Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
I went to work and had an uneventful shift. I filled out some reports, worked on a grant for some training. I was getting my stuff together to leave the next morning when my phone rang. It was Rafe who had probably only called me five times in the last decade. He was a hardcore texter so I answered it immediately.
“Hey,” I said.
“Get to St. Vincent’s now, Leo, come in at emergency,” he said.
“Shit, what’s wrong?”
“We don’t know yet. We’re waiting on the toxicology report. It looks like—somebody drugged Lexi or poisoned her or something. You need to be here.”
“I’m on my way,” I said.
I don’t remember how I got there, only that it was incredibly fast but seemed to take forever. I didn’t even bother to try and charm the admissions receptionist at ER. I just barked Lexi’s name at her in a voice that sounded choked. I couldn’t even focus on the woman’s face or what she said to me. All I could see was the bruises on Lexi’s neck when he’d choked her, the arrogant expression on Watts’s face when I’d left him at the grocery store, when I’d stupidly believed he wouldn’t bother her again.
What he had done this time was worse. When I got to see her, she’d be hooked up to monitors and have wires and tubing coming out of her. It made me sick to think about it. She’d said to me once that I’d made it worse—she’d said it in the sexiest most romantic way, like she needed me. But it was true in the literal sense now. I had made everything worse, and she had paid the price. I sat in a plastic chair, rubbing my hands over my face. My phone buzzed and I stared at it, Rafe’s name not even registering in my mind when I looked at the caller ID.
“Where the fuck are you, man?” he demanded.
“What? I’m here. I’m in the ER,” I stammered.
“You’re not back here. I’m in cubicle six. I thought you stopped for a goddamn pancake breakfast it took you so long.”
“The woman, the lady at the desk, she told me to wait,” I said lamely.
“Since when are you that easy to boss around?” he said. “She’s out having tests right now. I don’t understand half what they’ve told me, except that they really don’t know anything yet about what caused this or if she’ll be okay.”
I got to my feet and told the woman I was needed in cubicle six. I was buzzed in and made my way back there. It was freezing cold. There was a terrible quiet back there after the roar of televisions and phone conversations in the waiting area.
Rafe paced the length of a small curtained area. He was carrying Lexi’s purse.
“What are you doing with that?” I said.
“They offered to put it in a safe for her, for when she needs it, but I kept thinking, what if she wakes up and wants her lip balm,” he said, clearly needing something to keep his mind occupied.
“She’s hooked on the cherry lip balm, I know,” I said. I took it from him and set it on a chair. I stood in front of him, not knowing what to do.
“Jesus, Leo, she wouldn’t wake up,” he said, his voice fierce.
“It has got to be Watts. I wish I’d killed him,” I said, and I meant it. I, who had never considered taking a life. I spent my time saving lives, not ending them. Right then, I would’ve traded my soul for a chance to go back and kill the son of a bitch who put Lexi in the hospital.
“She was just found in her office unresponsive. She had a coffee cup with her. They think she ingested something. I don’t know how they figured it out or how someone would’ve been able to mess with her coffee. She wasn’t even really much of a coffee person.”
“Isn’t, goddammit, Rafe. She isn’t, not she wasn’t. She’s not gone,” I said. I needed to believe it, to make him believe it too.
He just nodded, and we took turns sitting in the single plastic chair while we waited.
“If she comes out of this, I’ll do anything,” I said.
“Give up meat and go vegan? Become a priest?” Rafe teased.
“I doubt they’d have me in holy orders, but I could be a tofu eating celibate if I had to.”
“Yeah, for about a week. What would be the temptation that took you down? Meatball subs or women?”
“Lexi, for damn sure,” I said ruefully.
“I’d give anything for her to pull through this,” Rafe said suddenly.
“Anything? Me, too.”
“I’d give her up to you. I wouldn’t even hesitate if that was the cost,” Rafe said.
“So would I. Or I’d just let her go. Let her live her life without me, without you. Never see her again as long as she was okay, as long as it was what she wanted.”