
My sentiment is partially made of selfish hope because I can’t imagine letting her leave this world in such a cruel, unjustified way.
She deserves better. He looks at me fully, reading my sticker then, my face.
I guess he decides to file me under notes for later and for now, he’ll let me in.
“We’re watching her response, son,” he says, but pauses, “How did we miss this cut? Antoine, take care of this cut on Elowen’s face.
I don’t know how that went missed.” He places his hand on his hip and continues.
“The paralytic is taking longer than we expected to clear, but we were able to wean her off the intubation. That’s not unusual after trauma with the medication, but it’s also not ideal.
The good news is that her vitals are holding.
We’ll know more soon.” My hands go quiet at my sides.
My mind reaches for numbers and half remembered studies from a century ago.
I’ve lived through centuries of medicine that believe leeches could change the tide.
This man has machines and careful words.
I prefer the machines when it comes to Elowen.
“What can I do? Have they caught who made her swerve?” I ask, coating my voice in sincerity.
“Stay calm, for her sake,” he says. “No word on the suspect yet. The cops will probably tell you before us. They’ve put security on both sides of this wing, for her protection.
When she wakes, keep her from trying to move too quickly.
Familiar voices help. We’re ruling out other causes for the delayed response.
” Other causes. I can start a list if they haven’t already.
“Thank you,” I reply. He nods and leaves with his small consolation.
The nurse that didn’t rat on me stays behind.
I owe her. She adjusts Elowen’s main IV line and triple-checks her monitor, as if it will miraculously change.
She gives me a look that says, “Your few minutes are up, but since the doctor seemed okay with your presence, you can stay a bit longer.” I turn back to Elowen.
Antoine is working at the gash on her face, sterilizing it before he glues it shut.
I look at the way her hands lay perfectly still, untouched.
I think of the first time she ever touched my hand, outside of the bookstore.
I could feel the weight of my hunger in the background the way a house feels its own foundation.
The sudden separation has shaken her scent loose in my head.
It throbs like a wound. I use the ache as a metronome to keep my thinking in time.
My phone buzzes in my pocket repeatedly. This is not the time.
I look at the ceiling and count slowly. A soft sound comes from the bed. I move closer, before thinking. “Elowen,” I say. I speak her name as if I’m placing a hand on a skittish animal. “It’s me, mi tesoro. Be still, okay.”
Her eyes fight their way open. They drag color back into the world.
She looks straight above herself, confused and scared.
Elowen’s eyes move to the window, the only other source of light in the room besides the television.
When she connects my voice with a direction, she locks eyes with me.
She starts to open her mouth. Her eyes grow wildly large.
She searches for the shape of someone else in the room.
No one else is here now. She’s scared of me.
“Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you. You were in an accident.
I had to use Imani to track you down. I was worried sick about you last night.
Just be still, okay. You’re just now awake after a very eventful night.
” My brows crease, hoping that she will recognize the truth I speak.
Her heart rate speeds and her eyes begin to dance like she’s avoiding stepping on a land mine.
She begins to cough, but is still under some influence of the paralytic.
“Be..Beau?” she musters. The sound is dry, angry, and beautiful, all at once.
“It’s me, mi tesoro,” I say again. That's all I have. It feels like a prayer only because I mean it as one. She’s still scared. She doesn’t trust me. She tries to move and the line tugs against the tape.