Chapter 4
Frankie
“I can see your legs,you know.”
Visible beneath the edge of the beige curtain, the toe of his right foot shifts an inch to the right. Almost as if he contemplated turning around and stopped himself.
He was talking to a cop as I was wheeled back into my room. I’ve been bracing myself, waiting for someone to take a statement I’m not sure how to give, but Jude only parked himself silently outside.
“How can you be sure who I am?”
“I haven’t met anyone else wearing those filthy black boots.”
With the state of my clothes, I’m not one to talk, but pushing Jude’s buttons seems to be an entertaining way to pass the time until they can cast my arm and get me out of here.
Hearing the audible crack myself, I expected the diagnosis of a broken arm. When I requested nothing more than a proper sling to send me on my way, the medical staff was more than a little puzzled and equally unaccommodating.
They might come to regret their stance when the hospital winds up footing the bill. I don’t have a single penny to my name to pay for this medical care.
“Those filthy boots walked through the woods to save your sorry ass.”
“Don’t praise yourself too hard for a job well done. The four-wheeler did most of the heavy lifting.”
“Is your smart mouth some defense mechanism of yours?”
“I don’t have a defense mechanism.”
The curtain between us ripples. “We all do, sweetheart. Some aren’t quite as obvious as others.”
“What’s yours?”
“None of your business,” he grunts.
A smile stretches my lips. Yes, poking the big bear outside my room is quite fun.
“You know you can leave. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“You seem a bit accident-prone to me.”
The paper-covered pillow behind my head crinkles as I shift and stare mutely at the ceiling tiles.
“Unless it wasn’t an accident.” Jude’s voice is heard easily in the silence.
Every muscle in my body coils tight. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Heard an interesting rumor.”
I scoff and cross my good arm over my chest despite Jude not being able to see it. “Oh yeah? From who?”
“Got talking to the local cop this morning.”
The simple mention of law enforcement increases my pulse. “I haven’t had any interactions with the police, so whatever you heard must be false.”
His boots creak against the linoleum. “So you wouldn’t know anything about a girl falling out of a car on the highway?”
Fall? Did I fall?
I close my eyes. I imagine the sound of muffled voices. Like listening to an argument through thin walls. The words are nothing more than obscure radio static before the memory of the car ride slips through my fingertips, only to be replaced by a blank emptiness.
“I think I jumped,” I mumble beneath my breath.
The curtain flies open, and Jude’s face stares back at me. Handsome? Yes. Furious? Also yes.
“You what?” he nearly roars, those intense silver eyes on mine.
I squeak and scramble to yank the itchy blanket up over my chest. The wedding dress provides some coverage, but they had to cut off my jacket, revealing my bare arms and the scoop neckline. With narrowed eyes, I say, “Could I have some privacy?”
“Sorry.” He jerks his head back out. The curtain flutters aggressively into place behind him. “What possessed you to do that?” he asks from the other side.
“Desperation,” I sigh the simplest answer he’s going to get. It might be a lie, but I can’t remember anything concrete that would entice me to toss myself out of a moving vehicle.
When he speaks again, his tone is gruff. “Are you safe?”
“I thought we established I wasn’t going to answer any of your questions.”
“Would you be amenable if I said please?”
“I might be.”
His sigh is loud and long. “Can you please tell me if you’re safe?”
Something flutters beneath my sternum. “I think I’m safer than I was in that car.”
Physically, that is. The issue now is I have no money, nowhere to stay, no way to get home, and no job, along with a broken arm and an insidious throb in my head.
I close my eyes. “Is that enough?”
“For now.”
My jaw falls, but before I can press further, the curtain pulls open. With a scolding on the tip of my tongue, I swallow it down when a man in brown scrubs walks into the room.
“How are you feeling, Franklynn?”
I smother a sneer at the use of my given name. “Like my arm’s broken.”
Jude’s boots shift to the side outside of my room like he turned into the curtain to hear better.
“We’ll be able to fix the fracture with a simple hard cast. You’ll go home with a brace until you can get an appointment with the Orthopedist. Can you tell me what day it is?” The doctor stares at me intently.
“Uh, Tuesday?”
“And the month, please?”
“April.”
