"Thanks for your time Miss Meadows. I'm truly sorry for what you went through last night."
Janet nodded her thanks to the policeman who had just taken her statement. They wanted her to remember who had done this to her, but the truth is she had never seen his face. Whoever he was, he had come up from behind her. Part of her thought she recognized the voice, but even if she did know who it belonged to, she would've been unlikely to recognize her own parents' voices with the state she was in last night. Tired, hungover, and sore as hell from all the bruises on her body, Janet wanted nothing more than to go home and crawl into bed. But first, she realized, she had to thank her friend for staying with her all night.
Hannah immediately got up from her seat in the waiting room when Janet walked out.
"How are you feeling?"
"Like someone's been throwing bricks at me all night. Most of all at my head. But I'll survive. Thanks for staying with me."
"Of course I stayed. I'm driving you home too, after I tell you something and you make a decision. But first, do you need anything?"
"Right now, all I need is two of those painkillers the doctor prescribed to me, and ten uninterrupted hours of sleep. But what do you need to tell me?"
"It's about Eddie."
Janet flinched. She may not remember a lot of things about last night, but she remembered what shot the night to hell in the first place.
"What about Eddie?" Janet finally asked.
Hannah didn't know how to tell her.
"There was some trouble last night."
"What kind of trouble?"
"Eddie's in the hospital, just down the hall. It seems Matt Lausch decided to get some revenge for their argument a few weeks ago."
Her own problems immediately forgotten, Janet stumbled and had to grab the wall for support. Hannah led her to a chair in the waiting room and made her sit down.
"Eddie's in the hospital? Matt sent Eddie to the hospital?"
Hannah smiled at her friend's concern. The look on Janet's face was exactly the same look Eddie had given Hannah when she stopped by his room half an hour ago, and he had questioned her endlessly about how Janet was doing. It seems the only people who don't know Eddie and Janet are in love with each other, Hannah smiled, are Eddie and Janet.
Hannah started to tell Janet what she knew, but was abruptly cut off. The second Janet heard Eddie's room number, she took off down the hall. Hannah simply sat back down in the waiting room, to wait.