Chapter 12
Flesh Wounds
Of all the sights Sage hoped she might eventually see in Skye, unsurprisingly, Portree Community Hospital didn’t make her mental wish list. And yet here she is on a gurney in a space that’s cordoned off by curtains, her head throbbing and her eyes blinking rapidly under the too-bright lights.
Given how hard she hit the ground, it’s a miracle she remembers it at all.
They’ve given her pain medicine, so she still feels a bit groggy, enough so that she doesn’t immediately realize the agitated sounds echoing down the hall is someone asking after her.
“Sage Collins. Where is she?” Her mind seems to be running at half speed, because it takes far longer than it should to place the voice when there’s only one person who says her name like that.
The curtain is ripped back, and there’s Theo, and he looks …
Well, Theo looks sort of like he’s the one that slipped on ice and knocked his head against the cobbles. His face is pale, his hair mussed in the way that evidences his fingers have been running through it, and there’s a wild sort of look in his eyes as he meets her gaze.
“Theo?”
“Christ,” he breathes. “Are you all right?”
“I’m …” She wants to say “fine,” but she’s actually not entirely sure. She thinks she’s okay, but she has no idea why he’s in the ER—or how he knew she was here to begin with. She blinks again against the grogginess that feels like a film over her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“They called me.” Theo scans her as if he can pick out her injuries.
“What?” She struggles to sit up further, suddenly hyperaware of how she’s sprawled out on a gurney under fluorescent lights and Theo, even in his panic, looks like he just stepped off the set of a film with his perfect-fitting peacoat and dark-wash jeans. “Why?”
“I’m your bloody emergency contact, Collins.” His voice is strangled, a muscle in his jaw jumping as he drags his fingers roughly through his hair.
“Oh my god,” she breathes. She’d changed his contact as a joke. And now …
“Oh my god,” she repeats. “I—” She’s cut off by a nurse stepping into the room.
“Miss Collins,” she greets as she bustles in. She pauses and beams at Theo. “Ah, I see your friend has arrived.”
There’s a familiar look in the nurse’s eyes. It’s the same one Sage saw on the flight attendant on their plane to Comic Con. This time, Sage knows exactly what it means.
God, she hopes the NHS has some equivalent of HIPAA. She can practically see the headlines now.
THEO SHARPE RUSHES TO BEDSIDE OF HOSPITALIZED “FRIEND” SAGE COLLINS
Theo folds his arms and fixes his full attention on the nurse. Sage doesn’t know that she’s ever seen him look so serious. “Is she okay?” he asks.
“I’m fine.” Sage’s reassurance is met with a glare.
But the nurse simply chuckles. She preens a bit underneath Theo’s rapt attention but remains professional as she says, “We call emergency contacts just on a precautionary basis. Sage hit her head, but her concussion test came back all clear. She just needs a bit of rest and some ice. Paracetamol would do her some good, too, once her pain medication wears off.”
The nurse is all saccharine smiles, and it only makes the growing awkwardness in the room more evident.
Theo hasn’t moved from his stern stance, so unlike the alluring persona Sage is embarrassed to admit she’s seen him don in interviews and on social media, and Sage feels helpless and small lying here beside him like this.
“You’ll want to take it easy for the next few days,” the nurse instructs Sage. “No vigorous activity, and perhaps limit work if you can, especially on the computer.”
That panic she’d felt at the pub returns, distracting her momentarily from Theo’s irritation. It sends her pulse ratcheting up so quickly she can feel it in her throat. She doesn’t have time to limit work.
Her eyes start to burn, and she clamps her jaw tight, as if she can literally bite back the ridiculous urge to cry.
She knows, she knows it’s because she’s overwhelmed—that she’s had a bad day and all she needs is a minute and she’ll be fine—but her addled brain doesn’t want to listen.
“… you’ve had a fall, so be patient with yourself if you’re feeling a little low energy,” the nurse is saying.
“If anything changes tonight, you come back here. Blurry vision, headaches, vomiting.” And then, as if she hasn’t just instilled fear in them both, she gives them another beaming smile.
“I’ll just go get your paperwork, and we’ll have you discharged. Won’t be a moment.”
And with that she strides out of the room, leaving a full silence in her wake.
Theo lowers himself into the plastic chair against the wall, movements stiff and eyes fixed blankly on a point across the room.
