Chapter Thirty-Two
I was hopingthat Molly would make her way back into my room. When they made her leave, I kind of made a big stink about it, so they put a nurse on guard at my door, making it impossible for me to leave. But after sitting here for half an hour, my good behavior and flattering words must have won her over, and she finally left. Not soon after, my door creaked open, and Molly crept in and climbed into my bed without a single word. She is now asleep, her head resting on my chest, her arms wrapped around me like a monkey holding onto its mother for dear life.
The doc enters the room, and I motion for him to be quiet as he rolls the chair up to my side. I look at his name tag and chuckle before greeting him. “Hey, Dr. Payne. You do realize that your name doesn’t bring me any comfor–,” He cuts me off, shaking his head.
“You do realize that I get that at least ten times a day, right?” He grabs the clipboard from the edge of the bed and whistles as he meets my eyes. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard the nurses whispering about a plane crash and two survivors in my own hospital. So I had to see this for myself.” The name of the hospital registers in my head as I take in the man before me.
“Ah. I thought I recognized your name for more than that little pun from a second ago. Sorry about that, by the way. But you know, I just had to.” Molly stirs next to me, and the both of us still as she snuggles in closer. “She’s had a rough week, so whatever you need to do, can you do it here so I don’t have to wake her?”
Dr. Payne shrugs his shoulders and moves to the end of the bed, unwrapping the blood-soaked bandage from my leg, motioning for the nurse to bring him a water basin so he can wash off the dried blood. “Sorry about this, Cooper. This is going to sting a bit.” I wave him off and try to hold still as he starts cleaning out the wound.
“Who cleaned this? Whoever it was, they did a wonderful job.” The doc is impressed, and I feel pride as I motion to the woman lying beside me, giving her credit where credit is due.
“Well, if she doesn’t already have a job, I would offer her a job as a nurse on the spot. However, you are going to need some stitches.” He squirts his syringe into the wound again, and I flinch in pain, hissing as the stinging subsides, causing Molly to wake. She sits up and looks around, taking in her surroundings as her eyes settle on the doctor.
“Oh… uh… hello there.” She salutes him awkwardly, and her cuteness makes me want to kiss her then and there. Doctor or not.
“Hello, Molly. I hope I didn’t wake you.” He winks at her, and she blushes, and I am immediately on guard. This doctor is older, but he is still pretty good lookin’.
“Yeah. Uh… This is Dr. Payne. He’s going to have to give me some stitches. Do you want to stay, or do you want to leave before he starts stabbing me with his needle?” I start to laugh as I make the motion of someone stabbing my leg and look over to find the doctor scowling at me. I guess he didn’t like my joke.
“Ah. You must be the man in charge if your name is plastered all over this hospital. Good to know my Coop is in good hands.” She turns to me and kisses my cheek before continuing. “Nah. I’ll stay if that is alright with you, doc.” She slips her hand into mine and squeezes it as the doc grabs something from his side table.
“Sure. Fine by me. I’m going to give you a few injections of lidocaine before I start with the stitches. If, at any time, you start to feel the needle, let me know so I can numb you more. This cut is pretty deep, so we are going to need to do two layers of stitches since some of the muscle has been cut.” The doc administers the lidocaine and tells us he will be back in about fifteen minutes. We close our eyes as we wait for him to come back, the both of us exhausted from our ordeal. It takes him thirty minutes to stitch up my leg before moving on to check Molly’s head.
“You have a small bump. But nothing to be concerned about. I’ll have one of the nurses bring you some Advil. You might have a slight headache for a few days, but it shouldn’t bother you too much. I’m going to go fill out the discharge papers. It might take a few hours for everything to get entered into the system, so just rest up and we will have you out of here in no time.” He exits the room, and I pull the sheet up over the both of us as Molly settles her head next to mine on the pillow. We sigh in unison as we try to get comfortable on the tiny hospital bed, and before long, Molly is asleep, and soon after, I follow her lead.
My mind is foggy.But the familiar sounding voices entering my dreams have me opening my eyes to a sight that should have me laughing, but instead has me fighting off curse words.
King, Perry, Duke, Beck, and my dad are hovering near the door of the hospital room, arguing with one another in what they believe are whispered words, as Molly wakes up beside me, confusion written across her face as to what is going on. “Who in the he–?” She must recognize my dad before she finishes her sentence, because what I thought was going to be one word merges into another, “–llo, Mr. Heyes, sir.” She tries to scramble off of the bed, but I hold her close, trapping her against me with my arms.
