Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 147136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 736(@200wpm)___ 589(@250wpm)___ 490(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 736(@200wpm)___ 589(@250wpm)___ 490(@300wpm)
Brian said he was trying to protect me. I believed that.
That heart was mine.
But he still hurt me. Worse than Marcus.
I couldn’t give an answer.
What was I supposed to do?
I was grateful for work on Tuesday. It was supposed to be a distraction, one I desperately needed. NHC was a demanding hospital, and normally, even on days when I didn’t want to keep my mind off Brian, I was too busy to think about him.
Of course, that wasn’t the case today.
We were so slow, my supervisor had sent one of my co-workers home.
When I got word of this happening, I hid in the bathroom for fifteen minutes so I wouldn’t get the ax, too.
I couldn’t go home, because I wouldn’t go home.
I’d go to Brian.
There was no doubt in my mind.
Taking my chances and returning to the department after an amount of time I felt was appropriate, I relaxed, realizing with three of us left and two OR cases going on at the same time, the other two techs handling those upon my return, I was safe from being told to leave.
I sat by the printer waiting for a requisition to print out, and when it did, I’d go handle house patients or x-rays that needed to be done in the emergency room.
Even handling all of that by myself, I still wasn’t busy.
But at least I was here and not in my car on my way to Brian’s.
Things were looking up.
Sort of.
I say this because I was currently filling out a crossword puzzle from the Sunday paper we had lying around the department, waiting for another requisition to print out, thinking about Brian because I was filling out a crossword puzzle.
I wasn’t even reading the clues. I was just filling out four letter word blocks with whatever came to mind.
Love.
Wild.
Hate.
Risk.
Liar.
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUCK.
If someone were to find this paper when I was finished with it, there was a chance they could use it as evidence when I went on trial for my sanity.
I’d be sent to the psych ward for sure.
Yet knowing that, I still filled in my own answers.
When the department phone started ringing on the desk in front of me, I dropped my pen and reached for the receiver just as a requisition started printing out.
“X-ray, this is Syd,” I answered.
“Hey, it’s Melissa up in ICU. I just put in an order for a stat portable chest to check a line placement. Can you come do it right away? The doctor is waiting.”
I stood and grabbed the requisition off the printer.
“Yep. It just printed out. I’ll be right up.”
“Thanks.”
I hung up the phone and studied the order.
It was for an eight-year-old boy with pneumonia. I immediately thought about Oliver.
My nose starting stinging.
Shaking those thoughts away, I snatched the key off the desk, took the requisition, and left the department, stepping out into the hallway where we kept our portable machines plugged in and charging.
When I reached the fifth floor, I pushed the machine off the elevator and started down the hallway, looking up at the room numbers because I always forgot where they began.
I was at Room 17 and the patient was in Room 4. That was on the opposite side of the department.
“X-ray,” one of the nurses called out to me when I was passing by the reception desk.
I looked to her and stopped pushing the machine.
She was carrying an IV bag when she came closer, stopped at the tall counter that circled the desk, and said to me, “Just hang around up here for a minute. The doctors are in there working on him. They might still need it.”
The way she was speaking, I knew what that meant.
I nodded and gave her a sullen smile.
“Okay, thanks.”
Then I pushed the machine past the desk, cut down the small corridor connecting the two sides of the department to get to the even-numbered rooms, turned the corner, and froze.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Brian?”
My boy was standing in the hallway outside Room 4, staring through the glass and watching the doctors work on the patient I was supposed to be x-raying, but when I said his name, Brian turned his head.
My heart seized in my chest.
He looked devastated. His skin was pale and his eyes were lifeless as they locked on to mine.
It was like I was staring at a ghost.
I parked the portable machine against the wall and ran to him.
I had to.
“What are you doing here?” I asked when I reached his side, but before he could give me an answer, I got it for myself.
I turned my head and looked through the glass at the boy in the bed, who was currently getting CPR administered on him. A doctor was hovering over and compressing down on his chest while a nurse was squeezing the bag attached to this breathing tube, giving him air.