Page 43 of Professor Next Door

25. Galen

The car’s clock read 03:33 when I pulled into the driveway, exhausted, sick, and filthy. I’d had to stop a few times to let the bouts of dizziness pass, but I was home now. I should probably go to the hospital but there was no part of me that wanted to be there. Every part of me wanted to be with Rikki and Tara.

The door to the house opened just as I pushed the car door closed. Tara, Amanda, and John came running out of the house to bombard me with questions. I didn’t answer, I just looked behind them to make sure my little girl wasn’t coming along behind them. I didn’t want her to see her daddy as fucked up as I surely was.

“Look, I know everybody’s probably freaked out…”

How could talking hurt so bad, I wondered for a moment, stumbling back against the car. “I need, I think I need to go to the hospital.”

John caught me just as I slumped against the car, his arms strong enough to hold me up. I looked up at him, feeling as if my eyes were rolling around in my head like kicked marbles.

“Are you drunk, Galen? What the hell is wrong with you?” He pulled me over into the light, staring down at me in horror as he saw the blood. “Call nine-one-one, Tara. Now.”

I couldn’t see myself, I had no idea what I looked like, but it must have been bad. John looked like he was about to lose his best friend. That’s encouraging!

“What? What’s wrong with him?” Tara had stood in the darkness, letting John care for me, but now she pushed forward, staring at me with a clinical calmness that was far more soothing that John’s burgeoning panic. “Get him inside. Amanda, make the call please.”

I felt the earth fall out from under my feet and then I was on the couch in the living room. The world had gone black for a moment, but when I opened my eyes Tara was there with a bowl of water, a washcloth, and tender hands that started to wash away the dirt and leaves on my skin.

“What happened to you, Galen?” she asked softly, her hand pressing a clean towel to the back of my head.

“I fell, in the park. I...”

The world went dark again and it didn’t come back until two people in what looked like some kind of military uniforms plunked me down on a stretcher and started to push me out of the house.

“We’ll be there, right behind you,” Tara called out as the doors to the ambulance closed and the female paramedic came at me with an IV. The last thing I heard was the wail of the siren. I tried to tell them not to wake Rikki, but I fell into the pitch black once more.