The boys are quiet now with the realization that I wasn’t in this bed alone, and the looks on their faces are ones I wish I could capture with a camera. Perry looks like he wants to inform the rest of the group that he already knew about me and Molly; King looks like he might be upset that he didn’t know first but might still be able to fudge that he did know first if he is crafty enough; Beck looks confused as all get out, Duke has a stupid smirk on his face; and my dad… Well, my dad has an all-knowing smile stretched across his face, like he knew all along. Which, let’s be honest. Maybe he did. He is my dad, after all. What’s that song from Tangled? The one that talks about mothers knowing best? Well… If I knew my mother, she probably would know best. But substitute my dad in, and this man pretty much knew when I was about to get into trouble at school for the punches I was about to throw.
Better get this over with and get them all out of here as fast as possible. I look around at each of them, and they all have gifts from the gift shop in their hands. The balloon that Perry is holding says, “Get well soon,” with different emoji faces all over the balloon. Why is the poop emoji on there? Weird, but still pretty funny. The little pink teddy bear that Beck is holding looks hilarious in his large hands and says, “Congratulations, It’s a girl,” in big, bold words embroidered across its belly. Duke has a vase of flowers with a large card that says, “Sorry about the appendix. At least it wasn’t your manhoo–,” I can see him trying to cover up the words he had written on the card to make it funny. His cheeks are red as he flips the card around as Molly laughs beside me. I motion with my mouth, “Too late, buddy,” before he groans and rips the card in two, shoving it into the trash can. King is the only one, other than my dad, without a gift, and I can see the concern in his eyes. We have all been friends forever, but me and King have a brotherly bond, and I can tell he was more than worried. I motion for them to all come over to the bed, and I high-five them all before reassuring them that we are okay. They all file out of the room, except for King, and before I know what is happening, he wraps me in a hug, which also includes Molly, because she is entangled in my arms, and pulls away, sniffing to himself as he clears his throat and exits the room. My dad is the only one left, and we proceed in much the same way as me and King, but he doesn’t let go before whispering in both of our ears, “When you know, you know. And I knew.” Before pulling away and winking at both of us. “I’ll go wait outside until the doc is done with the papers.” And just like that, Molly and I are left alone again, with our silly gifts that mean more to me than I think the boys realize.
We arrive backat the cottage, and the sun has already begun to set. Did the hospital ordeal really take an entire day? It feels like the days have just merged into one, and I am so tired, I can barely keep my eyes open. My dad watches from the car as I make it inside with the help of the hospital crutches, before he heads back to his home. I go to sit down on the couch, but Molly motions toward the bed before I take my seat. “Don’t sit there; it’s not comfy enough. I’m going to go grab a shower before we go to bed. I feel disgusting. Just relax, and you can grab one next.” She brings me a little snack from the kitchen and a bottle of water before disappearing into the bathroom.
I doze off, and something tickles my face as I open my eyes. “You were snoring, Coop. Did you know you snore?” Molly has her hair braided into pigtails again, and her cheeks are rosy from the hot shower she just took.
“You are gorgeous,” I say in my sleepy haze, and her cheeks darken in color as my eyes rest on her pink, now lip-glossed lips.
“You’re not so bad yourself, you know.” She smiles at me before pointing to the bathroom. “But you cannot go to sleep like that. Go take a shower. You’ll feel much better afterwards.” She helps me into the bathroom and turns on the shower for me, helping me tie a plastic bag around the bandage before leaving me to myself.
The water feels so nice, but I am too tired to enjoy it. I wash as quickly and as thoroughly as I can before realizing that I don’t have any clothes. I wrap myself in a towel and hop to the door, cracking it open to find Molly fighting off sleep. “Uh, Molls. I don’t have any clothes.” She giggles as she heads to the other room, leaving me to panic about my situation. Is she just going to leave me here like this? I clear my throat to call for her, but she appears before me, a stack of my clothes in her hands. “Your dad gave me a bag with some of your stuff in it.” I give her a quick kiss on the lips before I lose my towel and shut the door, hopping around to get my clothes and trying my best to not put pressure on my leg. The doc warned me to stay off of it, or I could tear the sutures.
Once I am dressed and my teeth are brushed, I hobble back into the room, where Molly has fallen asleep. I turn off the lights and snuggle in next to her, and try to keep the niggling worry out of my mind about the fact that this amazing woman lives thousands of miles away and, at some point, will have to go home. At some point, she will have to leave me. Or does she? Maybe there is a way I can keep her here? As I drift off to sleep, my mind continues to work, thinking about all of the possibilities that could keep the woman I love close to me forever.