Page 15 of Reaching Hearts
Chapter Eight
Annie
Room 315.
Barefoot and in my hospital gown, I peek out the door of my room. Off to the left is the nurses’s station where a male and female nurse talk to each other behind the counter, with only their shoulders and heads visible. He has on dark blue scrubs and she’s got pink. I guess they all get to choose their own style? Huh. That’s pretty cool. Maria joins them, holding a plastic salad container, pieces of dark green lettuce stuck on her fork. She says something to them that’s too far away to hear, and just as she begins to turn her head, I duck back inside, my heart slamming.
C’mon Annie. Be cool. Be smart. Be a stealth ninja.
Frankly, my being here is the one good sign I’ve seen toward me and Brendan since he walked into my bar. I wasn’t going to come here, and yet –here I am. Maybe my guardian angel knocked me out cold and forced them to call an ambulance to get my ass to see him. But I know he has a girlfriend. I just want to see his face. See if he’s okay. Side-eyeballing the empty bed, I consider getting back in it and leaving well enough alone. But that’s just not possible.
I tighten my grip on the IV pole, tube and needle still in my arm, the plug-cord around it to make me mobile. Waiting a few more seconds, my pulse is going nuts. I peek back out and don’t see Maria. Whipping my head to the right and the left, there’s no sign of her. I sneak out a step to see my room number: 315. I’m on the same floor as him. This is supposed to be happening. It has to be.
Stepping out on the balls of my feet so as not to make a sound, I walk out a bit, always looking around me. A voice up the corridor ahead makes me duck inside Room 317.
“Hello?” a raspy voice says behind me.
Turning my head fast, I lay eyes on a much older woman lying with tubes everywhere. She’s squinting at me with a curious expression creased into the deep lines of her face under a shock of short white hair.
I wave with my free hand. “Oh, hi. I’m just taking a walk. How’re you?”
“I’ve been better.” There’s humor in her voice and her eyes twinkle.
“What’re you in for?” I ask, like we’re doing time for a crime.
“Gall bladder.” She straightens her blanket a bit and I look up to see she’s got the news on. As usual, it’s horrible. Why do people watch that crap?
“How’s the gall bladder?” She shrugs and I face my body more toward her, the door behind me. “Let me ask you a question.”
“Yes?”
“You’ve got life experience. If you had to, say, choose between two men. One was in Italy and one was here but has a girlfriend, but he’s been dreaming about you and talking in his sleep saying your name. What would you do?”
Squinting more and more in concentration as she listens, she thinks on it and leans back when she’s done. “You have two men who want you?”
“Now that you put it like that… maybe?”
Both her spotted hands slap the blanket. “Take ‘em both! Trust me, when you get to be my age, that’s the stuff you’ll wish you’d have done.”
“Good point. Thank you.” Sticking my head slowly out the door, the coast is clear. “I have to run. Thanks for the advice. Oh, and here’s some from me – turn that off. It can’t be good for you.”
She glances to the news. “Then how will I know what’s going on?”
My mind is already on making an exit. “Read it on the Internet and scan past the bad stuff. They’re just showing fear-based stuff on T.V. to keep their audience.”
I tiptoe out, with a wave thrown behind me as I go.