“Hey,” I said to stop him. I grabbed his elbow at the same time. “What do you need?” I asked.
“Bleach,” he responded tiredly.
I grabbed the bottle he was pointing at, but instead of giving it to him, I uncapped it and poured a hefty amount of the liquid over the knife. I reached for the rest of the utensils in the drying tray and dumped the container of them into the sink, then doused them all in bleach. “We can wash them better once we get back,” I said.
“Rush—”
“My truck’s parked in the driveway,” I continued in my “I’m not taking shit from anyone” voice. I closed the distance between us and motioned toward the doorway.
Christopher let out a resigned sigh and then began moving. As I followed him out of the house, I couldn’t stop touching him. His lower back, his shoulders, his elbow. The moves probably looked like I was just trying to assist him, but the truth was that I needed to touch him.
I opened the passenger door for a now silent Christopher. It was like he’d tuned me out at some point because he didn’t even react when I had to reach across his body to belt him in. It wasn’t until I was in the driver’s seat and putting my car into gear that he finally spoke.
“Can I borrow your phone? I left mine upstairs next to my computer.”
I pulled the phone from my pocket, unlocked it, and handed it to him. He looked something up on the browser, then clicked on a phone number.
“Hey, Anita, it’s Christopher. I, um, cut my hand and was hoping Dr. Kleinman could—” Christopher went silent for a moment as he listened to the speaker on the other end, and then he was nodding. “Thanks, we’ll be there in about twenty minutes. See you then. Bye.”
Christopher hung up, and then he was pulling the address up on my phone and turning on the GPS so the phone could guide me to the destination. The fact that he didn’t want to tell me himself wasn’t a good sign.
But I couldn’t let him off that easy. Sure, I had a million questions, but those could wait. I needed him to keep talking to me, even if it had nothing to do with the events of today. If he stopped talking, then I would become another person he’d hide from.
And I didn’t think Christopher could afford to hide himself away from even one other person.
“Is Dr. Kleinman your primary care doctor?” I asked.
There was a long, awkward silence, but instead of letting the question go like Christopher clearly wanted me to, I kept glancing his way.
“No, um, she’s a specialist.”
As in, a specialist who treated infectious diseases like HIV.
“And she’ll be able to see you as soon as we get there?” I probed.
Christopher nodded. I was surprised when he continued on his own with “Even if there isn’t a long wait at the ER, sometimes the staff who work there, they look at you like…”
“Like what?” I asked gently.
Christopher let out a soft sigh. He began rubbing his uninjured palm over his knee. “Like you’re dirty,” he whispered.
“Christopher—” I began, but he continued as if I hadn’t spoken.
“It’s not all of them. Most are really professional, but you can always get someone who…” Christopher shook his head. “I’ve only had it happen to me once, but in school when we’d shadow the ER, I saw it happen a few times. And some of the people in my graduating class made it clear they hoped to never run into one of us during their careers.”
One of us.
That one little word spoke volumes. I could feel the anger vibrating through me as I thought about anyone hurting Christopher like that. He was literally one of the sweetest, most caring people I’d ever met and I barely even knew him.
“Rush, why did you leave the army?”
“How did you know I left?” I asked, completely caught off guard by the change of subject.
Christopher was staring at his bandaged hand. When he didn’t answer, I realized what the question was really about. He was feeling vulnerable and exposed. I’d just learned what likely amounted to the biggest secret he’d ever had, and he was undoubtedly terrified of what I would do with the information. No doubt he knew how many questions I had, and before I could ask them, he wanted to know if I was willing to expose my own jugular a bit.
“I was a coward,” I admitted.
Christopher’s head jerked in my direction. “I don’t believe that,” he said firmly.
I was silent for a moment as I acknowledged the warmth that had come from his instant defense of me. “A hundred people could tell me otherwise, but it only matters what I tell myself, you know?” I explained.