Chapter 48 He Makes Her Happy
Someone placed a firm hand on my shoulder and shook me a little.
My eyelids fluttered seconds after I sensed the touch, and I yawned before opening my eyes and rubbing my hands over my face.
“Incoming,” Taron whispered a warning in my ear.
My attention went to the waiting room’s entrance, and I let go of a long breath when I saw Miguel and the others making their way over to me.
The few people in the room looked on in silence as Daniel and the crew all but crowded the otherwise vacant area.
“Where is she?” Miguel demanded.
I stood, feeling a little out of it despite the coffee Taron had forced me to drink a few minutes ago, and said to Miguel, “In the OR.”
He paled. “She’s where?”
“Excuse me, sir,” the guy at the reception desk cut in. “Could you please keep it down a bit. You’re in a hospital.”
Miguel glared at him, then turned his icy gaze to me. “She’s being operated?”
I clenched my jaw and glanced at the others behind him. Daniel, Cruz, Ash, Dave, Remi, and Simran – they were all present, and all six of them looked exactly how I felt: heartbroken and terrified.
“I’m talking to you, boy,” Miguel hissed.
Paul and Greg walked into the room with steaming cups of coffee in their hands, but when they saw Miguel and the others, they muttered something about getting more coffee for everyone before heading back to the cafeteria downstairs.
I looked at Miguel, and felt my anger stir. “Yes, she’s being operated,” I finally said to him. “She broke a bone, so they had to perform an ORIF in order to mend it.”
“With whose consent?” he asked.
“Her own,” I told him curtly. “She signed the consent form a few minutes before they took her to the OR.”
A nurse had come in and given me a copy of it, signed by Rina and the surgeon who’d be performing the surgery on her, and had told me that Rina’s vitals were looking great, and that she was set to be out of the OR in under two hours.
“Bullshit,” Miguel hissed, then shoved me. “Liar!” His eyes shone with unshed tears as he stared me down.
I stumbled, but Taron caught me before I could fall.
“Miguel!” Daniel pulled him back. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Miguel pointed a finger at me. “He’s the reason things have gone downhill since the last few months.” He made to shove me again, but Daniel and Cruz held him back. “He’s the reason my Carina is hurt!”
I know I should be shocked by his audacity, but I wasn’t. There was an ache in my gut that stopped me from caring about the man in front of me; about everything he’d said to me, or about me.
“Lay a hand on him again, and I’ll forget my damn manners, asshole,” Taron cautioned.
“Taron,” I said his name with a bite as I found my balance. “Don’t.”
Miguel gritted his teeth at my brother. “How dare y–”
“Av?, stop,” Remi urged. “You’re not being rational right now.”
Miguel looked at him, looked at the agony on his face, and something in him shifted.
He nodded and straightened himself.
Ash walked over to me. “Hey.” She squeezed my hands. “Can you tell me what happened?” Her voice was thick with obvious emotions, and her eyes were misty.
I sighed and told her about the ridiculous fucking joke I’d made, which had ended up upsetting Rina, about the broken flooring in the storeroom, about how Rina had ended up tripping after she twisted her ankle against a broken tile, and then about how the bookshelf had fallen on her.
I recollected everything loud enough so that the others could hear me as well, because I really didn’t have the strength to repeat myself over and over again.
Ash’s brows were pinched together by the time I was done, and she squeezed my hands again before saying, “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Wasn’t it?”
She shook her head. “No, Myles.”
“You couldn’t have known something like this would happen,” added Dave.
“But I could have stopped myself from making that comment,” I argued.
“You didn’t mean to offend her, Myles,” Ash added. “It was a damn joke, not an intentional jab.”
I wiped a hand over my jaw. “And what about the bookshelf?” I asked. “I knew it was trouble, but I still forced myself to keep working on it.”
“Maybe that’s true, but had you predicted that Rina would unknowingly put her foot on the tile that was severely broken?” asked Cruz. “Were you already aware that she’d end up falling, or that the bookshelf would decide to come down on her at the exact same moment she fell?”
I clenched and unclenched my hands as I glanced between the six of them.
“This shit was supposed to happen, Myles, and it did,” Simran said. “Blaming yourself for it is only going to gnaw at your conscience.”
“How long has she been in the OR for?” Daniel asked.
“An hour now,” I told him, then dragged my fingers through my already mused hair.
“Hey.” He placed his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes.
“You and I both know you’re stronger than this,” he told me, then gave me a reassuring smile before taking a step back.
“So get that slouchy fucking look off your goddamn chiseled face and get your shit together, because once she’s out of surgery, Carina is going to need you – now more than ever. ”
I gave him a grateful nod, just as Miguel hissed, “Like hell I’m letting him go anywhere near her ever again.”
I bunched my jaw as I sneered at him. “But it’s unfortunate for you, though, because it’s not you who gets to decide that,” I told him.
His face was red with anger as he took a step towards me. “You–”
“Careful.” Cruz put a hand on Miguel’s chest, then very gently pushed him back. “Do anything stupid, and you’ll lose me as an employee.” He raised a brow. “And as a friend.”
“You’re siding with him?”
“It’s never been about sides, Av?,” Simran said to him. “It’s about what – who – makes Carina happy. And we all know Myles has done that in spades ever since the two of them have started dating.”
I just stood there like an idiot, watching all these people who’d become my friends in the past few months, defend me without hesitation, and my chest felt…full, I guess. Filled with gratitude and respect for each one of them.
Miguel appeared flustered as everyone agreed with Simran.
Taron nudged me subtly. “How’s it feel to one-up the grandpa?” he asked softly.
I managed to crack a barely-there smile. “Shut up,” I whispered.
“Excuse me?”
The nine of us turned to the entrance, where the nurse from before was standing and looking around the room.
“Myles Reyes?” she asked.
I waved at her. “Here.”
“Ah.” She gave me a smile. “I just wanted to let you know that Carina’s surgery was a success. The doctors are checking her vitals at the moment, just to be sure, and then we’ll move her to the PACU.”
I let go of a relieved breath, and felt my shoulders slump as an invisible pressure lifted off of them.
My Rina was okay.
“Is she awake?” Miguel asked the nurse.
“Yes, but she’s had Propofol, so she’s a bit woozy. It’ll take her a few minutes to get a grip on everything.”
“Can we meet her yet?” he pushed.
She gave him a reassuring smile. “Like I said: the doctors are doing a routine checkup on her at the moment, but once they’re done and everything is up to the mark, I don’t see why not.”
Miguel sighed and slumped onto one of the cushioned chairs. “Thank you.”
The nurse nodded at him, then looked at me.
“She asked for you when she woke up just now,” she said, and gave me a faint wink.
“I told her you were outside waiting. I’ll come get you once the doctors are done with her, but I thought I’d let you know that the surgery went well, and that she’s going to make a full recovery.
” With that, she turned around and walked away.
Greg and Paul sauntered into the room with two trays full of Styrofoam cups brimming with coffee, and as they began passing them around to Taron and the others, I sat back down in the chair and scrubbed my hands over my face for the second time in a span of twenty minutes.
Rina was okay.
And thank fuck for that, because I sure would have lost every last shred of myself if she wasn’t.