“You’ve had a headache?”
“Yes.”
“Any nausea or vomiting?” He pulls out a pen light and shines it across my eyes.
“A little nausea I guess.”
“Troubles with your eyes? Blurry vision?”
“I–maybe a little? I was more focused on my broken arm.”
“Unfortunately, I think you have more than a broken arm. Your CT was clear of a contusion or brain bleed, but your symptoms are consistent with a concussion. I suspect it’s mild.” He unwinds his stethoscope and presses the cold circle against my back. I startle. He continues as he listens to my heart. “Any issues with your memory?”
I pause. Then I lower my voice, conscious of the man on the other side of the curtain. “Um, a little. I’m having trouble remembering what happened… before I hit my head.”
“Unfortunately, that can happen with a head injury. Two days of strict rest should clear up most of your other symptoms, and you can return to regular activity once they’re gone. In the meantime, you can take acetaminophen for the pain.”
“Oh. Okay.” I shift uncomfortably. There’s no way I can rest for two days while I’m figuring out my next steps. Slap a cast on me and send me on my way. I can probably find my way to a bus and beg someone to cover my fare. But resting for two days without a bed?
Yeah, right.
“Any questions?” The doctor returns his stethoscope to his neck, and I lie back down.
“Will my memory come back?”
He palpates my scalp, and I wince.
“I’m sorry. I can’t say for certain. Sometimes it does. Other times, that moment is just gone.”
A blip in time simply erased. A few minutes shouldn’t matter in the span of a life, but for some reason, I feel like this moment was important.
“Anything else?” he asks kindly.
Nothing he can help me with anyway. “No, that’s it.”
“I’ll get someone in with the brace, and we’ll get you out of here. If anything worsens, give us a call.”
He departs with the sound of the curtain drawing shut.
Only for it to reopen a second later.
“You have to stop barging in here,” I sputter at Jude. “I could be naked!”
He crosses confidently into my room. “Oh, please. You aren’t going to be naked for a broken arm.”
“Maybe my ribs are broken, and they undressed me.”
His mouth forms a hard line as he traces my body with those sharp silver eyes. “Are they?”
My shoulders slump, and I cover my face with my arm. “No.”
“Good.”
A peek beneath my limb reveals him rocking back into his heels. His eyes are unfocused, as if his mind is a hundred miles away.
“You can go, you know.”
“Did you call someone to come get you?” he asks.
“I don’t have a phone.”
The air he releases vibrates with an incredulous huff. He extends his phone between us. “Here.”
I wave him off. “Don’t bother.”
“You really have a hard time taking the help offered to you, don’t you?”
“It isn’t hard when I don’t have anybody to call.” The confession slips from between my lips before I can clamp them shut.
“I figured that fiancé of yours was a good-for-nothing son of a bitch, but your parents?”
I nearly smile at his apt description of Dillon. Before I can, his question steals the humor away.
“Drug users, remember? We don’t have a lot of contact unless they’re asking me for money.”
“What about your friends?”
My laugh is humorless. “The ones I have are decent people, but compassion doesn’t give them the means to come get me. I’m a couple of hours from home at least.”
Jude’s throat works over a strong swallow. A silence stretches between us. If I look closely, it almost seems like his lips are moving with soundless words. He briefly closes his eyes, and when he opens them, they’re steely with determination.
“You’re coming home with me.”
His shocking declaration nearly prompts me to my feet. If only my tired body wasn’t so comfortable in this bed.
“That’s a little presumptuous, don’t you think? You haven’t even taken me to dinner yet.” I grin.
The stoic man does an incredible job holding back the barest hint of amusement. Either he finds me entirely unfunny or he has one hell of a poker face.
It has to be the latter because I am a damn comedian.
“I’ll feed you when we get there,” he says.
“Oh, I was joking.”
“Think I told you already I don’t joke.”
“All right, don’t lose your head. It’s quite nice to look at,” I tease. “You can take me home. I’ll even let you put me to bed.”
There are a million reasons to stand and fight for my independence, but when I have nothing but a stained dress to my name, I’d be stupid to turn him down. I’m no damsel, but I’m already headed for rock bottom. I don’t need to rush to find it.