“I think that car broke something inside your head—”
“Better than my heart,” I interrupt fiercely.
“Then protect your heart, doll, because you’re going to discover that without me, your ass is grass.”
* * *
When Shey returns ten minutes after Max’s departure she finds me sliding out of bed, but it’s difficult to get to my feet and find my balance with an IV tangled on the sides of the bed.
“What are you doing?” she demands, dropping her purse on the chair and charging toward me.
“I need to get up. I have to get up.” I tug on the IV cord. “I want to go to the bathroom and then get out of here— ”
“I’ll help you to the bathroom, but you’re not going home until tomorrow or the next day.”
“No, it’s tomorrow. I’m not going to stay here anymore. I’m not sick. I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“Things go badly with Max?”
“He’s an asshole and a prick.” My voice shakes. “A first-class prick.”
“Hope you’re not talking about me,” Michael’s voice comes from the doorway.
“Hey. Hi.” I flush and, still gripping my IV pole, sit down heavily on the edge of my bed, my pulse beating like mad. “I was talking about Max. He just left.”
“That’s a relief.” He enters the room and he’s wearing one of his expensive dark suits and I drink him in.
Shey’s watching Michael with considerable interest, and I nervously make the introductions. “Shey, this is Dr. Michael O’Sullivan. And Michael, this is Shey Darcy, one of my best friends.”
Michael extends a hand to Shey. “You’re one of the boarding school friends.”
“Yes.” Her smile is warm and curious as she shakes his hand. “You’re Tiana’s doctor?”
Michael shoots me a glance, eyebrows lifting ever so slightly as if to say, Is that what I am?
I redden and my pulse races faster. “Michael’s a plastic surgeon here in Los Angeles. And he was also in Zambia with Rx Smile while I was there.”
She frowns, confused. “So he didn’t do your surgery, then?”
“No, he did. But he’s— ” I break off, look at Michael, and my heart squeezes. “He’s…”
What is he?
My heart.
He’s my heart.
“A friend,” I say out of desperation. It’s been so long since I felt anything this strong. It’s such a powerful emotion. Love. I do love him. If only he felt the same. In Katete I’d thought he felt the same.
I look at him now, and I feel positively naked, all my emotions right there on the surface. “I want to go home, Michael. When can I?”
“It’s your arm keeping you here. But I can check with Dr. McBain, see if he’d be willing to discharge you early.”
“Please.”
Michael’s beeper goes off. He glances down, checks the number. “I have to take this call. I’ll step back in to say goodbye before I leave.”
He exits through the door, and Shey’s eyes dance as she approaches me. “Dr. McDreamy!”
I roll my eyes. “He’s a good doctor.”
“You lit up like a Christmas tree when he walked in. Haven’t seen you look like that in years.”
“I like him,” I whisper. “Bad.”
“That’s good.” She sits in the chair next to her purse. “How does he feel about you?”
I think about Michael during the Rx Smile mission. I can see him comforting parents, holding babies postsurgery. I see him stretched out beneath the lone tree, trying to get some rest. And then I see him on our last night. “I think he’s attracted to me, but I don’t think he wants anything serious.”
Shey’s expression gentles. “You’re ready for serious.”
“If it were with him. He just feels right to me….” My eyes burn and my heart aches. He feels too right. I can’t imagine anyone else being so right for me. “I think I’ve fallen really hard. It scares me. I can’t be hurt again. Can’t.”
“Maybe you won’t have to be.”
“You weren’t there. You didn’t see his face— ” I break off as the door opens and Michael returns.
“Tomorrow,” Michael says. “Dr. McBain said he’ll get you discharged in the morning if you’ve got help at home.”
“She has me. I’m staying for a few days,” Shey volunteers.
“Good. You’ll be on your way home, then.” He smiles at me.
I smile back, yet this feels wrong.
It’s empty. Strained. As though we’re strangers.
