He rises, walking over to me. “Do you want me to get the doctor?”
“I want some fucking answers,” I snap, not sure where this rage is coming from. I’m not an angry person, I don’t like to fight with people or raise my voice. I try to keep things calm generally. I can feel tears well in my eyes, and I blink them away furiously.
Charles looks taken aback by my outburst but only briefly. I think he expects, to some extent, anger from me.
If I would take a moment to think about it, really think about it, I don’t have to wonder where these emotions are coming from. They’re from the helplessness that is trying to crawl its way out of my chest in the form of a scream. I don’t want this stranger by my side. I want Vivian. I want my mom. I want my mom so badly it hurts. I want her to just tell me that this will be okay and that it will all work out. But she’s dead. She and my father have been dead for two years. But it must be more now.
“Okay, I mean, HIPAA really prevents the doctor from telling me too much about your condition, but just sitting here? It’s about five years. You’re twenty-nine, not twenty-four. I can’t tell you specifically though.” He pulls the chair he’s been occupying over, rubbing at his neck.
“Where is my phone? I have to call Viv.”
Charles rises without complaint, grabbing my purse from the closet. I can glimpse my personal effects in a nondescript plastic bag on the top shelf. He holds up my phone in a plastic bag. The screen is obliterated, so is everything about the phone, cracked and spiderwebbed and broken beyond repair.
“It was crushed under the wheel of the car. I was able to get the SIM card from it and put it in a new phone, but you didn’t have any contacts for me to call. I mean, I could have called Lotus House, but all that would have gotten me was your usual order.” He slides a new sleek phone into my hand. It’s warm from being in his pocket and I wonder if he was waiting to see if someone would call me.
“I didn’t have your password to log you into your emails or anything, so I’m not sure what else could be there. There was no home number or mom or dad or aunts, and I didn’t see a number for a ‘Viv’ in your phone either,” Charles continues.
“My parents are dead,” I rasp, a fresh wave of grief hitting me. This grief isn’t just that they’re gone; it’s that I don’t have them here to reassure me I’ll get through this. I scroll through my phone to see that he’s right; there are few contacts, none of which I recognize. I’m truly alone in this accident if I don’t even have Vivian’s number. I don’t have it memorized so it’s not even like I can call her.
“I’m sorry.” The weight of his words implies he’s sorry for more than just hitting me with his car. I look at my leg, where it hangs elevated.
“Where was the accident?” I glance at him and see pain in Charles’ eyes.
“In Central Park. There was a hurricane, or part of one, anyway.” He gestures over his shoulder at the TV. “We were just getting a lot of rain and heavy winds. The driver didn’t see you until it was too late. The cops said you were lucky you had a helmet on, even if it didn’t stay on. They said you probably would have died. As it was, I didn’t think you would wake up.”
“Then why were you here when I was?”
His brown eyes meet mine. “I didn’t think you should have to be alone when you did. The doctor wants to run a few more tests, then get you started with some light physical therapy. They can’t work on your bad foot, but they want to keep the other muscles around it strong.”
“I can’t afford that,” I say immediately. Assuming I’m still at my job, my take home pay is less than twenty thousand dollars, and my health insurance plan was trash when I got it. The rent I split with Vivian is more than that. Another piece slides into place: she was moving in with a boyfriend. I don’t know my rent anymore; I don’t know if I can afford that. I don’t even know where I live.
“I’m handling it. Anything you need, I’ll have you covered.”
“I can’t accept that,” I say automatically.
Charles shakes his head. “Look at it this way: insurance should be paying for your treatment; either yours or the car insurance. Rather than fuck everything up and potentially delay treatment, it’s just getting billed to me.”
His words make sense, but I still can’t figure out why this stranger is doing this for me. He’s studying me closely, watching for any sort of response, but other than that flood of anger I felt toward him when I woke up, my emotions feel muted. It’s like listening to music underwater; I know I have feelings about all of this, grief and anger and shock and, somewhere deep inside, gratitude, but they’re all out of reach for me to really get a hold on. I just hope that my emotions aren’t locked away with my memories.
I look out the window of my hospital room where I can see lower Manhattan lit up in the distance. The city that never sleeps is still wide awake. I realize for the first time I’m in a private room.
“Insurance would never pay for this.” I gesture with my good arm at the space I have. “This isactuallylarger than my first apartment. What am I supposed to do when I leave here? You can’t pay for me forever.”
“Let's get you cleared to leave and then we can worry about what we’re going to do about the seventh floor, pre-war apartment in Washington Heights that doesn’t have an elevator.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Last I remember, I lived on the second floor in a rented condo in Hell’s Kitchen.
“I didn’t go into your apartment. I went to see if any of your neighbors might know who I could call. All it got me was hit with an umbrella by this surprisingly strong old woman who didn’t like me asking questions.”
I’m surprised again by just how far Charles has gone for me without even knowing me.
“Don’t dismiss me out of hand; let’s see how it goes. You’ve been unconscious for a week. Save your strength; you can fight with me later.”
I can’t help but track his tongue as he wets his lips before biting the lower one.
I don’t get a chance to answer because a male nurse walks in, frowning at Charles. “Mr. Breckenridge, you might be able to convince other people to turn a blind eye, but I’m not someone you can charm. Visiting hours ended at six,” the nurse says, starting to take my vitals and check on me.
“I hear you, I hear you, Carlos. I’ll see you again tomorrow, Elia.” Charles packs up his computer.