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“Hey, Lainey, I’m Dr. Charlebois, but you can call me Jim.” He sits down at the end of the bed, studying me for a moment before releasing a painful exhale. The heaviness in his aqua eyes mirrors that of my own. “Not how I expected to first meet the woman who stole Ryan’s heart.”
The first tear falls, and I quickly swipe it away. I don’t deserve that title right now. “Where is he?”
Jim adjusts his position on the foot of the bed, reaching over to squeeze my feet. “He was down here, let me glue his knuckles together, and then thought it was a good idea to call the hospital President and tell him that either the patient that attacked you gets transferred out, or Ryan was going to find him and finish what he started. They escorted him out before he could put up too much of a fight.”
I gasp, not believing that the Ryan who has refused to fight for anything since he was a kid is the same Ryan that’s making such threats.
“Is he still here? Did he go home? Do you think he’s okay?”
Jim shrugs, “I have no idea if he’s still in the building, or if they drug him out into the parking lot.” He crosses his muscular arms over his chest, and I can see the war brewing in his mind. He’s likely as worried as I am about his friend.
“I can’t believe he made that threat.”
“That’s not Ryan, but love does crazy things to a man’s brain.”
Love.
Does Ryan love me? I hadn’t realized I’d fallen in love with him until I was standing alone on the sidewalk, watching him drive away. I was torn between feeling proud for standing my ground, for not letting someone question the type of person I am. But God, it ached to think that I might have lost him over it.
“He’s a good man,” is all I can manage to mutter. Judging by the smile on Jim’s face, he agrees.
“I’m happy he’s found you.”
I can tell why Jim is one of the few people Ryan keeps close in his life. Besides their history, and surviving the trenches of med school together, Jim’s kindness easily shows through, even in the darkness of this situation. I like him already.
Jim goes over the CT scan and tells me that luckily, I walked away with superficial bruising and some sore muscles, but no real damage was done. Ryan had gotten to me in time. He releases me with the recommendation to take a week or two off and to force Ryan to do the same.
My supervisor slides the triage door open and hands me the crushed, cracked remains of what used to be my cell phone as I climb out of the bed. “Maintenance found this among the mess.”
I take it from her, tucking it into the pocket of my scrubs pocket. Wrapping the used blankets in a ball, I strip the rest of the bedding and toss it in the bin, a force of habit.
Jim stands diligently as I clean up, watching every move with a look of guilt.
“What?” I finally ask.
“I’m sorry.”
I pull my brows together, looking at him, then at my supervisor, wondering if there is something further going on with Ryan that they hadn’t told me about.
But to my utmost surprise, Jim launched into an apology for how the patient ended up on my unit. He swears he and Ryan planned a security escort to intensive care, but management intervened and instead, a teenage transporter ended up bringing him to my unit. My gaze instantly shoots to my supervisor, and the sheepish look on her face tells me everything I need to know.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She doesn’t answer, so I take that moment to thank Jim again, and he wraps his arms around me with a promise to take Ryan and me out for dinner.
Breezing past my supervisor, I storm back to the unit to get my belongings from the alcove.
The unit is dark, lights dimmed for night shift staff that have started their rounds. All of the nurses I worked with today are gone, even Suzie went home. I’m tempted to do a lap around, listening outside patient rooms to see if Ryan is still here, but Jim seemed sure that he was forced out of the building.
With a broken phone, I have no way to contact him. I don’t even know where he lives, so there’s the huge possibility that if he isn’t waiting outside my apartment right now, I don’t know when I’ll see him again.
That thought hurts worse than any bruise I’m sporting.
I zip my fleece up high enough to cover the bruises and exit the unit, stopping quickly in the locker room to pull extra sweaters and scrubs from my locker. I shove everything I can into my tote bag since I don’t know when I’m coming back. There is a small part of me that doesn’t even knowifI’m going to come back. Lacking the energy to take four flights of stairs, I opt to walk towards the bank of elevators to head home.
As soon as I turn the corner, I spot one of my favorite security guards standing outside the doctor’s lounge.
He turns toward the squeak of my shoes, his shoulders falling once he sees me.
