Chapter 7 #3
Once she passed the police station, she knew she didn’t have far to go.
She crossed the street at the next corner, then one block down, and she was there!
The hospital parking lot was a maze of people trying to park near the emergency entrance, and dozens and dozens of people going in, while others were coming out.
When Briar came running toward the entrance, from the viewpoint of the others, her rain-soaked appearance, her tear-streaked face, and the blood on her clothes and legs were shocking, and she was alone.
It was enough for the crowd to part and let her in ahead of them, thinking she was in dire need of medical treatment.
By the time she got to the check-in desk, she was trembling. “Tate Bandy. Where did they take him?” she asked.
“Are you family?” the receptionist asked.
Briar lifted her chin. “I belong to him. He belongs to me. We were together when he was injured. His family is out of town. The EMT wouldn’t let me ride with them in the ambulance, but he said when I got here, I could be with him.”
The receptionist saw past her appearance, to being another victim who survived the storm, and pointed. “Through those double doors. Down the hall to the left. Room 5.”
Briar was shaking inwardly, but her chin was up and her steps were still steady as she went through the doors and down the hall to Room 5.
* * *
They’d cut Tate out of his clothes and left him belly down with the glass shards still embedded in his flesh. His body was as bare as the day he’d been born, except for the bedsheet they had draped over his backside.
Doctor Joe was getting ready to pull the glass shard out of Tate’s leg when Briar walked in. Tate had been telling them over and over that Briar was coming, and to please let her in, so when she arrived, he wasn’t surprised, but her appearance was startling.
“Briar, I see you made it, and I hear you put the tourniquet on his leg.”
Tate raised his head. “She’s here?”
Briar immediately moved to his bedside where he could see her.
“I’m here. They wouldn’t let me ride with you.
I stayed to call our parents, then ran all the way here.
” After that, her voice broke. She swallowed past the knot in her throat to regain her composure and pushed a chair close to his bed to sit down.
But she didn’t fool Tate. He could tell she’d been crying, and he could see the terror on her face. “It’s okay, honey. I’m going to be okay.”
Doctor Joe was still focused on Briar’s appearance. “You’re pretty bloody too. Are you also injured?”
“No, sir. This is Tate’s blood, and Tate’s shirt. I used my shirt for his tourniquet.”
Doctor Joe nodded. “Okay, then. Here we go, Tate, I’ve deadened the area around both wounds, so you shouldn’t feel much more than a tug. But if it hurts, let me know.”
“Yes, sir,” Tate said, but his gaze was fixed on Briar’s face as he reached for her hand.
She clasped it firmly. She couldn’t watch what was happening, so she locked into Tate’s gaze, reading his expression as easily as he was reading hers. If the sparks between them had been as incendiary as their thoughts, the whole hospital would have gone up in smoke.
* * *
When the last piece of glass had been removed and the area stitched up, Tate was still belly down, with thirteen stitches in his shoulder and ten stitches in his leg.
With every stitch the doctor put in, Briar continued to tell whoever was listening about what happened to her, and how she’d been locked out of their storm shelter, and Tate’s heroism in coming to save her.
It would be all over town before dark, but she didn’t care.
Whatever shame her mother garnered from this was hers to bear, not Briar’s.
The nurse began applying bandages as Doctor Joe stepped around to where Tate could see him.
“There were minute shards of glass deeper in your shoulder than was visible, but both areas have been cleaned up and you are stitched back together.”
“Can I go home now?” Tate asked.
Doctor Joe frowned. “I want you here at least overnight to monitor your progress. You lost quite a bit of blood, son, and you do not want to go home alone while you’re still this weak.
I’ve already notified the nurses’ station to get a room ready for you.
And yes, Briar can stay with you. We will reassess you tomorrow, and if all is well, I will release you,” he said, then focused on Briar.
She was clearly in shock. “Briar, you are welcome to shower in the bathroom that will be in Tate’s room, and a nurse will bring you a hospital gown to wear.
Washing off all that blood will make you feel better. ”
She looked down at herself again and shuddered. “Yes, thank you, Doctor Joe. I will.”
“Good girl!” he said, then lightly patted Tate’s back. “Hang tight, son. An orderly will be here soon to move you to your room.”
“Thanks for the stitches, Doc,” Tate said.
“From what I’ve just been told, you are something of a hero. It was my honor to put you back together.”
* * *
As it was with small towns, it didn’t take long for the residents to learn of Tate Bandy’s frantic drive into the mouth of the storm to save his girl, or what it cost him to do it. So, while the story was spreading, theirs was only one of a dozen near-death experiences today.
The miracle was that no one had been killed.
The hard part was going to be rebuilding what had been destroyed.
But as night drew near, the lack of power and shelter in Star Ridge became an issue, and Mr. Autry, the superintendent of their public school system, solved it by opening up the gymnasium to anyone who no longer had a roof over their heads.
He didn’t have beds for them, but he had space, and working bathrooms. They came gratefully carrying bedrolls and sleeping bags, and with a multitude of LED lanterns lining the bleacher seats, they made it work.
Andy Sparks, Tate’s boss, had already heard of Tate’s injuries, and knew he’d likely lost a good employee.
But in a Good Samaritan gesture, he and his employees showed back up at the store, loaded all of the disposable foodstuffs that would have gone bad without refrigeration, and drove it to the school, along with all of the bottled water he had on hand.
As word began to spread of the shelter, Tate was being moved into a room, with Briar right behind him. But moving him from that gurney onto a bed wasn’t easy. The wounds were on the back of his shoulder and the back of his leg, and he was too groggy to argue.
Briar took one look at the misery on his face and the hospital gown hanging sideways off his shoulder because they couldn’t fasten it without aggravating the wound on his shoulder, then made an announcement.
“Excuse me, but Tate is not lying flat on his back in that bed tonight. Surely you can figure something else out, instead of adding to his pain.”
The orderlies and the accompanying nurse turned, eyeing the bloody and bedraggled young girl with fire in her eyes.
“I believe we can make that happen,” the nurse said, and they went to work, raising the head of his bed so he was in a sitting up position, then putting a pillow behind his back to keep his shoulder from touching the mattress, and a pillow under his knee to ease the pressure off the back of his leg.
When they finished, Briar pointed. “I think he also needs a pillow for his neck.”
“Coming up,” the nurse said, and sent the orderly after one more pillow.
He came back on the run. The nurse gently slid the pillow behind his neck, taking care not to push it against the stitches, and handed Briar a fresh hospital gown.
When Tate leaned back with a sigh of relief, Briar nodded. “That’s perfect. Thank you all so much.”
“Ring if you need me,” the nurse said. The orderlies were pushing the gurney out of the room as she pulled up both guardrails on the bed, and she shut the door behind her as she left.
Finally, they were alone, and the adrenaline that had been keeping Briar in motion was crashing fast. She leaned over the bedrail and kissed him.
“That’s for saving my life.” And then she kissed him again. “And that’s for not dying.”
He pulled her back. “Once more,” he begged, and so she did. “And that’s for saving me. Doctor Joe said the tourniquet changed the whole dynamic of what might have happened.”
Her voice was shaking, but her gaze never wavered. “You are most precious to me. I would not want to live life without you. I’m going to go shower off all this blood in your private bath. Close your eyes and let the painkillers work. I won’t be long.”
He nodded, watching her shed his T-shirt on her way to the bathroom—seeing the slender shape of her and thinking of the hidden strength within. His last thought as he watched her walking away was how much he loved her, and wondering how he was ever going to survive their separation.