Page 18 of Reaching Hearts

Chapter Eleven

Brendan

Room 323.

Istare at the door, wondering if we’re as addicted to our phones as I think we might be. Slowly the door opens as I watch a Strawberry-blonde head ebb in, followed by nervous blue eyes. Like a thunder-clap, I yell out, “Holy shit! You came!”

Annie reacts, her eyes blinking at the volume. She stares at me and then looks to her right. “Hi. Can I come in?” she whispers, like someone’s chasing her.

Waving her in, I say loudly, “Yeah! Come in! Come in.”

The door opens wider and she’s in a hospital gown, too, dragging along a clunky IV pole on wheels. “God, it’s good to see you,” she says, scanning my body like she can’t believe I’m alive.

“Wait. I don’t understand. I heard you were okay. Why are you here as a patient? Did he hurt you? I’m going to fucking kill that guy if I ever find him.” I start to get up, but the pain in my side throws me back again and I cringe under it and yell out.

Annie rushes forward, letting go of the pole and yelping when the tube pulls at her skin. “Shit!” She steps back and grabs the pole, pushing in at the needle in her arm. “It’s okay. It didn’t come out.”

She looks up and meets my eyes. We both start laughing. Grinning, she sits on the sliver of bed by my hip. Her eyes shine brightly as she smiles at me. The sight of her here makes a knot grow in my throat. It must be the drugs or the pain, but I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes dry when she picks up my hand and looks at it, held tenderly between hers. “I’m so glad you’re not dead,” she whispers. She blinks away her own emotions and puts my hand down, stands up and moves to the chair, looking at the floor.

I’m watching everything she does. The way she self-consciously moves her hair off her shoulder. The way her feet point to each other as she covers her knees with her gown. There are so many thoughts going through her head that her eyes are flitting around like she’s reading an invisible book. “Annie. Seriously. Why are you in the hospital?”

She looks up at me and a flood of words fall out. “I got admitted last night because I fainted at the bar when we were cleaning up only I don’t remember it. They say it’s stress.”

Relieved, I nod. “Oh. So he didn’t hurt you?”

She shakes her head.

“I guess the place was a mess, huh?”

“Yeah. We have to close until the window gets fixed.”

“Window?”

She looks concerned. “Do you really want to know this stuff, Brendan?”

“Do I want to know? It’s all I’ve been thinking about since I got here. Yes. Don’t leave anything out. I want to know exactly what’s happened.”

She tells me all of it. Even about the Sergeant cleaning the money for her. As I listen, I can see it like it’s happening all over again. We’re both talking about things no one else could understand, not unless they’d been there, too. I ask her questions and she explains, and when it’s all on the table, we’re silent, staring at each other, at the memory, at nothing. Soaking it in, in our own time and feeling raw as hell. After awhile, she looks down and plays with the tube sticking out of her arm again. She glances at me like she wants to say something. I don’t feel the need to push her so I wait until she’s ready. I’m just happy she’s here with me. I feel better now.

After maybe a minute, she finally says, “Thank you.” Her eyes are filling up.

I think the last time I cried was when Sara left me, and that was years ago. And no one knew I did it. I’m definitely not going to cry in front of Annie. I push the persistent lump down in my throat and struggle to say, “For what?”

She rises and sits next to me again, looks down and picks up my hand. Holding it, her eyelashes rise up. If a person could see inside another’s soul, then I’m looking at hers. “For saving my life,” she says, softly. “Thank you for saving my life, Brendan.”

That did it. I can’t speak. She gently lays my hand back on the bed to get up.

I reach for her. “No.” I grip her arm like she’ll leave if I don’t. And maybe she would, but I really don’t want her to. She’s the only one who gets it. “You don’t need to thank me. Looks like you paid me back. Getting the gun away from him. Calling 911. And I remember you holding me here, where he shot me. I remember the sirens.”

“Do you remember jumping in front of the bullet?”

“Yeah. I remember every second of that. Like it was slow motion.”

Her lips form a thin line and she looks away. “God help me.” She closes her eyes, “I have to go. I’ve stayed too long.” She pats my hand, looking away and not meeting my eyes. I’m looking at her like I don’t understand, but when she gets up again, I don’t stop her. What am I going to do, hold her hostage?

But as she gets to the door, I call out, “Why? Stay with me.”

Annie turns her head. She holds my eyes like she wants to stay but can’t.

“Look, I feel better with you here, alright? I’ve been having nightmares and I thought you were hurt, or that I wouldn’t see you again, didn’t know how to get ahold of you. All I had was pieces of what happened. And they cut into me and sewed me back up and here I am with nowhere to go and the only one who gets how I feel, is leaving.” I close my eyes. “If I could, I’d get up and go over and block the door.”

“Wow.”

I look over from the corners of my eyes. “Yeah. I said all that.”