And just when I think he’s about to turn around and walk out, he asks about Max. “What did he want?”
“He was willing to take me back.” My temper stirs just remembering. “He said without him my career’s over. That with my face the way it is, no network will put me on TV.”
“He is a prick,” Michael agrees. “Wish I’d been here. Would have loved to put my fist down his throat.”
I crack a smile. “Are you any good with those fists?”
“I’m Irish. We’re street fighters.”
“In that case, go. Tear him apart, Doctor.”
Michael grins, and for a moment he looks so boyish, so free, and my heart’s like butter. It melts.
Michael leaves moments later, and I look at the door, wanting it to open again, wanting Michael to return. If only.
Shey just watches me, and when I turn to meet her gaze there’s a sheen in her blue eyes. “You’re head over heels, Tits.”
Tears suddenly fill my eyes. I put a hand to my mouth, covering my lips as if afraid of what they might say. Love, love, love. Love him. Want him. Need him. It’s crazy how intense it is, crazy that I could feel this way again. Finally.
“I don’t think he’s oblivious to you,” she says now. “Not at all.”
“But there’s a big difference between animal attraction and love and marriage and babies. And God help me, Shey, that’s what I want. I want all the things I stopped believing in. I want the happy ending I gave up on.”
“Who’s to say it can’t happen?” she answers briskly. “Now do you need to go to the restroom or was that just an excuse to get on your feet?”
Later that afternoon, Shey heads to my house to get things ready for me to come home. While she’s gone I nap, and when I wake, I struggle to get up again, determined to make it on my own to the restroom.
I do, dragging my IV with one hand while trying to manage the door with the same hand. And in that hazy yellow light of the narrow hospital bathroom, I get a good look at me. My hair’s dirty and lank. My face is swollen, stitched, and bruised.
I reach up and touch the right side of my face, buried beneath stitches and thick gauze. My face will never be the same. Will that be okay?
Will I let this accident keep me from what I want and who I am?
No.
I refuse to let this accident change me. I refuse to let it change a thing.
Leaving the bathroom, I scoot my IV back toward my bed. The nurse sticks her head around the door to check on me. “You should be asking for help,” she admonishes me.
“I’m fine,” I answer crossly, and then I smile because I realize I mean it. I am fine. I’m going to get better. I’m going to be great.
I’m dreaming, replaying the accident over and over in my head. If only I hadn’t been watching that little boy drink his smoothie off the table. If only I’d been looking out the window and seen the old woman behind the wheel of her old Pontiac.
If only…
I wake. It’s dark and my eyes feel heavy. Why am I waking? What time is it?
And then I realize why I’m awake. I hurt. The pain’s penetrated my sleep. I didn’t take any pain meds earlier and now I’m suffering for it.
I shift carefully, trying not to put pressure on the ribs or arm as I reach for the call button to summon the night nurse, but I jar myself anyway and cringe with pain.
“Need something?”
The voice comes from the dark, c
lose to my bed, and I startle. It’s Michael.
“How long have you been here?” I ask hoarsely.
“Not long. Just arrived. I’m sorry I woke you.”
I can’t see him, but I can feel him, large and silent and very strong. “You didn’t. The pain woke me. I hurt.”
“Where?”
“My arm. My ribs. But mostly my arm.”
He steps outside the door, retrieves my chart, and after turning on the light by my bed, he flips through it, reading all the notations. “You didn’t take any pain medicine before bed.”
“I’m trying to cut back.”
“You’re not taking much, and pain management is an important part of recovery.” He leans over my bed to examine my face, his hands gentle as he tilts my jaw higher to see the wound from different angles. “This looks good.”
His touch is firm. His skin is warm. “Yeah?”
“I’m very pleased.”
“And I’m very grateful. Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“Yes, I do. You said you’d never touch my face— ”
He laughs softly. “I wondered if you’d remember that.”
“I remember everything you’ve ever said to me.”