《Mirrored Cuts》Chapter 55

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They let me stay with him for most of it but for initial check in and treatment I had to stay in the waiting room. I drove the receptionists crazy with my pacing. I’m pretty sure they begged the nurses to let me go back.

I ran-walked at the most appropriate pace I could muster. I pulled back the curtain to see. He was paler than I expected and upon further inspection, his hair was matted against his forehead with sweat.

“Flint,” I whispered, hoping that he wouldn’t wake up. I brushed the hair away from his forehead. He moved slightly but didn’t open his eyes. “Flint?”

Nothing. I kissed his forehead in the divide between two tufts of hair that had sprung back when I moved him. I straightened his sheets and touched the back of his hand.

He was fast asleep. I shouldn’t bother him. I shouldn’t wake him. I gathered myself, looked at him over my shoulder and took a step towards the curtain.

“That’s it? You’re just going to steal a kiss and leave? Swiper, no swiping.”

I whirled around. “You’re awake?”

He closed and reopened his eyes. “Unfortunately.”

“Did you do it on purpose?” I said. “What did you take?”

“The doctors say it was a cry for help,” he said, finally answering one of my questions.

“What were you thinking?”

He sat up a little taller in his bed, arranging the pillows so he had to do as little core work as possible. If I were him, I probably would have fallen out of bed. He reached for his beige pitcher of water and his mini-bathroom cup. After a few sips of water, I was sure he had forgotten my question.

“What were you…”

“I don’t know if I can describe it quite right. It was like a wave. It knocked me on my head and was dragging me out to sea.” He put his head back, exhausted by his exertion. “I had to grab onto something. You were there but then you crumbled away.”

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I tried to avoid eye contact, choosing the fascinating image of the beige pitcher instead of the entrancing eyes trained on me. “How did you find out?”

“A friend. They didn’t know what they were doing. I think they were actually trying to be friendly for once.”

“Ruby.”

“I won’t deny it,” he said.

“What did she tell you?”

He shook his head at me. “That you were with some guy from EMS. I came by to hang out and she was the only one there.”

I promised myself that I would never tell Ruby anything ever again. She messed things up when she was trying to and when she wasn’t trying to, although who could tell which was which.

“I have a concussion,” I said. “When I told John we were together, he ran through an intersection and we got hit.”

“The doctors say I probably should have died tonight.”

“That was self-inflicted,” I said.

“And yours wasn’t?”

I grasped the cold handles of the plastic chair I had fallen into. Who had sat here before me? Was it a patient’s mother as she watched her young son’s leg get reset after a sporting accident? Had the sporting accident been that she took him to a game too young and the fans had trampled upon him?

“You have to choose,” he said, reaching out his hand.

“You don’t get to tell me that. Not after this stunt you pulled.” I pulled my chair of memories away from his bed and tried to change the subject. “When will you get out?”

“Whenever you ask me to.”

“Of the hospital,” I said.

“Whenever the doctors ask me to.”

He reached out his hand to me. “I don’t understand you.”

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I backed away. “You can’t. I can’t do this to you again.”

“You’re doing it to yourself. I just wish you could see that.”

I glanced outside the curtains and noticed a group of nurses hovering next to a nearby station, straining to hear. An audience, I thought. Exactly what someone having a serious discussion does not need. I no longer felt like I could be myself. My face forced myself into a smile, pulling my cheeks upwards like a broken marionette.

“I’m glad to see that you are doing okay.”

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