Sage tries to get comfortable on the bed, an impossible task when the tension in the air is nearly as painful as the throbbing spot on her head where she whacked it on the pavement.
Beneath her anxiousness, she feels so awkward she could die. She can’t tell if it’s just embarrassment, or the fact that this is only the second time they’ve seen each other in person since Comic Con and it’s only because he was called to her bedside as if they were …
Anything.
Sage swallows and reaches for her best defense.
Deflective humor.
“You did warn me about tripping. I never do listen.”
The only acknowledgment Theo gives her is the twitch of the corner of his mouth, but it looks more like a grimace than it does the smile he’s trying to force.
The silence grows, and it presses against Sage’s skin until she feels like the only relief she might find is by crawling out of it.
She tries to take a deep breath—tries to lighten that pressure swelling like a balloon in her chest—but the air smells like antiseptic, and the constant beeping and murmuring of the ER floats its way through the curtain, and it simply reminds her how ridiculous this entire situation is.
Theo is all sharp edges and rigidity, from the straight stack of his spine to the lethal line of his jaw, every bit of him like a rubber band stretched too far, just waiting to snap.
“You don’t have to stay,” she mutters as she buries her hands into the scratchy sheet beneath her. The tangle of it between her fingers is surprisingly soothing, and it’s enough to have her sitting a little straighter as Theo finally breaks his staring contest with the wall.
“Do you not want me to?” The question is wary. “I suppose your hosts could come pick you up, but—”
“I can walk to my car,” she interrupts. “I don’t think it’s that far.”
She doesn’t have a concussion, the pain meds aren’t that strong, and …
And she hates feeling like this. Like she can’t take care of herself.
Like a bother.
“Is this because the nurse recognized me?” Theo asks with a frown. “Of all the places for someone to leak a story, it’s not going to be the bloody hospital. Besides, people mostly leave me be here—”
“It’s not about that,” Sage insists, her grip tightening against the sheets. “It’s … there’s really no need for anyone to be here,” she finishes with a murmur.
There’s a beat of silence, and she’s not entirely sure how she expects Theo to respond, but it certainly isn’t the irritated scoff that slices through the quiet, or the shake of his head. “Fucking Christ, Sage—”
“Why are you upset with me?!”
It takes her muddled mind a moment to catch up with her mouth—to realize she’s blurted out the question that’s been nagging at her since he burst into the room. Once it does, she feels her cheeks heat, but Theo merely freezes, his mouth opening and closing once, before he croaks, “What?”
He’s finally holding her gaze, but now Sage can’t bring herself to hold his.
She clears her throat and twists the sheet tighter and stares at her lap instead.
That burning sensation is ruthlessly pressing behind her eyelids, and if she cries now, she might just fling herself back down on the sidewalk and stay there.
“I didn’t ask them to call you,” she forces out, aiming for anger and falling shy of it by a mile as her wavering voice betrays her. “I changed your contact name as a joke, and I forgot to change it back. I didn’t even know—”
“Hey.” She startles a bit as he sits on the bed next to her, his hands warm as they slide over hers.
She hadn’t even heard him get up from the chair.
Theo takes a moment to unwind the death grip she has on the sheet before he gives her hands a squeeze.
“Sage, I’m not upset with you.” His eyes are wide and blue and earnest as he peers down at her.
“I was panicked. I got the call, and they said you were hurt, and I just …” His throat bobs.
“I’m trying to take a breath, here. I don’t do well with emergency calls. Or hospitals, for that matter.”
Oh.
Oh.
Of course Theo, who lost both his mom and his brother in a car accident, doesn’t do well with emergency calls or hospitals.
“Shit,” she breathes. “I am so sor—”
“If you bloody apologize to me—”
“I’ll change your contact right now,” she hurries on, reaching for her phone only to realize she’s not sure where it is. “I didn’t even think about—”
“Don’t.” Theo cuts her off, squeezing her hands to keep her still. “Suffice it to say I’m glad you put me in your phone that way. I just …” He trails off, looking a bit lost. But then he’s sucking in a breath and pressing on. “I was panicked. It’s not like the accident happened here, but … still.”
There’s still an apology building on her tongue, but Theo tilts his head, his brow furrowing in gentle confusion as he asks, “What happened?”